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I'm native Serbian speaker... And here we have slang that is used the same way... There is common way to split word into 2 parts by number of syllables (if there are 3 or 5 syllables, there is one correct way to split the word to correctly use the slang,if there's 2 or 4, word is split in two equal parts). It's called "šatrovački" (prounanced like shatrowachky)... Its commonly associated with urban-criminal-hip-hop culture, and I belive it originated about 90s or 80s... Today its widely used in rap songs, and some words are more likely to be used by ppl in that way then other words (like money, slang words for particular drugs, saying hi, etc..) , in order to show "coolness", "relaxed mood", "acceptance" on the side of the speaker. Just wanted to say this way of making slang words is not exclusively French...
@@leina_a5246 Yes, I know. Haha. I know some of the ones in the video are very out of date, but they're "classic" examples of Verlan. Of course slang changes all the time.
Hi, Paul ! if you are right now 50/60 years old ..it was in our "teenager" time very used ( with slang) as coded proper language like "Argot"(other proper language)...fallen into disuse or become common words... used sometimes with some English and German words (FraManGlais) included some "Javanais" ( put "av" between each syllables ) . at least "Verlan" could be different according to your neighborhood, region, county or locality... for the following generations ... an "elder" who uses them ... seems to want to be "young" ... but it was our way of speaking before theirs ... with the evolution that they gave it
@@marietoutsimplement.9442 Tout simplement la base c'est FOL, mais le féminisme de merde à juger bon de forcer par la romance, l'écrit d'effacer FOL du langage et de s'accaparer cette base pour déraciner le masculin de l'universel usage à l'oral, et donc de forcer pour se distinguer d'user fou en lien et place de fol. Pareil pour bel.
"tromé" etait assez courrant dans le verlan des annees 80 mais maintenant c'est "trom". Pareil pour zarbi, c'est plutot "zarb" ces temps ci. Barjo, un des plus anciens mots de verlan est devenu "barj" (en plus d'avoir ete re-verlanise en "Jobar").
Les generations 2000/2010 commencent à se lasser du verlan et ils jouent beaucoup avec les Anglicismes. Certes, une partie du verlan persiste, mais c'est en train de se perdre.. Une petite tragédie pour moi, le gosse de 78 qui voit un truc se perdre à l'instar de la langue de feu, et ce genre de conneries..
I am French too, and I have NEVER, EVER used verlan in my entire life! I have lived in the USA for 34 years (actually, on February 27, it will be 34 years, but close enough), seven years longer than I had lived in my country of birth!
Verlan is the most epic linguistic troll I've ever heard of. I picture each member of the French Academy waking up at 3:00 a.m., sweating furiously, and shouting in pure contempt: VERLAN!!!
@@thomasvincent8905 It hates everyone It's almost impossible not to make mistakes whenever you write an essay even if you have a very good level even for a native speaker. So many odd rules that apply to only one very specific case. This language is a mess Sincerely, a French in prep school who has to do a lot of exams and knows first hand how insanely specific the rules can be)
@@sephikong8323 I remember when I had French in school, I called it "a language with more exceptions than rules". Didn't like it much. Liked English, except after a while not the way it was taught - I mainly learned then from books and Usenet (and later, the web, once there was a web and I had access).
Hi everyone. Please don't post topic requests. Requests aren't feasible for a channel like this with videos that take so much time and effort to make. But I hope you like the video! Thanks.
Hi Paul. This old song is completely in verlan. Very tricky to understand even for a French native : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MAvE4UAkMdo.html
Hey I know you didn't want a discussion, but i just want to mention that "keufs" evolved into "feuk" as a "double verlanization" that conveniently sounded like our pronunciation of the famous english word "fuck".
