Pig Latin: what it is, how to speak it, and its equivalents around the world

Ave-hay un-fay!

In this article:

1. What is Pig Latin?
2. The history of Pig Latin
3. How to speak Pig Latin: the rules
4. Variations and dialects
5. Global equivalents of Pig Latin
6. What language games tell us about language
7. Frequently asked questions

What is Pig Latin?

Pig Latin is a language game in which English words are transformed according to a set of phonological rules. The objective is to make speech unintelligible to those who do not know the code — useful for children who want to communicate without adults understanding, and entertaining for anyone who enjoys playing with language.

Despite its name, Pig Latin has no connection to the Latin language. The name is an intentional misnomer — "Latin" is used in the sense of "a foreign-sounding language," and no one is quite certain why the animal modifier settled on "pig" rather than any other. The Oxford English Dictionary includes related terms: Hog Latin, Dog Latin, and Goose Latin have all been recorded in English.

Pig Latin is classified by linguists as a language game — a systematic, rule-governed transformation of a natural language rather than a language in its own right. It cannot be learned as a first language and has no native speakers. But it is notable for producing a consistent coded output that experienced speakers can process in real time, just as they would a natural language.

The history of Pig Latin

The term "pig Latin" has appeared in English periodicals since at least the 1860s, though early uses described what we would today call Dog Latin — mock-Latin gibberish, rather than the systematic consonant-shifting word game we know today. An 1866 article describes a "hog Latin" in which a suffix "-ge" was added to each word: a boy asking a friend to join him would say "Wig-ge you-ge go-ge wig-ge me-ge?" The Atlantic Monthly in January 1895 referred to "pig Latin that all sorts of children like to play with," confirming it was already widespread as a children's game in the late 19th century.

Shakespeare's 1598 play Love's Labour's Lost includes a reference to "dog Latin" (mock-Latinized speech) which represents an early ancestor of the impulse behind Pig Latin, though the specific consonant-shifting system had not yet emerged. The modern word-game appears in its recognizable form in Victorian newspapers of the 1860s and in popular culture from the 1890s onward.

The modern version was cemented by Arthur Fields's 1919 Columbia Records recording "Pig Latin Love" (subtitled "I-Yay Ove-Lay oo-yay earie-day") which established the canonical move-first-consonant-cluster-and-add-ay rule in popular culture. The song made Pig Latin a recognizable American phenomenon.

From there, it spread through popular entertainment. Ginger Rogers sang an entire verse of "We're in the Money" in Pig Latin in the 1933 film Gold Diggers of 1933, in an elaborate Busby Berkeley production number. The Three Stooges reinforced it through repeated use: most notably in "Tassels in the Air" (1938), a short in which Moe Howard teaches Curly Howard the rules on screen — effectively teaching the audience as well. Two Pig Latin words from that era have since entered standard English slang: ixnay (from "nix" — to reject or dismiss something) and amscray (from "scram" — to leave quickly).

Thomas Jefferson is rumored to have written letters to friends in a coded language resembling Pig Latin, though this claim is more anecdote than documented historical record.

How to speak Pig Latin: the rules

There are two core rules, depending on whether a word begins with a consonant or a vowel. A few additional considerations follow from those two rules.

Rule 1: Words beginning with consonants

Move the initial consonant (or consonant cluster) to the end of the word and add the suffix -ay.

For multi-syllable words, the most common approach applies this rule to the whole word (moving the initial consonant cluster and adding -ay once): restaurant → estaurant-ray. Some dialects break the word by syllable and apply the rule to each part separately.

Rule 2: Words beginning with vowels

Leave the vowel in place and add -yay (sometimes -way or -hay, depending on dialect) to the end.

Words starting with consonants that sound like vowels (how, watch, young, wash) are treated as consonant-initial: how → ow-hay, young → oung-yay.

What about consonant clusters?

When a word begins with multiple consonants that function as a cluster (str-, pl-, ch-, th-), the entire cluster moves as a unit:

Variations and dialects

Pig Latin is not a standardized system. Different communities, regions, and generations have developed variants:

-way vs. -yay vs. -hay for vowel-initial words. Depending on the speaker, "ant" becomes ant-way, ant-yay, or ant-hay. The choice is a dialect marker.

Syllable-by-syllable vs. whole-word transformation. Some speakers apply the rule to each syllable separately: calendar becomes al-cay en-lay ar-day. Others apply it to the whole word, moving only the initial consonant cluster: calendar → alendar-cay. The syllable-by-syllable version is harder to decode but also harder to produce fluently in real time.

Vowel insertion before consonant-added suffix. Some speakers insert a vowel before the -ay to smooth pronunciation: scram → am-scray, not am-scr-ay.

The practical implication: before conducting a Pig Latin conversation, establishing which dialect all parties are using is advisable. Dialect mismatch produces miscommunication, your ission-may (mission) may remain unaccomplished-yay without alignment.

Global equivalents of Pig Latin

The impulse to transform language into a playful code is not uniquely English. Almost every language has at least one equivalent of Pig Latin, a systematic word game that creates an in-group code by manipulating the phonological structure of everyday speech.

Verlan (French)

Verlan is a syllable-reversal game that began as criminal slang in 19th-century France and has since become a mainstream element of French urban and youth culture. The name itself demonstrates the process: verlan is derived from inverting the syllables of l'envers (meaning "the inverse") — l'en-vers → ver-lan.

Where Pig Latin moves consonants to the end, Verlan swaps syllables: français (French) becomes céfran; merci (thank you) becomes cimer. Some Verlan words have entered mainstream French so completely that they've been re-Verlan-ized, meuf (from femme, woman, meaning girlfriend) was reversed again to produce feumeu. This "Verlan squared" process (verlan au carré) is unique to Verlan's cultural embedding. Verlan words now appear in French dictionaries, rap lyrics, advertising, and film scripts.

