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Verlan: French slang that inverses words
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jackhalford 7y agoSometimes "verlan" words come into general use, and then get reversed again. e.g the original french word "femme" (woman) is "meuf" in verlan, but as "meuf" has mecome mainstream some people has started to say "feumeu" which is close to "femme" but pronounced differently.
- misrab 7y agoAs a French educated non-French, I must say: you've gotta love the French <3 :)
- bbx 7y agoAnother widely used one being “arabe” which became “rebeu” and then “beur”. Hence the “black-blanc-beur” generation of the 98 French World Cup.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> e.g the original french word "femme" (woman) is "meuf" in verlan, but as "meuf" has mecome mainstream some people has started to say "feumeu" which is close to "femme" but pronounced differently. This makes me very curious -- why does the original vowel of "femme" get changed in the first inversion to "meuf"? Why does the inversion of "meuf" have an extra syllable? Is "feumme" not a possible word?
- rendall 7y agoThe article describes this process, but the vowel isn't changed, it's dropped, because it's now at the end of the verlanized word. Eu is added because thats the sound to add when there is no other vowel, as in a one syllable word.
- Peckingjay 7y agoWhile "feumme" is possible I think it would have gotten too close to the original "femme" word pronunciation-wise (which is a very common word itself), which isn't what you want when you're looking for something that differentiates your speech from others.
- yodsanklai 7y agoI think that many people don't even know that "meuf" is verlan for "femme" (or "keuf" for flic). At least, I didn't know when I was a kid. It got engrained in the language and people decided to "verlan"-ize it again. Because "meuf" ends with a consonant, you need to add an extra vowel "eu" to make the process work. You end up with "meufeu" which reverses to "feumeu".
- robocat 7y agoIn English we are really familiar with wildly varying vowel sounds. Is French similar to Spanish? A change in vowel often completely changes the word and makes it incomprehensible. Aside: if your mother tongue is English and you want to speak to a person whose native tongue is Spanish, concentrate very hard on the correct vowel sounds when speaking Spanish. Vowel fluidity is ingrained into English (especially between dialects), but vowel constancy is ingrained into Spanish (even across countries). If you are speaking English words to a Spanish listener, you can help them by speaking the words with transliterated Spanish vowel sounds from the written words. This is especially useful for the names of celebrities or place names e.g. Michael Jackson is said differently in Spanish. Also Sir Francis Drake is literally Pirate Drake in Spanish.
- agumonkey 7y agoThere was a video in the late 90s of a young guy from parisian suburbs talking about how Verlan (the language of his generation) jumped the shark. His quote was something like: > First we started with 'arrete ca' (stop it), > then 'te-arr ac', then one guy's gonna say 'te' .. > surely one day it's gonna be 'et'. > I swear, if someone says 'et' to me, > I'll grab his collar and yell 'ARRETE CA' immediately. I found the rare distance over its own generation priceless.
- sugarpile 7y agoAh yes, tromé (verlan for métro), ouais, and putain: the three French words I sprinkle in with my broken French the most to make it seem like I speak the language better than I actually do
- mytailorisrich 7y agoIt should be noted, perhaps as a warning, that sprinkling those words makes you sound like you're from the worst neighbourhood in town.
- devilsbabe 7y agoThat's like saying that using "yeah" and "fuck" make you sound like you come from a bad neighborhood. Totally untrue
- mytailorisrich 7y agoVerlan slang is associated with lower classes and rough neighbourhoods. If you use it in your everyday speech along with "ouais" and "putain" every other sentence (which some people do), it does not do you any favour. Replying to a question with "ouais" is rude in French if you're not chatting with your friends.
