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Pig Latin

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Pig Latin
Igpay Atinlay
Spoken inUnited States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, India
ClassificationPig Latin
See also: Language games

Pig Latin is a language game primarily used in English. An alternative British name for Pig Latin is backslang (not to be confused with the backslang used by the criminals of 19th century London, which was based on turning words backwards), or Butcher's Backslang which was common in English Butcher's shops at least until WW II[1]. Pig Latin is usually used by children for amusement or to converse in (perceived) privacy from adults or other children. Conversely, adults sometimes use it to discuss sensitive topics they don't want very young children to overhear.

The impact of Pig Latin on standard English has been minimal, although certain Pig Latin translations, most notably ixnay (nix) and amscray (scram), have been incorporated into English slang.

Rules and variations

The usual rules for changing standard English into Pig Latin are:

  1. For words that begin with consonant sounds, move the initial consonant or consonant cluster to the end of the word and add "ay." Examples:
    • button → utton-bay
    • star → ar-stay
    • three → ee-thray
    • question → estion-quay
    • wikipedia → ikipedia-way
  2. For words that begin with vowel sounds (including silent consonants), simply add the syllable "ay" to the end of the word.
    • eagle → eagle-ay
    • america → america-ay

The most common variation in Pig Latin is to replace the "ay" in the second rule with other suffixes such as "way", "yay", or "hay"; thus, "eagle" → eagle-ay, eagle-way, eagle-yay, or eagle-hay, depending on the rules. The "ay" formulation is probably the original, with the variations arising due to sandhi. Another variation is to take only the first letter and put it at the end, and add -ay, so "they" becomes "heytay", rather than "eythay" These variations may also be geographical.

The following Pig Latin example text is in the "yay" rules:

Is-thay is-yay an-yay example-yay of-yay Ig-pay Atin-lay. As-yay ou-yay an-cay ee-say, it-yay is-yay illy-say, ut-bay ort-say of-yay un-fay or-fay ildren-chay.

Without the hyphens:

Isthay isyay anyay exampleyay ofyay Igpay Atinlay. Asyay ouyay ancay eesay, ityay isyay illysay, utbay ortsay ofyay unfay orfay ildrenchay.

It translates back into standard English as:

"This is an example of Pig Latin. As you can see, it is silly, but sort of fun for children."

The above formulation reflects only one of several rule variations of Pig Latin. Because Pig Latin is essentially a children's game, the rules vary from peer group to peer group, although the above generalizations are normative across most versions. Some less frequently used variations on the above rules include:

  • moving only part of an initial consonant cluster to the end of the word, e.g. "street" → treet-say, reet-stay, or eet-stray
  • applying changes to each syllable in a word, e.g. "backslang" → ack-bay ang-slay, "cellphone" → ell-cay one-phay
  • transcription variations wherein the final syllable may or may not be hyphenated (Igpay Atinlay vs. Ig-pay Atin-lay)
  • variant capitalization schemes; e.g. "Michael Jordan" → Ichael-may Ordan-jay, ichael-May ordan-Jay, Ichael-May Ordan-Jay, etc.

Depending on the rules, Pig Latin may not be one to one; that is, there may exist pairs of English words that have the same translation into Pig Latin. For instance, in the "way" variation, "itch" and "witch" both become itch-way. Note, however, that using the first formula for vowels (eagle → eagle-ay) will not produce ambiguity, and thus can be considered one-to-one (with respect to English).

Pig Latin in media and writing

Google is available in Pig Latin.[2]

In Phil of the Future, Phil tells Pim, "Ixnay on the Ony-pay" Or to "Get rid of the Pony"

A Pig Latin translation is available for the vector editor Inkscape.

Pig Latin appeared in The Three Stooges' comedic short film, You Nazty Spy!, where the characters of three cabinet ministers, have the names "Mr. Ixnay", "Mr. Ohnay" [sic], and "Mr. Amscray".

In the leadoff dance routine in the Busby Berkeley musical Gold Diggers of 1933, Ginger Rogers sang part of the song "We're in the Money" in Pig Latin.

In the novels of Raymond Chandler, characters sometimes use the words "Nix" and "Ixnay" (the pig latin form of "nix") interchangeably, as generic slang for "No" or "Don't do it".

The original television advertising campaign for Kellogg's Froot Loops, featuring Toucan Sam, made extensive use of Pig Latin (OOT-fray OOPS-lay), referred to in the campaign as "Toucan Talk".

Sandra Boynton, a popular children's author, conceived Grunt, a "pigorian chant" composition entirely in Pig Latin and genuine Latin. It was published as a book/CD combo.

In Louis Sachar's book Holes, a character is nicknamed "X-ray" because it is Pig Latin for "Rex" (this in fact spells "Exray").

In Young Frankenstein, when Victor yells to Frau Blucher (whinny) that the monster's brain is rotten, Eye-gor hisses "Ix nay on the otten ray".

In Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the Abbot presiding over the wedding of the Sheriff of Nottingham and Maid Marian conducts the opening rites in "The New Latin" - Pig Latin.

In the South Park episode Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000, Kyle and Stan attempt to use Pig Latin to secretly communicate to Cartman the fact that there's a nail file intended to help him break out of junvenile hall hidden inside a cake they baked for him.

In Short Circuit 2, Oscar converses with a goon in Pig Latin in order to get the drop on Johnny Five.