Loucherbem (French butchers' slang)

Loucherbem (also spelled louchébem) is a coded language used by French butchers (bouchers in French). Like Pig Latin, it moves the initial consonant cluster to the end of the word — but then replaces it with L at the front and adds a suffix (-oche, -em, -oque) at the end. Boucher (butcher) becomes loucherbem; combien (how much) becomes lombienquès. Some loucherbem words have entered standard French slang: loufoque (crazy, from fou) and larfeuille (wallet, from portefeuille).

Rövarspråket (Swedish)

Rövarspråket (meaning "robber language") was popularized in Sweden by Astrid Lindgren in her Kalle Blomkvist detective series (published from 1946). In Rövarspråket, every consonant is doubled and an O is inserted between the two: hur (how) becomes hohuror; kaffe (coffee) becomes kokafoffepe. The result is extremely long words, which fits amusingly with Swedish's already-compounding tendencies. The name of the game itself in Rövarspråket would be röpövovarorsospoproråpokoketot.

Jeringonza (Spanish)

Jeringonza (also spelled jerigonza) is played across Spain and Latin America. The most common version doubles every vowel sound and inserts a "p" in the middle: the vowel A becomes "apa," E becomes "epe," and so on. España becomes epes-papa-ñopol. Variants use "f," "ch," or other consonants instead of "p" depending on region. The same game is known as Lingua do Pê (P-Language) in Portuguese-speaking Brazil.

Alfabeto farfallino (Italian)

The Italian equivalent, alfabeto farfallino (butterfly alphabet), operates similarly to Jeringonza: vowels are doubled and a consonant is inserted between them. Italian children's literature and playground culture have kept this tradition alive for generations.

Nói lái (Vietnamese)

Nói lái is a Vietnamese word game with an added level of complexity: it swaps not just the sounds of words but also their tones. Vietnamese is a tonal language, so a tone swap changes the meaning of a word entirely. A skilled Nói lái player can create a phrase that sounds like something innocuous but means something quite different, the tonal transposition carrying the hidden message. This makes Nói lái more culturally specific and harder to adapt to non-tonal languages than most word games.

Babigo (Japanese)

Japanese children play Babigo, in which the Japanese syllables (which are built on vowel-consonant combinations) are modified by inserting additional syllable sounds. The rule varies by region and social group. Given Japanese's syllabic structure, the modification operates on phonological units quite different from the consonant clusters of English Pig Latin.

What language games tell us about language

Pig Latin and its global equivalents are not just entertainment. They reveal something linguistically important: children and adults learn the rules of their language deeply enough to systematically transform it.

A speaker who can play Pig Latin fluently in real-time has demonstrated that they can identify syllable boundaries, distinguish consonant clusters from individual consonants, recognize whether a word begins with a vowel or consonant, and apply a consistent transformation rule faster than conscious thought. These are exactly the phonological operations that linguists argue underlie native language production and perception. Language games are, in a sense, a diagnostic for implicit phonological knowledge.

The existence of these games in virtually every language also suggests that the impulse to create coded in-group communication is universal — a feature of how humans use language socially rather than purely for information exchange. Children across cultures independently discover that their language's structure can be manipulated, and they use that discovery to create community, exclude eavesdroppers, and play.

For more on the playful side of language, see Tomedes' collections of language riddles and English words with no direct translation. For the serious side (why linguistic and cultural knowledge matters in professional communication), see the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity in business.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Is Pig Latin a real language?
A: No. Pig Latin is a language game (a systematic transformation of English) not a language in its own right. It has no native speakers, no literature, and cannot be acquired as a first language. It is classified by linguists alongside other word games like Verlan and Rövarspråket as a phonological manipulation game rather than a natural language.

Q: Why is it called Pig Latin if it has nothing to do with Latin?
A: The "Latin" in the name is an intentional misnomer, used in the colloquial sense of "a foreign-sounding or incomprehensible language." Early English speakers used "Latin" loosely to mean any obscure or learned-sounding tongue. The "Pig" has no clear etymology — alternative names like Hog Latin, Dog Latin, and Goose Latin all appear in historical records, suggesting the animal prefix was somewhat arbitrary.

Q: When was Pig Latin invented?
A: The modern form of Pig Latin (moving the initial consonant cluster to the end and adding -ay) was established in popular culture by Arthur Fields's 1919 Columbia Records song "Pig Latin Love." But forerunner games using similar consonant-manipulation principles appear in Victorian periodicals from the 1860s, and the general idea of children's coded language games in English dates back at least to the 19th century.

Q: What is the French equivalent of Pig Latin?
A: French has two prominent equivalents. Verlan reverses word syllables (l'envers → verlan) and has become so embedded in French slang that many Verlan words now appear in French dictionaries. Loucherbem, originally used by Parisian butchers, moves initial consonant clusters to the end and inserts L at the front. Several loucherbem words (loufoque, meaning crazy; larfeuille, meaning wallet) have entered mainstream French.

Q: Does Pig Latin have educational value?
A: Yes. Linguists and educators have noted that fluent Pig Latin play requires the same phonological skills (identifying syllable boundaries, distinguishing consonant clusters, recognizing vowel-initial words) that underlie reading and language acquisition. Several studies suggest that phonological awareness games, including Pig Latin, can support literacy development in children by making the structure of language explicit and manipulable.

Ank-thay oo-yay or-fay ead-ray ing-thay is-thay! If Pig Latin has sparked an interest in how language works, Tomedes' Translator Hub covers everything from language history and linguistics to translation craft and professional language services.