- jackjeff 7y agoI think "Verlan" is kind of old fashioned. It was a lot cooler when the boomers were young IMHO. Some Verlan words are still in common use in the "banlieues" (i.e. rough neighborhoods), like saying "muff" instead of "femme", "tromé" instead of "métro", "chelou" instead of "louche", etc... But there are many other slang words in use. A lot of borrowings from English ("cash") or Arabic ("flouz" meaning "money") are used too. It's probably hard for an English speaking tourist to hang out in these areas. But if you want to get a "feel" for it, I would recommend watch "Spiral" which are some stereotypical "banlieues" scenes. But I suppose it's better than nothing... or going to the "four" to buy drugs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_(TV_series)
- nekobrain 7y agoWe have something like that in Italian too, in the area where I come from we call it "riocontra" (which is "contrario", ie. "opposite", with the syllables inverted) . It's probably not as widespread as verlan, but it's still pretty common among the youth of my city.
- santiagobasulto 7y agoThe same in argentinean Spanish. “Pelado” (bald) becomes “dolape”. What region are you from? I think I’ve heard something similar from Milanesi, but I’m not sure.
- ajot 7y agoThis, at least in rioplatense spanish is called "vesre", which is itself the vesre of "(al) revés", which in turn means " backwards".
- bernawil 7y agoIt's common in all Spanish Spain places
- nekobrain 7y agoCorrect, I'm from Milan and riocontra is used almost exclusively in Milan. We have the same "pelato" -> "topela" correspondence by the way!
- klez 7y agoWhere is this? Because I never encountered this thing, neither in Venice (where I was born) nor in Rome (where I live now).
- nekobrain 7y agoMilan :)
- edneypitta 7y agoAlso funny how "riocontra" sounds like "river flowing backwards" (at least in Portuguese)
- H8crilA 7y agoRioplatense Spanish (Buenos Aires and surrounding areas) also has this feature: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesre
- kodisha 7y agoSame thing, in Serbian: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0atrova%C4%8Dki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0atrova%C4%8Dki
- minkeymaniac 7y agoSame exists in Croatian... vozdra was very common.... The more interesting one is when you add the letter P and the syllable after the syllable For example.... Ja sam lud (I am nuts) becomes Japa sapam lupud or Ti si štupido (you are dumb/stupid ... more used in Istria instead of glup/budala) becomes tipi sipi štupuipidopo Growing up in Holland there is no such thing really in Dutch... there is plat Amsterdams or Bargoens ... so whenever I spent time in Croatia with family I practiced my Šatrovački :-)
- is0tope 7y agoInteresting that this is an actual phenomenon. I recall my French friend explaining to me that "McDonald's" was shortened to "MacDo" which then (if you were in the know) was reversed to "DoMac".
- tyingq 7y agoImagining Jobs getting a bit nervous about this.
- alexis_fr 7y agoA Mac wouldn’t be confused with a McDo because both are short enough that they can’t be shortened.
- alexis_fr 7y agoIt is pretty old, it was already popular in the 90ies when Les Inconnus used it. Everyone who wants to appear « in » (in touch with the young) uses it, I’m not even sure it looks that cool to actual teenagers ;)
- jobigoud 7y agoTeenagers may learn some of these words without realizing it's verlan. For example a strange/weird object can be "chelou", it means bizarre or surprising now, it has lost the semantics of the original "louche", meaning suspicious.
- Nodraak 7y agoOther French slang: Javanais https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanais https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanais
- po1nter 7y agoI've been living in France for more than 5 years and I have never heard of this. Is it specific to a region in particular?
- jek0 7y agoI'm French. My grand father used this form of slang with friends when he was young so they didn't get understood by others. I've leaved in many parts of France and never heard anyone use it, probably long dead?
- enz 7y agoI am a native French speaker and I never heard javanais (grew up in Paris city). However, I had a teacher who was always saying "Do I have to tell you that in Javanais?" (sarcastically) when we were not paying attention to what she was saying in class.
