I-yay ow-knay ou-yay ere-way all-yay able-yay o-tay iscern-day at-whay is-thay itle-tay eant-may. Ecently-ray, i-yay egan-bay ot-ay onder-way y-whay is-thay is-yay – y-whay o-say any-may eople-pay om-fray all-yay over-yay e-thay ountry-cay omehow-say ow-knay is-thay “anguage-lay” alled-cay ig-pay atin-lay.
*See the end of the essay if translating this sentence is too annoying.
I won’t do this anymore. You’re welcome. I was only able to write this sentence because there is actually an online Pig Latin translator. Which kind of makes my point.
The question arose initially while I was tutoring the Russian asylum seeker I worked with for a couple of years. One day, in response to a question she asked about a phrase, I responded, “I don’t know what that means – it might as well be in Pig Latin!” She looked at me quizzically and then furrowed her brow even more as I attempted a lame explanation of this strange language – or, as Wikipedia identifies it, this language game.
Pig Latin is a language game, argot, or cant in which words in English are altered, usually by adding a fabricated suffix or by moving the onset or initial consonant or consonant cluster of a word to the end of the word and adding a vocalic syllable to create such a suffix.[1] For example, Wikipedia would become Ikipedia-way (taking the 'W' and 'ay' to create a suffix). The objective is often to conceal the words from others not familiar with the rules. The reference to Latin is a deliberate misnomer; Pig Latin is simply a form of argot or jargon unrelated to Latin, and the name is used for its English connotations as a strange and foreign-sounding language. It is most often used by young children as a fun way to confuse people unfamiliar with Pig Latin.
Because this is my blog and I can write about anything I want, today is Pig Latin Day.
Apparently, this type of language game dates back to the 16th century, when Shakespeare called it “dog Latin.” After explaining various usages of devices like Pig Latin, the Wikipedia entry mentions a Three Stooges short film called “Tassels in the Air,” which uses Pig Latin as its major plot device. Here’s the link to the skit – it’s worth a few minutes of your time if only to be reminded of the Three Stooges. This was my father’s favorite comedy team – he watched it whenever he could, even in reruns in the last years before he died.
And in a clip that’s more than a little bizarre, Ginger Rogers sings one verse of “We’re in the Monday” in Pig Latin. Here’s that clip. The Pig Latin part starts at about the 1:40 mark in this clip.
Two Pig Latin words have entered common usage — “ix-nay” for “nix” and “amscray” for scram.
Other languages have similar games. I’ll let you read the Wikipedia article to learn about them.
And here’s the first paragraph:
*I know you were all able to discern what this title meant. Recently, I began to wonder why this is – why so many people from all over the country somehow know this “language” called Pig Latin.
Many years ago when I was in Ranger school (1978) the Ranger instructors would ask the students to recite parts of the Ranger creed before meals. If you or your Ranger buddy (everyone had a buddy) couldn't recite the creed you had to go to the back of the line and do 50 pushups before getting back into the line. This was a major issue because my Ranger buddy was from Puerto Rico and even though he spoke English the Ranger Greed had been written many years prior in an ancient English and was hard to understand which main it hard for my Ranger buddy to understand and memorize it. After going to the back of the line and doing pushups a few times I figured out the problem and explained the Creed to my Ranger buddy so that he could memorize it.