In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Raoul Duke speaks in Pig Latin to Dr Gonzo, so that Lucy doesn't understand. Dr Gonzo however repeats the sentence in English.

The Offspring used Pig Latin for the title of their 4th album Ixnay on the Hombre; Ixnay turns into nix which is slang for no, so the literal translation is "No On The Man". Or it could be read as "No on the Bomb" (since Hombre is pronounced Homb-ray).

Eminem used Pig Latin on his track Rap Game- D12 feat. 50 cent, on the 8-mile soundtrack. ""

A recurring character on The Ben Stiller Show is "Tino Gallegas, The Pig Latin Lover." Gallegas (Ben Stiller) is a pseudo-latin romantic singer known for his renditions of songs including "ou-Yay Are oh-Say eautiful-Bay" and "esterday-Yay."

Will Smith used Pig Latin in the lyrics to his song "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" on the Album Big Willie Style; "Illway the anmay on the anceday oorflay." Also, in his song "Comin' To The Stage" from his album Lost & Found, he has another verse in Pig Latin.

In one part of Racing Stripes, when one character uses Pig Latin, his associate says "Shoosh. We haven't spoken Latin since the pigs left."

In The Lion King, when Simba says, referring to the hyenas, "But Zazu, you said they're nothing but slobbery, mangy, stupid poachers", Zazu responds, "Ixnay on the upidstay." Banzai interrupts with, "Who you callin' "upidstay"!?"

In the movie Monsters, Inc. when the child "Boo" is hidden in Sulley's duffle bag in a public restaurant, Sulley says to fellow monster Mike, "Ooklay in the agbay", so as not to let others know the illegal child is in the "monster world".

In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones tells Short Round to "amscray".

The View used Pig Latin in the song "Wasted Little DJ's" on the chorus, " Astedway ittlay ejaysday".

In the The Secret of Monkey Island the cannibals speak pig latin.

In the Australian soap Home and Away, the character Tasha Andrews (Isabel Lucas) was first found washed up on a beach, and for the first few weeks of her stay in hospital, she was only able to speak Pig Latin.

In the 1994 movie The Mask they use pig latin when the police officer is taking Stanly Ipkiss to the squad car.

In the episode of the Simpsons, when Marge becomes a police officer, Homer reveals that Moe's real name is Momar. Moe tries to conceal this truth by uttering to Homer, 'ixnay on the omarmay.'

In another episode, Bart and Lisa attempt to have a conversation in pig latin to avoid Marge hearing. She then reminds them that she was a kid too.

On an episode of Recess titled Security Guard Mikey, the 6 main characters talk to king Bob and bring forth a bunch of kindergardeners. Later, Bob tells them to "Amscray".

In the Ren and Stimpy episode "I Was A Teenage Stimpy", Stimpy is talking on the phone (talking a bit about Ren) and says "Oh, Ixnay on the Erkjay; he's sitting on the couch".

In an episode of the shortlived Roger Rabbit comic, Roger realizes the villain is a pig in disguise when he hears the character telling his henchmen to "amscray".

A creature in the Magic: The Gathering parody set Unhinged is called "Atinlay Igpay".

In an episode of The US remake of The Office titled "The Convict," it is revealed that character Pam Beesly hates Pig Latin. However, as a prank, Jim Halpert tells co-worker Andy Bernard that she actually likes Pig Latin, leading Andy to try to woo Pam using Pig Latin by singing "Rainbow Connection."

In the paranormal romance Teasing Danger by Autumn Dawn Jasmine and Wiley speak Pig Latin to annoy their captors.

In the episode of Cyberchase "Codename: Icky" Pig Latin is tried as a code but was discovered that Hacker knows Pig Latin.

In an episode of Family Guy, Peter is describing to the judges when Brian won't get off the bed saying "Lois is in the udenay and Brian won't amscray".

Pig Latin in programming

A common exercise in programming classes to teach the concept of recursion is to define a procedure or function that, when given a word in normal English, yields the Pig Latin equivalent. The simplest way to write such a procedure is to set a base case for words beginning with vowels (add "ay"), and a recursive case that moves the first letter to the end of the word for re-evaluation.

i18n Encoding

The common encoding used for Pig Latin is x-pig-latin or x-lap. It is not defined in any language specifications and is considered experimental, hence the 'x'. The proper way to get it to work on Linux and other operating systems which support the standard gettext application is to set the po file to: en_US@piglatin.po.

See also

References

  • Barlow, Jessica. 2001. "Individual differences in the production of initial consonant sequences in Pig Latin". Lingua 111:667-696.
  • Cowan, Nelson. 1989. "Acquisition of Pig Latin: A Case Study". Journal of Child Language 16.2:365-386.
  • Day, R. 1973. "On learning 'secret languages'." Haskins Laboratories Status Report on Speech Research 34:141-150.
  • Haycock, Arthur. "Pig Latin". American Speech 8:3.81.
  • McCarthy, John. 1991. "Reduplicative Infixation in Secret Languages" [L'Infixation reduplicative dans les langages secrets]. Langages 25.101:11-29.
  • Vaux, Bert and Andrew Nevins. 2003. "Underdetermination in language games: Survey and analysis of Pig Latin dialects." Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Atlanta.
  • Wartime Butcher's Boy http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/61/a2062261.shtml
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