- Nodraak 7y agoWhile I dont think it is specific to a region, it is probably specific to an age: verlan is quite used among late teens / young adults, while Javanais is more used by childs / young teens. I used to speak Javanais with my sisters as a way to speak without our parents understanding (hopefully!). It is not really a "slang", but I thought it was similar and worth sharing
- sidibe 7y agoThis is why La Javanaise has so many av sounds (though it's not javanais)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rendall 7y ago
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoAnother pecularity of French is the tendency to supercomposition. Like the expression au jour d'aujourd'hui which means "the day of today", however, aujourd'hui itself mean "the day of today", because hui is the Old French word for "today" and aujourd' is obviously the concatenated form of "au jour de". But it does not end there: the Old French word hui evolved from "hoc diem", which means "this day" in Latin. At the end, the best explanation of au jour d'aujourd'hui is (the-day-of (the-day-of (this (day))) which is fascinating.
- yodsanklai 7y agoI believe it's because people don't realize that "Aujourd'hui" originally meant "the day of today". Even though you hear people say "au jour d'aujourd'hui" it's considered incorrect and should be avoided [1]. It's better to say "A ce jour". [1] https://www.lefigaro.fr/langue-francaise/expressions-francaises/2018/04/10/37003-20180410ARTFIG00017-au-jour-d-aujourd-hui-ne-faites-plus-la-faute.php https://www.lefigaro.fr/langue-francaise/expressions-francai...
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoGive this expression another hundred years, and it will become a common word.
- bujak3000 7y agoIn a shortened form.
- usrusr 7y agoBut it won't enter the dictionary before additionally passing through verlan recomposition at least once.
- anticensor 7y agoJoursa?
- lsh 7y agoSimilar thing with Australian butchers: https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/behind-that-tray-of-snags-theres-a-rehctub-talking-backwards-20020527-gdfbal.html https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/behind-that-tray...
- speedgoose 7y agoThe French butchers also have something a bit different : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louch%C3%A9bem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louch%C3%A9bem
- Narann 7y agoAnother one that can seems weird to english speaker: "Comasse", which is a verlan of the last word of "Comme ça". "Ça" is pronounced "ssa" which sounds "ass" once reverted. English peoples would understand it as "Come ass".
- alexis_fr 7y agoI’ve always imagined the inverted words written with the original spelling: « Comme aç » for « Comme ça », which adds more poetry to the word to my opinion. They don’t talk about words inherited from SMS mistakes, but I would add « aps » (for « pas », as in « je sais aps » = « I don’t kown »).
- juliendorra 7y agoI’m not sure ‘aps’ is coming from SMS/texting as it was used (if memory serves) in the early 90s when cellphones were very rarely used. It’s most probably the same phenomenon as other verlan words: a mix of phonetic inversion and some influence from the writing form.
- tripa 7y agoIn older movies, you'll also hear it as "comme ak". "Et la taulière... une blonde comme ac... comment qu'elle s'appelait?" https://youtu.be/lGGI3ubLmaU?t=157 https://youtu.be/lGGI3ubLmaU?t=157 Wiktionary hints that variant is mostly southern, from occitan "coma aquò".
- isoprophlex 7y agoItd be fun if they'd apply this principle of reversal to their abbreviations/acronyms as well, then the French ones will mirror the rest of Europe again. Right now: MRI is IRM (imagerie par résonance magnétique) LPG is GPL (Gaz liquide propane) Etcetera...
- klez 7y agoUhm, Italian uses mostly the same order as French (GPL Gas di Petrolio Liquefatto, for example), unless by "the rest of Europe" you mean to exclude the ones that speak romance languages.
- BerislavLopac 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0atrova%C4%8Dki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0atrova%C4%8Dki
- anonu 7y agoThe people on the board of the Académie française must be upset. They're the purists, making sure there's no perversions entering the French language. But language is fluid. You can't stop the tide of change https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise
- claudeganon 7y agoI kind of like it when absurd things like prescriptivism are as formal and organized as this. It makes them much easier to mock, deride, and rebel against. The US by contrast has a similar level of prescriptivism around the English language, largely comprised of biases against regionalisms, speech patterns of the working class, and dialects like AAVE. But it’s enforced informally through snobbery and various other forms of social and institutional exclusion, which can be much harder to schematize and challenge.