@@maro0532 Moi on en utilise mais plutot de maniere uronique, mais c'est pas rare de ce passer des "tema le mec c'est un ouf" mais apres le contexte est important
Hi I'm Vietnamese. In Vietnamese (particularly in the southern accent) we do have something rather similar that is called "nói lái" (literally "reverse speech). For a word with multiple syllables, we switch around the vowel sound ("vần"), tone mark ("thanh") or the consonant sound ("âm") and keep the order of the other parts to create a new word or phrase. This way of speech is usually used in jokes or to make swear words a little bit less offensive in an informal context. For example, "bạn cái lồn" [lit. Asshole friend] will be switch to "lộn cái bàn" [lit. Flip the table]
In the 1990's the French national railroad company tried to use verlan in a TV advert and it became well known by French speakers as the worst attempt at verlan, they overused it, and they even tried to apply verlan on the word "possible", which became "blessipo" and is considered to be an enormous fail at trying to be "cool" to young people
Euuuu... : "blessipo" sounds as if it might mean something pertaining to someone's having been "hurt/injured by police" maybe; perhaps, a potentially useful word - in many parts "...des Etats-Unis" ({: \ ...!?!
I was so surprised to watch this, haha! I never suspected this video, and it was very fun! Here some other examples: - "Chelou" (from "Louche") meaning "fishy" - "Se faire tèj' " (from "jeter") meaning "to be throw out" - "Pécho" (from "choper") meaning "to get laid" or "to get a girlfriend/boyfriend" - "Vénère" (from "énervé") meaning "angry/mad" ...
"Se faire tèj" does mean to be thrown out but more so in the context of being dumped by your SO! "Pécho" is also used for being caught, ex: Je m'suis fait pécho par les keufs, c'était relou" I got caught by the cops, it was heavy stuff
Lol as a French it's weird to see foreigners learning "verlan" it's so common for us to speak it we don't really realize it An important point: sometimes the verlan word meaning can be a little different from the original meaning for exemple : fête means party but teuf means rave party in most cases And feuk or fekeu for cops is always use because it sounds like fuck in English a way to call cops and insulting them at the same time
I actually learned in French class that" Les fliques " is derogatory.This was confirmed when years later I used the word "Le flic" while trying out a puppet that happened to depict a police officer .The French lady whom I was with at the flea market got into a small defensive speech about there being a lot of good police officers,she not being amused.
For also being a native speaker in French I must say that you did a great job in this video, and it was very amusing to watch the theoritical aspect of the "street" dialogue. Anyway, thanks for all your amazing videos.
Como Argentino y Francés, pensé que como se lo encontraba en estas dos lenguas pensaba que existía en todas las lenguas jaja Pero el "verlan" en francés es mucho mas utilizado que el vesre argentino, muchisimo mas
Si en Argentina era mas utilizado en la primera mitad del siglo pasado, ahora han quedad solo algunas palabras en uso cotidiano, como cobani o bolonqui
Era bastante más común en la época del tango, pero en Uruguay lo seguimos usando bastante en realidad. No todas, como dijiste, pero dolape, ñapi, nami, dope, ñoba, son todas palabras que escuchás prácticamente todos los días.
Soirbon, Paul ! Cimer pour la vidéo sur le verlan ! En vrai, sonneper utilise le verlan comme ass, parce que ça s'rait trop chelou. Mais t'as bien résumé le blème. D'ailleurs, "Va te coucher" dans ce contexte (je suppose), c'est plus "You don't understand what's happening, get out". C'est un peu comme l'expression "être à côté de la plaque", si tu connais l'expression et son équivalent en anglais. Ouais, le français c'est relou de ouf parfois, c'est jamais la teuf. D'ailleurs, ça m'fait très glori d'voir un anglais parler du verlan. J'dois aussi te dire que j'adore téma tes vidéos et que t'es mec super, même si au début t'avais l'air chéper. Continue comme ass wesh
@@lalegende2746 en voyant les commentaires on se rend compte à quel point ça varie selon les endroits. Perso je peux dire cimer mais pas sincèrement pour remercier, plutôt ironiquement quand je suis soulé genre "ah ouais cimer tu fais chier"
Yeah "sonmai" is a joke too. Same, "jourbon" and "tromé" are jokes aswell. some rebeus do actually still use "beur" tho. and "femeu" comes out from time to time.
