xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech

https://xkcd.com/2942

explainxkcd.com for #2942

Alt text:

Thank you to linguist Gretchen McCulloch for teaching me about phonetic assimilation, and for teaching me that if you stand around in public reading texts from a linguist and murmuring example phrases to yourself, people will eventually ask if you’re okay.

  • Glitterbomb@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22·
    5 months ago

    Agreed…I was especially impressed after I learned about their Verlan. As far as I can tell it’s basically pig Latin that they take seriously and use regularly as slang? As a quick example, the word Verlan is Verlan for l’envers. They can keep their secrets I guess haha.

    • gentooer@programming.devEnglish
      181·
      5 months ago

      I think Verlan is pretty neat. We had a full lesson on it in middle school because of one of our country’s most popular musicians, Stromae, which is Verlan for Maestro.

      • Glitterbomb@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        5 months ago

        Fantastic! Stromae is actually the reason I learned verlan existed! I got to see him live in the US, and it was one of the coolest live shows I’ve ever seen. The majority of the video for quand c’est is an actual part of the live show, and I wasn’t expecting it at all

      • Teodomo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        5 months ago

        Wait, Verlan is l’envers, stromae is maestro… Is this Verlan thing just like Rioplatense Spanish’s Vesre? (Vesre basically means revés i.e. inverse)

        EDIT: Just looked it up on Wikipedia and it turns out this phenomenon happens in a number of languages: Riocontra in Italian (riocontra -> contrario), Podaná in Greek, Šatrovački in Serbia, Totoiana in Romanian.

    • WldFyreEnglish
      10·
      5 months ago

      Lol is that what happens when they have an official institute that dictates correct French? “Oh it’s not slang, it’s verlan!”