- baot 7y ago>and rebel against i.e. intentionally use definitions you know are confusing and then - as language is famously a single person endeavour - blaming the listener when they misunderstand. This arrangement works particularly well as a shibboleth to prevent people knowing what you're saying if they have the poor foresight to choose another language as their native tongue.
- lapnitnelav 7y agoA bit tangential but closely related, I believe French HipHop / Rap makes such a good use of our language and all the slangs which I find lacking a bit in English HipHop. I don't know if it's cultural or if I am really unaware of the equivalent in English, but it is such a delight to see the creativity of those folks. A few recent examples : https://genius.com/15760906 https://genius.com/15760906 < Cadillac | Game over : A song about death. "J'écoute des CDs, des sons de l'au-delà" > I listen to records (CD), sounds from the other side. Des CDs also sound like being dead (décédé). https://genius.com/Odezenne-tu-pu-du-cu-lyrics https://genius.com/Odezenne-tu-pu-du-cu-lyrics < Odezenne | Tu pu du cu "T’es stupéfiant \ Je te roule, je te fume \ T’es stupéfait" > Word play on stupéfiant which is both a word for drugs and being surprising / stunning. https://genius.com/Nekfeu-egerie-lyrics https://genius.com/Nekfeu-egerie-lyrics < Nekfeu | Egérie "Toujours en déplacement le soir \ Mais, c'qui compte, c'est le dépassement de soi" > The play on déplacemment (being out of town) / dépassement (overcoming) ... le soir / de soi. Brilliant
- glandium 7y agoRelatedly, but further away from OP, and.not rap/hip hop, but Frandol's "l'un contre l'autre" makes a very good use of double entendre. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BNdxHUv3vmc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BNdxHUv3vmc
- sleazy_b 7y agoI'm not sure if this is what you meant but there's a ton of word play in American Hip-Hop, it's pretty core to the genre. Literally any rapper you pick will be doing some amount of word play.
- lapnitnelav 7y agoOh I am sure there are word plays in American / English speaking HipHop, I just haven't found the same propensity than in the French scene. If you have notable examples in mind, please do share with me because I have been trying to find that for a while to prove my own point wrong.
- 7y ago
- ericol 7y agoWe argentinians do this a lot. Guess we inherited it from the French (There were big waves of immigration in the 2nd half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th from all over Europe). There are a lot of examples of this in tango lyrics, that are also rather complex to decipher because they are "lunfardo" (local slang) words. A few examples: Lleca: calle (street) Jermu: Mujer (woman) Goman: Mango ("No tengo un goman", "I have no money left". "mango" is slang for money. No idea of it's origins. then there's "ortiba" that is a prime example of the transformation of meaning. It originates in the word "batidor" (whisk) that is a slang word for snitch. But then it transformed to indicate anybody that is not cool, or behaving in an uncool way: "Che, ¿salimos esta noche?" (Dude, will we go out tonight?) "No puedo, tengo que estudiar" (I can't, I have to study) "Dale, ¡No seas ortiba!" (C'mon, don't be so uncool!)
- federicotdn 7y agoOthers I've heard: feca (café), zapi (pizza)
- lucasverra 7y agosillobol (bolsillo = pant pocket)
- emiliovesprini 7y agoExtra interesting is how sillable-reversed versions words with normal and 'slang' meanings retain the slang meaning but lose the original. For example, gato means cat. It's also an insult (the particulars of which escape me), but toga is just the insult.
- ericol 7y agoThis particular one is very interesting. "gato" does not originate from the word refering the animal, but from gatillar (triggering) that was slang for who used to pay for company (To put it in simple words). From there it evolved to several meanings, the most important one being the person that acts as gatekeeper for somebody more important (In jails and mobs). that is what is was very, very often used to refer to the ex president Macri.