C'est sur que c'est important pour comprendre les français et que ça date pas d'hier, mais c'est juste le sérieux avec lequel il dit "chez ta reum" ça me fait hurler de rire
I'm actually really impressed by your work on this topic , Verlan is something that we like to use in order to confuse foreigners or elders as well , it would be too hard for a native speaker to explain all this process in detail , honestly good job man :o
" des meufs et des keufs dans le RER" Verlan is so 1993 in my mind. Some words are still in use but word of warning for French learners, if you're gonna try some Verlan on a native speaker be prepared for a verbal onslaught as the person you talk to will likely assume you're perfectly fluent not only in French but in suburban slang and you might come out really confused.
Jean-Loup Rebours-Smith I was born in France, 55 Meuse, Avec un bon patois bien de chez nous, spoken as crudely as it come, no one will get the drift of the conversation...French born or tourist...
tbh, that sort of sums up the general experience of many "semi-" francophones...even when dealing in/with nothing *but* "standard, proper" ...assez *tristement ({:* \ ....!!
As a french native I find your video really relevent it's really a big part of our daily conversation and that's super cool to permite people to access that
In Lunfardo (a Platinean informal dialect of Spanish, spoken in and around Montevideo and Buenos Aires) we have the same kind of backwards slang. It's called "vesre" (revés). Some examples are piña = ñapi (punch), mina = nami (slang for young woman), pelado = dolape (bald man).
We have something similar in my hometown, Brescia. It's called Trancorio -- from the Italian "contrario" (backwards!). So, Pietro becomes Tropie, Vecchio (old/old man) becomes chiove, the dialectical word Maruchì (Marocchino - "a person from Morocco") becomes ruchima ☺
Je constate simplement que le mot "feuk" n'est pas couramment utilisé. On aurait plus tendance à employer "condés", "flics" ou "hnouchs" pour désigner la police dans un language argotique. Qu'est ce que tu parles de "petite vie" alors que tu sais rien ? wlh c'est abusé comment vous faites trop les fous derrière vos pseudos éclatés et vos photos de profils de mes couilles. T'es le genre de type qui fermerait sa gueule si on se voit en face.
Wow, what an unexpected subject! As a native and young french speaker, I have to say that I can't keep up with street slangs. As you pointed out, there's a conscious evolution that makes it impossible to actually learn except if you're part of the demographic. As soon as a word becomes mainstream, it's almost immediately abandonned.
Hello Paul, I found it quite interesting since here in Argentina, due to the product of a massive Italian immigration, lunfardo slang is spoken with which words are also inverted to the point of not having rules bicho = chobi (insect) zapatillas = tillas (sneakers) pantalon = lompa (pants)
he was big on word play, half of his characters have a funny meaning to their name, look up what cunégonde means 🤣🤣🤣🤣 voltaire was the first internet troll man
Thanks Paul for this week documented video. It's quite cute to hear your French accent but if sounds very rare when you speak verlan. I believe this is because it is a very cultural and evolving slang. About "documented" side, I didn't expect you to know "meufeu". When I heard that the first time, ten years back, in the metro I was kind of shocked. How verlan of verlan doesn't lead to lancer...? Keep going, good job!
The funniest part is that the French find verlan so normal that they're not even aware that it's a slang that's pretty specific to French. I live in France, and my French friends, when I tell them about verlan being weird sometimes, will say "wait, they don't do verlan in other languages?" 😂
Interesting. Is that a figure of speech like in french or were those syllabes inversed to create new words with new meaning? I didn't quite understand.
But be careful with verlan cause it can be awkward for some situation ! Some months ago, my dad asked "Tu veux de la pesou ?" ("Do you want some soup") and it was so awkward ! So be careful haha
Bien vu, je l'avais remarqué également, Paul avait oublié le LE qui est en fait L' "Va t'coucher, l'relou". Je n'ai jamais utilisé le verlan de ma vie, donc je n'avais aucune idée que "relou" était le verlan de "lourd", mais par-dessus le marché, je n'avais aucune idée du sens argotique de "lourd". Je suis breton d'origine, et j'habite aux États-Unis.
