Information AboutVerlan |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT VERLAN | |
| french language | |
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GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS AND SOME EXAMPLES As most potential readers here are not French, here's an attempted example of English ''verlan'', which could be called ''versin'' (''inverse'' inverted). : ''My piano is broken, phooey.'' might be transformed into : ''My nopia is kenbro, eephoo.'' ''Verlan'' generally retains the pronunciation of the original syllables. In particular, French words that end in an E Muet (a Schwa , ''eu'', such as ''femme'') and words which end in a pronounced consonant and which usually have an e muet added at the end (such as ''flic'') retain the sound of the e muet in ''verlan''. In addition, ''verlan'' often drops the final vowel sound after the word is inverted, so ''femme'' and ''flic'' become ''meuf'' and ''keuf,'' respectively. Some words have had their syllables inverted twice; for example, ''femme'' > ''meuf'' > ''feumeu'' Different rules apply when dealing with one-syllable words, and, in certain dialects of ''verlan'', certain words are usually inverted and certain words are not. Words like ''très'' remain unchanged in most dialects, while ''femme'' is usually inverted. Some ''verlan'' words (like meuf, from femme=woman) have become so commonplace that they have been included into the Petit Larousse , that a "verlanised" version was rendered necessary, and the verlanised ''verlan'' became "feumé". As with many Language Game s, ''verlan'' suffers from the fact that it is primarily a spoken language passed down orally, and thus there exists no standardized spelling. While some still argue that the letters should be held over from the original word, in the case of ''verlan'' most experts agree that words should be spelt as to best approximate Pronunciation , hence the use of ''verlan'' as opposed to ''versl'en''. Theoretically any word can be translated into ''verlan'' but by reflex only a couple of expressions are used in everyday speech. Verbs translated into ''verlan'' cannot be conjugated easily. There is no such thing as a ''verlan'' grammar so most of the time verbs are used in the infinitive, past participle or progressive form. For example :
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE AND SIMILAR PHENOMENA IN OTHER LANGUAGES ''Verlan'' is not so much a language as a means to underline certain words. The fact that a lot of verlan words refer either to ique'' language. Generally speaking, creating a ''verlan'' word on the fly from any random French word will result in smirks. However, understanding ''verlan'' words heard in specific situations will help understand what many young people living in French Banlieue (suburbs literally) actually say. One might also want to use those words to ingratiate oneself with these groups. One of the reasons that ''verlan'' has not caught on in English-speaking countries is precisely that Morphology in French is less strict than in English, and so French syllables are more conducive to inversion from Linguistic and Aesthetic standpoints, however, similar manners of speaking such as Pig Latin or Backslang , are used in English-speaking cultures. A very similar process ('' Vesre '', from Spanish ''revés'') is used in Argentinian slang Lunfardo , in Colombia , and in Greek slang ''podana'' (the reverse form of ''ana-poda'', i.e. backwards). SEE ALSO
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