Technically, Pig Latin is not a real language. The subtitle for the song "I-Yay Ove-Lay ou-yay earie-day" is allegedly the first notable reference to the language. Pig Latin is thought to have originated in America in 1919 when a song called "Pig Latin Love" was released by singer-songwriter Arthur Fields of Columbia Records. For words that start with a consonant, all letters are removed until a vowel is reached and then all removed consonants are used to create a second word, with "ay" added to the end of it e.g., happy becomes appy-hay.For words that start with a vowel, you add "ay" to the end of the word e.g., enter becomes enter-ay.Take away the first letter of a word, then add a new word that uses the first letter of the word with "ay" added to it e.g., hello becomes ello-hay.There are three main rules for converting any language to Pig Latin: The concept of the language is relatively simple. The idea is that using the language allows you to communicate in secret with someone else (assuming they don't also speak and understand Pig Latin). For example, if you said the word ‘etterbox-lay’ out loud, most people – whether they understand Pig Latin or not – would be able to figure out that you are referring to a letterbox.īy splitting up the word into ‘letter’ and ‘box’, you can convert it into Pig Latin as ‘etter-lay ox-bay’, which suddenly can’t be translated by non-Pig Latin speakers.Pig Latin is a made-up language that isn't official to any country, but is instead used as part of code-speak or a game. Rule Four – Compound WordsĬompound words are best split up before being translated into Pig Latin, for the simple reason that the word may become obvious if it is not split up. Depending on which of these cases applies, you will revert back to either Rule One or Two. For example, the ‘y’ in ‘yolk’ is a consonant sound, whereas the ‘y’ in ‘fly’ is a vowel. The way in which the letter ‘y’ is handled depends on whether the ‘y’ is being used in the word as a consonant or a pseudo vowel. Rule Three – Words Containing the Letter ‘Y’Īgain, Pig Latin is primarily a spoken langu age, rather than a written one. It then becomes clear that Pig Latin is primarily a spoken pseudo language, and relies upon the way words sound rather than the way they are spelled. In this instance, treat the word as if it started with ‘w’, so it would become (phonetically) ‘un-way’. While it begins with the vowel ‘o’, the starting sound is the ‘w’ sound. Other variations include adding ‘-yay’ or even ‘-way’, and you’ll find that it surprisingly does not make a difference which of these is used.įor example, ‘elephant’ in Pig Latin becomes ‘elephant-hey’.Īn interesting situation arises when a word technically begins with a vowel that appears to begin with a consonant sound. When a word begins with a vowel, simply leave the word as is and add the suffix ‘-hay’ to the end of the word. Our other example was the word ‘brush’, which becomes ‘ush-bray’ in Pig Latin, by following the same rule. This sounds difficult in theory but is actually much simpler in practice.įor example, ‘dog’ in Pig Latin becomes ‘og-day’ (because the leading consonant ‘d’ has been moved to the end of the word, leaving simply ‘og’ at the beginning, and the suffix ‘-ay’ has been appended to the ‘d’). When a word begins with a consonant (such as dog) or a consonant cluster (such as brush), simply take the consonant/consonant cluster and move it to the end of the word, adding the suffix ‘-ay’ to the end of the word. Rule One – Words Beginning with a Consonant There are four basic rules of Pig Latin, the mastery of which will allow you to speak any English sentence in Pig Latin immediately.
Children, in particular, enjoy experimenting with Pig Latin, as it gives them an easy way to speak freely in front of people who don’t understand Pig Latin, without having to take a lot of time to learn the rules. Have you heard of Pig Latin? While not really a proper language and nothing really to do with Latin, Pig Latin is a pseudo-language with very simple rules and which is easy to learn, but also sounds like complete gibberish to anyone who doesn’t know Pig Latin. It is a pseudo language spoken by English-speakers, and adored by children.
Pig Latin is not really a proper language.
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