I'm french and it felt like an old guy on TV explaining "young talk". A lot of the verlan you presented isn't used by young people anymore and other, I've never heard. But it's comprehensible as it's hard to keep up with slang.
These are definitely not all out of date. Obviously verlan innovators might have stopped using most of these (I wouldn't know, really) but in my main circle (university students in Lyon) cimer, meuf, teuf, reubeu, turfu and a few more are still in use, though at times with tongue-in-cheek undertones.
The video is right most of the time. It's just that verlan isn't standardized so it can vary from a region to another. Daily, I speak (maybe too much) verlan from Paris but it's slightly different from Lyon's or Marseille's ones. In fact, you create your own verlan, so it's normal to see people complain about this video, some people never say "tromé" ou "carna", some people use them everyday.
This reminded me of the Buenos Aires 'Lunfardo' slang, another interesting phenomenon which both reverses words and also incorporates heavy borrowings from the Italian dialects, reflecting the the mass Italian immigration to which many Porteños owe their ancestry. I believe it's also used across the bay in Montevideo, which shares similar historical demography.
1:12 "jourbon" ne se dit pas (ou plus), sinon le reste reste largement utilisé. C'est une très bonne idée d'apprendre le "verlan" puisqu'il représente une bonne partie de notre argot, et c'est très pratique pour ceux qui ont envie de parler français.
In Rioplatense Spanish (Argentina and Uruguay), the same process takes place. It's called "vesre" ("revés" pronounced backwards), and it is popular since the late XIX century. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesre
I watch the Video for the second time and now its clear Love this episode, actually in my country Philippines we have also like this, like the filipino word "Malupet" means Awsome , nowadays people in the Philippines pronounce "Malupet" into "PetMalu". Here are some other example: Lodi - Idol WerPa - power, the "o" in power was change into "a". ErMat-Mother ErPat-Father MigMala-Malamig means "its cold" JeProxs - Project
Vincent Malab Omg this is really interesting thanks!!! I was wondering when scrolling through the comments if any other language had this feature and stumbling across your post made my day ^^ Is this type of verlan also seen as a typical annoying "youth" thing? ;) it definitely is in my france aha
Tsar Karl I Aha same in France, what's so cringy is seeing old politicians using these words in the belief that young people will totally vote for them because they used such an "edgy" vocabulary xDD
Tsar Karl I XDD yes I also dream of corrupt politicians embracing their violent tendancies but rejecting backward speech! ^^ How's it like language-wise in the Philippines? Do you speak different languages during the day?
Funny enough, we use this kind of slang in Indonesia too: "Bisa" (can) becomes "sabi" "Bebas" (up to you) becomes "sabeb", yuk (c'mon)= kuy, and so on. Probably the worst of all is how young people tell each other to chill= "selow" (which is already informal because it is the bastardization of the english word 'slow') becomes "woles"
This kind of syllable-swapping slang is not new in Tagalog. In fact, our ancestors have been doing this since the pre-colonial time. There are Spanish records about this, and the natives called it Caui/Kawi (from Uica/ Wika [Language]). It was recorded as "Gerigonza. Caui" (kawi) in De los Santos, 1793. Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala. read this post for more info facebook.com/SaysayBagin/photos/a.503430556338200.133652.499239096757346/1229026390445276/?type=3&theater
Learning Spanish has been a hell of a lot easier than learning French, but I think it’s worth the effort. Such a cool language, especially with the historical impact French had on the development of modern English
I mean, spanish also has very weird and not intuitive slang. But they are localized to each if the many many Spanish speaking countries, while french is more centralized in just the french and quebecoise communities most of the time But for exmaple in Argentina they do something quite similqr to verlan in some areas
Good video! I wanted to comment as a young french girl ^^ I've never heard Tromé or jourbon. Zarbi, teuf and Keum sound outdated and are used by old people wanting to sound cool/young. verlan is really familiar but not rude. Like my professors don't mind if we say Relou or Chelou. I love to talk about french slang with foreigners
thierryf67, exactly. Some young people have the unfounded impression that this slang is exclusively theirs. It's understandable though because they are the ones pushing through today's main innovations in it. But in holding this opinion, they overlook the fact that quite a few words from the La Haine era I can still hear being used today, over twenty years later... by teenagers! :-)
for me "la haine" was already a youngster movie ! ;)) verlan exist at least since the middle of the XX century.... and may be earlier ! And i wasn't born of course... (i'm from the mid-sixties)
Thank's Paul, it's a very nice video. As a French, I even learned some few things. Yeah slang has a more evolving vocabulary than the formal French because nobody wants to preserve a so-called purity of the casual language. La Haine is from 1995, so in more than 20 years some words evolved (for example, "turevoi" now sounds weird). Few years before that, I remember having fun with other 8 years-old kids when trying to speak verlan after class. During high school, our popular slang was adding some loanwords from arabic dialects spoken at home by maghrebis immigrant's sons and grandsons.
