Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T11:08:06.979Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tracing the origins of verlan in an early nineteenth century text?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2017

XAVIER BACH
XAVIER BACH*
Affiliation:
The Queen's College Oxford
*
Address for correspondence: e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines early attestations of verlan and related backward slangs in French in the nineteenth century. Its main contribution is the edition and analysis of the only known text, a letter, written with features of verlan before the twentieth century. This largely predates other attested forms of verlan. The principles underlying this early form of verlan are shown to be different from contemporary verlan, as is much other early evidence, though all forms have the syllable as their basic unit. The letter is evidence that backward slangs can originate in the education system as much as in the underworld of thieves.

Keywords

verlanOccitanmetathesisslanghistorical linguistics
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 67 - 84
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Antoine, F. (1998). Des mots et des oms: verlan, troncation et recyclage formel dans l'argot contemporain. Cahiers de Lexicologie, 72: 41–70.Google Scholar
Azra, J.-L. and Cheneau, V. (1994). Jeux de langage et théorie phonologique. Verlan et structure syllabique du français. Journal of French Language Studies, 4: 147–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bachmann, C. and Basier, L. (1984). Le verlan : argot d'école ou langue des Keums? Mots, 8: 169–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barlow, J. (2001). Individual differences in the production of initial consonant sequences in Pig Latin. Lingua, 111: 667–696.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blevins, J. and Garrett, A. (2004). The evolution of metathesis. In: Hayes, B., Kirchner, R. and Steriade, D. (eds), Phonetically Based Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruant, A. [and de Bercy, L.]. (1901). L'argot au XXe siècle – Dictionnaire français-argot. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Buckley, E. (2011). Metathesis. In: van Oostendorp, M., Ewen, C. J., Hume, E. and Rice, K. (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 1380–1407.Google Scholar
Bullock, B. (1996). Popular Derivation and Linguistic Inquiry: Les Javanais. The French Review, 70: 180–191.Google Scholar
Day, R. (1973). On Learning “Secret Languages”. Haskins Laboratories: Status Report on Speech Research SR-34. New Haven: Haskins Laboratories, pp. 141–150.Google Scholar
Decahors, E. (1932). Maurice de Guérin: essai de biographie psychologique. Paris: Bloud & Gay.Google Scholar
D'Harcourt, B. (1932). Maurice de Guérin et le poème en prose. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.Google Scholar
Durand, J. and Eychenne, J. (2004). Le schwa en français : pourquoi des corpus ? Corpus, 3. Online http://corpus.revues.org/246 last accessed 23 September 2016.Google Scholar
Elspaß, S. (2005). Sprachgeschichte von unten. Untersuchungen zum geschriebenen Alltagsdeutsch im 19. Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eychenne, J. (2006). Aspects de la phonologie du schwa dans le français contemporain : optimalité, visibilité prosodique, gradience. PhD Thesis, Université de Toulouse.Google Scholar
Eychenne, J. (2015). Observations on the phonetic realization of opaque schwa in Southern French. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology, 21.3: 457–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume-O'Haire, E. (no date). Metathesis in language. Online database metathesisinlanguage.oso.edu last accessed 26 January 2016.Google Scholar
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (ed.) (1976). Speech Play. Research and Resources for Studying Linguistic Creativity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larchey, L. (1881). Dictionnaire historique d'argot. Neuvième édition. Paris: E. Dentu.Google Scholar
La Rue, J. (2011). Dictionnaire d'argot et des locutions populaires. Version raisonnée et commentée à partir des éditions de 1894 et du début du XXe siècle, éd. par Delaplace, D. (Classiques de l'argot et du jargon, 4). Paris: Classiques Garnier.Google Scholar
Lefkowitz, N. (1989). Verlan: talking backwards in French. The French Review, 63: 312–322.Google Scholar
Lefkowitz, N. (1991). Talking Backwards, Looking Forwards: The French Language Game. Verlan. (Language in Performance, 3). Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar
Lefkowitz, N. and Weinberger, S. (1991). Métathèse au premier branchement et paramétrisation dans les jeux de langage: le cas du verlan. Cahiers de Grammaire, 16: 103–117.Google Scholar
Lodge, R. A. (2013). A lady-in-waiting's begging letter to her former employer (Paris, mid-sixteenth century). In van der Wal, M. and Rutten, G. (eds.), Touching the Past. Studies in the Historical Sociolinguistics of Ego-documents. (Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 1). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 19–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandelbaum-Reiner, F. (1991). Secrets de bouchers et largonji actuel des louchebem. Langage et Société, 56: 21–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, J. (2005). La Contrepèterie. (Que sais-je?, 3740). Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Méla, V. (1988). Parler verlan : règles et usages. Langage et société, 45: 47–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Méla, V. (1991). Le verlan ou le langage du miroir. Langages, 101: 73–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Méla, V. (1997). Verlan 2000. Langue française, 114: 16–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plénat, M. (1985). Morphologie du Largonji des loucherbems. Langages, 78: 73–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plénat, M. (1991). Le javanais: concurrence et haplologie. Langages, 101: 95–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plénat, M. (1992). Notes sur la morphologie du verlan: données et hypothèses. Cahiers de Grammaire, 17: 171–208.Google Scholar
Plénat, M. (1995). Une approche prosodique de la morphologie du verlan. Lingua, 95: 97–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sainéan, L. (1912). Les sources de l'argot ancien. Le dix-neuvième siècle (1800-1850). Paris: Champion. Reprint 1973 Genève: Slatkine.Google Scholar
Sherzer, J. (1976). Play languages: Implications for (socio) linguistics. In: Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (ed.), pp. 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sers, P. (1842). Intérieur des bagnes, suivi de la physiologie du galérien, des fiançailles au bagne, et de la vie historique des deux plus célèbres forçats. Angoulême: Lefraise.Google Scholar
Vásquez Ríos, J. (2009). Linguistique et sociolinguistique du verlan à travers le monde. AnMal Electrónica, 26: 197–214.Google Scholar
Vest, J. (ed.). (1992). The Poetic Works of Maurice de Guérin. Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications.Google Scholar
Vidocq, E.-F. (1837). Les Voleurs, physiologie de leurs mœurs et de leur langage. Ouvrage qui dévoile les ruses de tous les fripons, et destiné à devenir le vade-mecum de tous les honnêtes gens. [Paris: chez l'auteur]Google Scholar
Walker, D. (2006). Is the ‘word’ still a phonological unit in French? Evidence from verlan. In: Gess, R. S. and Arteaga, D. (eds), Historical Romance Linguistics: Retrospectives and Perspectives. Amsterdam: Benjamins. pp. 163–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
TLFI= Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé article POCHER: http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/pocher; article CHOPER: http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/choper, last accessed 18 April 2016.Google Scholar