Most American kids have encounter pig Latin at some point . It ’s been around for more than a C , which means the great - great - great - grandparents of today ’s elementary schoolers almost for certain used pig bed Latin . And their great - expectant - grandparent probably danced the Charleston to a birdcall sung in pigLatin .
And yet you ca n’t use pig Latin to fulfil yourforeign languagecredits demand in school . Maybe because , as we ’ll see , it ’s not really extraneous or a nomenclature . Let ’s ook - lay at - way ig - pay atin - Lay .
How to Speak Pig Latin
Let ’s start with a language example , probably one of the easiest you ’ll ever meet . No app necessary ! No translation needed !
Take a word , like " hombre . " Put the conclusion of the word at the beginning , move the first letter of the alphabet to the end , and add the syllable " ay , " which rhymes with " way . " So now you have " at - key . " The at - cay says eow - may .
If you have a password with more than one syllable , like " curtain , " you have a distich of options , depending on how you instruct it . Most multitude go with the easiest solution , which is to treat it just like a Christian Bible with one syllable : " urtain - cay . " But others prefer to make it more complex , and more of a coded speech communication , by pig - Latin - izingeach syllable : ur - cay ain - tay .
Here ’s where it does get tricky ( as tricky as Sus scrofa Latin gets anyway ) . If you have a undivided letter of the alphabet news , like " I " or " a , " some people choose to addyay , while others addwayto the remainder of the parole . So you get " I - yay"or"I - way " and " a - yay"or"a - way of life . " Either is technically hog Latin , it just depends on which way you say it .
How Old Is Pig Latin?
Before there was pig Latin , there was dog Latin and even hog Latin , which is probably how we generate to fuzz Latin . But dog Latin and hog Latin , are n’t anything like fuzz Latin , other than their name being like . Those first two refer to a variety of imitation , made - up Latin .
In " Love ’s Labor Lost , " none other thanShakespeareindulges in a bit of dog Latin :
After Costard says " ad midden , " Holofernes explain that Costard is using false Latin . Costard has used " ad muckhill " because it sounds enough like " ad unguem , " a Latin idiom for something being done to an accurate measure or standard . " Unguem " intend " fingernail , " and the phrase comes from checker the smoothness of marble . The gag is much funnier when you explain it at length .
Then in an 1844 takings of United States Magazine and Democratic Review , a monthly political journal published in the nineteenth 100 , Edgar Allan Poe mentioned both dog Latin andpig Greek , and not in a kind way . But also not relate to the pig Latin we cognise .
Pig Latin was likelyinvented in the previous 1800sby kids who wanted to talk without adults understanding them . But as we ’ve seen , it ’s not exactly the Enigma code . The Oxford English Dictionary has the earliest written use of the phrase pig Latin in 1896 , when a J. Willard write in " The Atlantic " :
By the former twentieth C , everybody who was anybody fuck about pig Latin . Enough people that Arthur Fields could relinquish the record " Pig Latin Love " in 1919 . The transcription is scarcely hi - fi , but it does have a clear example of squealer Latin . Then , in case you ’re still hopelessly uncool , he supply a translation in the second Greek chorus .
In the 1930s , the Three Stooges used pig Latin in their short films . Moe and Larry even provided a ground for Curly in 1938 ’s " Tassles in the Air . " Curly does n’t see very apace , but " ixnay " and " amscray " became part of masses ’s vocabulary thanks to the trio ’s piece of work in enlarge the speech communication .
But Is It a Language?
hoi polloi use pig Latin to convey , so sure . By the broadest definition , it is indeed a language . It ’s not anyone ’s aboriginal language , though , and it does n’t have its own grammar or syntax . It depends all on English for , well , everything .
It ’s an instance of " back slang . " A 2015 paper published in the journalSigns and Societynotes that these are " simple rules … that can be apply to every word in the language . " That ’s why you do n’t need to take a pig Romance class to learn Modern vocabulary or how to worsen its verb ; it ’s just English with a twist .
It ’s also acode terminology , since it moves letters and sounds around to mask the words . It ’s similar in that way to organization likeMorse codification , where letters are replaced with dots and style to encode the rudiment and send across wires . Pig Latin is not aninvented terminology , like Klingon or Esperanto . These oral communication have a separate vocabulary , grammar and syntax that does not directly trust on English or any other words .
Admittedly , pig Latin is not a great code . But it ’s enough to keep , say , a frankfurter from knowing what you ’re say . If your bounder gets lesion up every prison term you bring up taking a walk , try tell " Id - daytime ou - yay alk - way e - thay og - twenty-four hours ? " rather than " Did you walk the dog ? "
Pig Latin Around the World
Other linguistic communication do this same kind of encoded pun , though it does n’t usually work exactly the same way English and pig Latin do .
Gallic , for instance , has " verlan , " which alternate the first and last syllables of a word . The name itself is an example of the path it function : " l’envers " means " backward . " In the Spanish Bible game " jirgonza , " you double the vowels and put a " p " between them . So the word for " cat , " " gato , " becomes " gapatopo , " which sounds like a great name for a cat , in reality . Japan has " babigo , " which inserts barn - syllable after the common syllables in a word of honor . So something as simple as " sushi " becomes " subushibi . "