I'm from Rio/Brazil and down here we vernalize too, at least when I was in school. For the same purpose we wanted to hide our information from others, especially authorities such as teachers and parents. I don't know how many people would speak it back then but my friends and I used it for several years. Have no idea either who invented or came up with this variation of slang. For example the word cigarette (cigarro) we'd say 'rogaci' or simply 'roga'; another one 'lhermu' which means mulher (woman) and so on.
@@abuzlatanlapsychiatrie8438 the verlan of the shortenized verlanized brazilian cigarette word, interesting, if we keep verlanizing every language out there, we'll all end up speaking the same language, it's a fact
I think that Rap music does help spreading and creating new Verlan words. Sometimes it helps with the rhymes or it just sounds more creative and fun to listen to. It probably does in other languages too
I have French friends and they told me that for people who want to learn French, do not learn the verlan, it is completely the opposite of certain words, it is apparently seen as familiar and rude as use
I personally find verlan very rude, I'd never call my girlfriend "ma meuf". Me and my friends only use verlan to mock people who speak use these terms or to show that we're not serious.
It can change based on the world you' re using for exemple "cimer" is use quite a lot and most people won't find it rude, may be too casual based on the situation. On the other hand words like "meuf" can be seen are rude and degrading by some people.
In Argentinian/Uruguayan Spanish verlan it's very common in lunfardo (slang). It's called "vesre" ("revés", meaning "opposite"). They are used a lot in everyday informal language, and in popular music, especially tango. "Ñoba" instead of "baño", "jermu" instead of "mujer", "lompa" instead of "pantalón", etc.
This is used in Chile as well. A "cabro chico" (little kid/boy) becomes a "broca cochi". A fat guy, a "guatón", becomes a "tongua". Your "mujer" (woman/wife) becomes the "jermu". "El que dije" ("the one I told you about", referencing something or someone you don't want to mention by name) becomes "el que te jedi". And so on.
although this video is more than a year old, i just saw it now and i must say you're really exploring a lot of interesting facets about languages, paul. you weren't kidding back when you told me about "the power of focus". Your channel has grown tremendously since its launch, so massive props to you. FWIW, there's another very commonly used slang expression which you seemed to have left out in this video. it's "pecho" which is the slang for "to hook up", so the original expression would be "choper" or "se choper"
This is super interesting because I didn't know that in other countries people have this kind of slangs like in Spanish, it's also interesting that they have a name for their slang. If you try to do a video about slangs in spanish you're crazy, there are a lot and they don't have any classification. I love your channel.
This is why languages like French or English are awesome. Even when there are many efforts to standardize them they just do what ever the hell they want.
Ophélie Nobody said that verlan was a language ? And despite the Académie Française and its aggressive standardisation of french, people will continue to use slang as they do in every other language and that's what makes the beauty of modern languages in my opinion 😊
I've been speaking french (second language) my whole life and I'd never heard of verlan!! I always wondered where the word "meuf" came from!! Great video!
