Verlan

Verlan (French pronunciation: ​[vɛʁlɑ̃]) is an argot in the French language, featuring inversion of syllables in a word, and is common in slang and youth language. It rests on a long French tradition of transposing syllables of individual words to create slang words. The name verlan is an example: it is derived from inverting the sounds of the syllables in l'envers ([lɑ̃vɛʁ], "the inverse", frequently used in the sense of "back-to-front").

General characteristics and structure

Word formation

Words in verlan are formed by switching the order in which syllables from the original word are pronounced. For example, français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] becomes cèfran [sɛfʁɑ̃].

Verlan generally retains the pronunciation of the original syllables. In particular, French words that end in a ⟨e⟩ muet (such as femme) and words that end in a pronounced consonant and which usually have an ⟨e⟩ muet added at the end (such as flic) retain the sound of the ⟨e⟩ muet in verlan. In addition, verlan often drops the final vowel sound after the word is inverted, so femme and flic become meuf and keuf, respectively.