- janci 7y agoThey also have special hyperabbreviated slang they use in short text messages, online chats and advertisements. Very hard to read for non-native speakers.
- NilsIRL 7y agoIsn't this similar to what is done in English?
- theboywho 7y agoVerlan is usually used by french people with North African origins (where Arabic is the official language) I have always thought that these people were just reading French from right to left like you would read Arabic, giving birth to Verlan. There are no vowels in arabic, so "bi" "ba" "bo" are just instances of the letter "b", which I thought explained why verlan reversed the words but kept the order for each "consonant+vowel" unit
- emiliovesprini 7y agoI don't think so. In Argentina we have a similar thing called Vesre (re-ves).
- Bayart 7y agoHardly, there are other commutative slangs that preceded verlan and African immigration, like louchébem (the slang of butchers). And that's just in France, it's a common trope in many languages. It just happens to be much better documented in France.
- throwaway41968 7y agoVerlan has gone into common use by all strata of the general population, not just immigrants. It's been the case for 50+ years. It's much decried by the usual suspects like the Académie and whatnot but the truth is that everyone uses it. The phenomenon is also accelerating, even the most trivial and shortest words are getting commonly reversed: là (there) -> al, pas (not) -> ap, moi/toi (me/you) -> ouam/ouat, ça (that) -> ass, bien (well) -> ienb, pied (foot) -> iep, etc. Lots of fun to be had when explaining all this stuff to other non-French speakers.
- jobigoud 7y agoAnother short one "ouf", as in "C'est ouf !" Used by everyone.
- jobigoud 7y agoSome words are really used throughout, definitely not limited to any particular origin or age. Every french person will understand expressions like "Ch'uis vénère" (I'm furious, from "énervé"), "Fumer de la beuh" (Smoking pot, from "herbe"). "Les keufs" (The cops, from "flics"). Consider the classic movie "Les Ripoux" (1984). "Ripou" Meaning corrupt cops, coming from "pourri" rotten.
- gullywhumper 7y agoMaybe a naive question from someone with only passing familiarity, but does gender stay the same? Maybe not the best example, but does le metro stay le trome?
- emiliovesprini 7y agoSimilar things in other languages!: Greek's Podaná: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podan%C3%A1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podan%C3%A1 Rioplatense Spanish's Vesre: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesre Serbo-Croatian's Šatrovački: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0atrova%C4%8Dki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0atrova%C4%8Dki (Please let me know if I missed any.) Here for completion but not really the same if you ask me: English's Back Slang https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_slang https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_slang and Australian "Butchers' Talk" https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/behind-that-tray-of-snags-theres-a-rehctub-talking-backwards-20020527-gdfbal.html https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/behind-that-tray... Edits: formatting.
- _nalply 7y agoBernese German has a similar thing, however they don't swap syllables, they move the initial consonant cluster to the end of the word, and add vowels, like this: Schnure -> Ire-schnee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattenenglisch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattenenglisch
- emiliovesprini 7y agoYeah, lots of languages have things like this like Pig Latin and Jeringozo.
- mohamedattahri 7y agoFunny that "Verlan" is itself the verlan slang for "à l'envers", which means reversed.
- FearNotDaniel 7y agoThis has been around at least as long as the 1980s: back then I was a teenager and had an exchange visit with this kid from Paris, I remember him describing how they flipped words around to make their own slang. One that stuck in my head was "chébran", a reversal of "branché", which literally means "plugged in" or "connected" but in the era of Minitel and other early networks was used to indicate someone who was hip to current trends.
- loosetypes 7y agoVerlan lervan
- bradknowles 7y agoSo, like pig Latin, but for French? This is a new thing?
- Jagat 7y agoNepali people use a similar method for gossiping. The syllables are reversed, making it hard for people around to understand what they're saying. Only the two conversing know what they're talking about and they've done it for long enough that they can easily parse through it. It's a hard skill to master, which is why it's easy to assume those around don't understand what's being talked about.