Subject: re : 8 . 1208 , sum : double - dutch and youthese / pig latin

on thu , 21 aug 1997 , the linguist list < linguist @ linguistlist . org > wrote : > from : waruno mahdi < mahdi @ fhi-berlin . mpg . de > > subject : summary : double - dutch and youthese / pig latin > jack hall : > > in my response to the query about pig latin , i mentioned what i called > the " op " language , which i read about in a book or magazine when i was > about 10-12 years old ( mid 1950 's ) . as i recall , the simple rule was : > put " op " ( phonetically [ a : p ] after every consonant in a word except > the last ( final ) consonant . i am not certain what the rule was about > consonant clusters . thus " dog " would be " dopog " . i remember > specifically that the word " umbrella " was given as : > " umopbopropellopa " , indicating that " op " is to be placed after all > three consonants at the beginning ( umbr - - ) , but only one after the > double " l " . i have never met anybody who has heard of this language , > or knew how to use it , and , since i learned about it from a book , > rather than from other people ( children ) , i cannot say anything about > the sociolinguistics of it . for me it is an idiolect ( ! ! ) i ' ve heard of it . when i was about 10 ( 1973-74 ) some friends and i played around with a language we called " oppish " . we did it a little differently from what you described above . " op " was inserted after each consonant , even the last one , based on how the word was spelled , so that " ship " would be " sophopipop " , and " umbrella " would be " umopbopropeloplopa . " > > some tentative conclusions : > > ( a ) both phenomena , pig latin - type phonologically manipulated secret > language , and youth slang , are apparently neither an anglosaxon , > nor a european particularity . > > ( b ) predeliction to pig latin - type language game covers a much wider > age bracket than i had initially suspected , beginning at around 10 > years , and overlapping with youth slang , in which pig latin - type > expressions may be taken up as slang - specific words . i think i was familiar with pig latin as young as 5 or 6 ( of course , i had older brothers , so that helped ) , and i remember using it with friends in about the second or third grade ( 7 to 9 years old ) . pig latin is also used occasionally by adults , often to keep their very young children from understanding what they are talking about ( similar to spelling words out ) . i also remember that fred flintstone ( from the tv cartoon series " the flintstones " sometimes muttered , " ix - nay , barney , ix-nay , " when he thought that barney rubble was saying too much . that 's pig latin for " nix , barney , nix , " where " nix " ( meaning " nothing " ) is slang for " shut up before you get us in trouble , " or " put a sock in it . " my parents also had a spike jones christmas record album that included " jingle bells " sung partly in pig latin by some children : " ingle - jay ells-bay , ingle-jay ells-bay , ingle-jay all the ay-way . . . " kevin caldwell