I don't know where you found those words but your imagination is brillint! :) Here is a few list of verlan word we really use around Paris : Merci -> Cimer Louche (weird) -> chelou (young people rarely use louche by the way) Fou (crazy, insane, amazing)-> ouf Lourd (taxing, unbearable) -> Relou (this on is very common for young people) Femme -> meuf (As said in the video) Fête (a party) -> teuf (But it sounds weird even if we use it. French people would normally say "Une soirée" instead) Choper -> Pêcho (But I don't recommand you to use it. It doesn't seem natural so it is mostly used by hick people) Frère (brother) -> reuf (same don’t use it with people that are more than 25). Un flic (policeman) -> keuf (But there is no difference in their meaning as they are both familiar). I think it would take an entire day to describe you all the words we can use to refer to a policeman (un policier) Fait chier (fuck, shit) -> fait ièch Perché (strange, weird) become Chéper (We can notice that the slang for this word sounds way less agressive. We use it between friends). And that's almost all An advice to end with, never try to say "Jourbon" instead of "Bonjour" or talking about the "Trome" instead of the "Metro", this is the best way to spend the most awkward moment of your life ahah May all of you have a good day, hope this will be usefull :)
Interesting. In my province some also say “aps “ for “pas” / “not” and the s which is silent in the formal word is actually pronounced in its verlan version. The most common use would be “trop aps” for “trop pas” which already is the verlanized expression of “pas trop “ as in “not really”. But in verlan “trop aps” means “really not”. This kind of goes against all the sort of rules you managed to get but then again, it’s one example of informal language
This is so much fun, it reminds me of the Danish children activity "bakke snavvendt," which means "snakke bagvendt" (speaking backwards) where you just kind of switch up some syllables or consonant clusters between words, rather than within a word. Could be a fun video to explore that perhaps!
In Bahasa Indonesia we also have a similar thing. It's very prominent in the Malang (Eastern Java) region but as of lately has been starting to imbibe in the common slang. We often say "kuyyy", which is reverse of "yuk", roughly translated as "c'mon". Other example is "woles", reverse of the English's "slow", the pararel of "chill dude" in English. It's called Boso Walikan (Reverse Language). It's really surprising that the same phenomenon happens in other language
Alexis Misselyn Go ça vient de gonzesse, sérieusement ? Je pense que c’est une coïncidence parce que j’ai toujours entendu que ça venait d’une langue d’Afrique dont je ne connais plus le nom. La même langue qui dit « igo » pour garçon.
In Argentina we also have a "verlan" for Spanish that comes from the Lunfardo (Tango and Arrabal slang) when we turn around some words: "jermu" meaning "mujer"; "feca = café"; "troesma = maestro"; you can use it nearly on every word you like, but these are more common. Finally, some turns don´t follow the rule "alvesre"; being the change not complete. For example "lompa = pantalón".
Just a little thing about "relou" and "lourd", "lourd" can also be used in french to talk about a annoying guy making bad jokes or things like that, no need to use the verlan form. But good video anyway
Hi Paul ! The guy says "Va te coucher, le relou !" with the article "le" barely audible : the "relou" is him, not the other guy, he is known (for the speaker) to be (that) "relou". Thanks for your videos !
Indeed! In this case the use of the 3rd person is for a belittling effect. The speaker is implying that the "relou" does not even deserve to be spoken to directly!
Franck Leth 'zdravo' means 'hello'. It's made from 2 syllables zdra-vo. Then you switch the last and first syllable into 'vozdra' Some examples: Seljak- ljakse (villager,hillbilly) The phrase 'sto ima' ( what's up) becomes 'sto ma-i' Etc.
There is also some times where it changes the meaning. For exemple "iencli" coming form the word "client" (customer). Client is used the same way customer is but when you say iencli it means sellout out. Or when I say I am a iencli for apple products it means I'll buy anything they make as long as it has the apple logo
Tagalog(Filipino) also has a backward slang called tadbaliks. It's not a 1 per 1 reversal of words mostly, sometimes its a reversal of syllables and sometimes letters are added but whatever rolls off the tongue as long as the word becomes jumbled in some ways becomes a slang and there are instances that there are 2 or more backward slang for a single word because of that.