Language Game

A language game is a concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein at the beginning of his book Philosophical Investigations. A language game is a simple language, combined with a context that shows what to do with the language. One example he gives is a language for building, containing two words, 'slab' and 'brick'. When A says 'slab' to B, B finds a slab and gives it to A; likewise, when A says 'brick' to B, B finds a brick and gives it to A. Language games are also known as play languages or ludlings.
In another sense, language games are not technically artificial languages so much as heuristics for altering language, like a code. They are used primarily by groups attempting to conceal their conversations from others. Most common examples are: Pig Latin, which is used all over the globe; the Gibberish family, prevalent mainly in the United States and Hungary, and Verlan in France. Each of these language games involves a usually simple standard transformation to speech, thus encoding it. The languages can be easily mentally encoded and decoded by a skilled speaker at the rate of normal speech. A common difficulty with language games is that they are usually passed down orally. While written translations can be made, they are often imperfect, and thus spelling can vary widely. Some factions argue that words in these spoken tongues should simply be written the way they are pronounced, while others insist that the purity of language demands that the transformation remain visible when the words are imparted to paper. Contrary to what proponents of either side may tell you, there is no one definitive written lexicon for language games, but it is rather a matter of dialect. See also word play, word game.
ommon language games
Host Language Game Name Basic Rules Notes
Bulgarian | Insert 'pe' before each syllable. |
Dutch | Reversed elements and words. | A mercantile code
English (etc.) Pig Latin Move the first consonant in each syllable, if any, to end of the syllable and add 'ay'.
English (etc.) Pig Greek Insert 'ob' after each consonant.
English Bicycle Insert 'es' (IPA ) after each consonant.
English Cockney rhyming slang Canonical rhyming word pairs; speakers often drop the second word of common pairs. "trouble & strife" (or just "trouble") = "wife"
English Dong Spelling out words, using plain vowel sounds and '-ong' at the end of each consonant. "Let's go" = "Long ee tong song, gong oh."
English Double Dutch Insert 'egg' or 'ag' before a vowel if the vowel indicates a new syllable. Inserting at the beginning of a word which starts with a vowel seems to be a matter of preference. "How are you doing?" = "Heggow eggare yeggou deggoegging?"
English Gibberish Insert 'itherg', 'itug' or 'idig' before the first vowel in a syllable. Gibberish is also a family of related language games.
English Inflationary English Anytime a number is present within a word, inflate its value by one. "Anyone up for tennis?" becomes "Anytwo up for elevenis?" Originally part of a comedy sketch by Victor Borge.
English Rechtub klat Formed by speaking words backwards; letters may be transposed to aid pronouncability. Used by butchers in Australia to conceal subject of shop talk from customers.
English Ubbi dubbi Insert "ub" before each spoken vowel. From the PBS children's show Zoom; part of the Gibberish family
English Tutnese Spell out words using a lexicon of names for consonants, and special rules for double letters.
English Yardle bardle
English Zambuda
Esperanto Esperant' Substitutes the accusative by the preposition je and the final -o of nouns by an apostrophe, all while keeping to the letter of official grammar if not actual usage. "Oni ĉiam obeu la Fundamenton" becomes "Ĉiamu onia obe' je l' Fundament'"
Finnish Sanamuunnokset Swap first syllables of words. A and , O and and U and Y are swapped where necessary to make the resulting words natural to speak.
Finnish Kontinkieli Add word 'kontti' after each word and apply the same conversion as in sanamuunnokset. Finnish counterpart of Pig Latin. This game is also called 'siansaksa'.
French Louchebem Move the initial consonant to the end and add 'var'. For suffixes, prepend 'l' ('L'). Initially a Parisian/Lyonnaise butchers' cant.
French Verlan Simple transformations and slang from Arabic.
German | 'Lav' inserted after some vowel sounds. |
German B-Language Each vowel or diphthong is reduplicted with a leading 'b'. "Deutsche Sprache" = "Deubeutschebe Sprabachebe"
Hebrew Bet-Language Identical to the German B-Language described above.
Hungarian madrnyelv (birds' language) Repeat each vowel and add 'v' A variety of Gibberish (eg. ltok I see -> lvtovok)
Hungarian madrnyelv (birds' language) Repeat each vowel and add 'rg' (eg. ltok I see -> lrgtorgok)
Indonesian Prokem Includes simple transformations of different types, acronyms and ordinary slang. A bibliography of references pertaining to Prokem and other Indonesian-Malaysian language games: http://members.tripod.com/~THSlone/prokem.html
Italian Latino Maccheronico |
Japanese Ba-bi-bu-be-bo |Example: put "b" plus vowel between syllables, "waba taba sibi waba" instead of "watasi-wa"
Mandarin Fanqie |
Persian Zaban-e-zargari Insert the sound z somewhere into every syllable
Portuguese Sima |
Portuguese Lngua do P |
Romance languages Maccaronic Latin Romance vocabulary is given Latinate endings. "de Don Quijote de la Mancha" becomes "Domini Quijoti Manchegui"
Romanian păsărească (birds' language) After each syllabe, add 'p' and repeat last vowel "maşină" becomes "mapaşipinăpă"
Russian Fufajskij yazyk |
Russian Porosyachia Latin |
Spanish | 'F' is added to certain syllables. |
Spanish Add a certain syllable before every original syllable. "Perro" = "Tipetirro"
Spanish Jeringoso Each vowel is reduplicated with a separating 'p'. "No sabe nada" = "Nopo sapabepe napadapa"
Spanish Vesre Syllable order is inverted. "Muchacho" = "Chochamu"
Swedish Allsprket The first consonant in each word ends with 'all'.
Swedish Fikonsprket Each word is split in two, one beginning with 'fi' and one ending in 'kon'.
Swedish I-sprikit All vowels are changed to 'i'.
Swedish Rvarsprket Consonants are changed to ' o '.
Vietnamese | Choose a vowel. Suffix each word with the initial consonant, if any, and then the vowel. | Using 'a', 'co bic' = 'coca bicba'.

 

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