"Pig Latin" is one of a number of secret languages that children often teach each other, perhaps around ages 9-12. They involve distorting English words according to simple rules, to produce something that sounds like a foreign language. There are no changes in grammar. Children use it as a secret language which their friends cannot understand.
It is a spoken "language," not a written "language" and the rules apply to the sounds, not necessarily to the spellings. The rules for Pig Latin are these:
1) If the word begins with a consonant sound, move the consonant to the end of the word and add -ay. Thus, can becomes ancay, you becomes (as pronounced) ooyay, speak becomes eakspay, and so forth. The subject line of this thread is "Can you speak Pig Latin?" "translated" into Pig Latin.
2) If the word begins with a vowel sound, add -way. apple becomes appleway, egg becomes eggway, up becomes upway and so forth.
Ithway away allsmay amountway ofway acticepray, itway isway easyway ootay ecomebay uentflay inway igpay Atinlay.
Are there similar games in your own native language?
Pig Latin has given me a really interesting insight into children's language acquisition.
I remember once teaching it to a little girl of about eight years old. She picked it up reasonably quickly, and she and I were soon having fun chattering away in this silly 'language'. This enraged her five-year-old brother. He was driven mad with frustration that he couldn't understand a word that we were saying. This is what he did:
1. He listened very hard.
2. He played about with nonsense syllables which sounded like what he was hearing. He produced the same sounds and rhythms as Pig Latin, but they were meaningless.
3. He echoed and repeated a few recurrent phrases.
4. He tried joining in our conversation and began manipulating the 'language', making a few mistakes and correcting himself as he went along.
5. Finally, here's the thing: within a very short time, he could converse in Pig Latin much faster and more accurately than either his older sister or me.
The little boy's innate and extremely successful strategy seemed to mirror native language acquisition, beginning with the receptive phase (the first months of life), followed by the beginnings of the productive phase when infants practise sound patterns (ba-ba ga-ga ), then repetition, experimentation, manipulation of systems, self-correction and finally fluency. And, just like infants in their first language, he had intense motivation of wanting to understand and participate in conversation, combined with the willingness to experiment.
It was fascinating to watch.
"Lingua Farfallina" sounds like another English-based secret language I encountered as a kid. I don't think it had a name. It consisted of adding "op" after ever consonant. Thus, "secret language" would become sop-uh-cop-rop-uh-top lop-uh-nop-gop-wuh-gop," I think. I was never fluent in it, and it seemed too slow and too much work, so I'm not sure whether "secret" was sop-uh-cop-rop-uh-top or sop-uh-crop-uh-top. Maybe there were dialects!
With regard to others learning "secret languages," not only children but every dog we've ever had has learned to identify spelled-out words. We say "I have to take the dee-oh-gee for a doubleyou-ay-ell-kay" and she comes running over with a goofy grin and a wide smile, she knows what that means.
Yes in Italian there is/ was the LINGUA FARFALLINA. We spoke it as little girls in order not to be understood by the boys!
The rule of this secret language is to put an F after every vowel and repeat the same vowel
example: ti amo (I love you) becomes TIFI AFAMOFO
I still can speak quite quickly IFI STFILL CAFAN QUIFAIT QUIFICKLYFI
but today’s children do not have time for such funny nonsense. They are too much absorbed by screens.
