Talk:Verlan

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"Versin" ?!?[edit]

The equivalent of Verlan in English would be Pig Latin, not "Versin", although it would be a way to translate it.

--216.143.120.131 14:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not expert on the topic, but I agree with this user. Isn't the examples of "versin" taking it a bit too far (and a bit too original for wikipedia?)--Pyg 07:35, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other topics[edit]

I think it's a mistake to say that "morphology in French is less strict" than English; I beleive, although I've only taken a few Romance and English Morphology classes, that it is actually the opposite; that is why the everyday French person can understand about as much Old French as an English speaker can Middle (but never Old) English... But a morphologist should certainly verify this--that could be a pretty big faux pas! (posted Jan 2006)

"Survival" English is the easiest language to learn (since there are no genres and conjugation is very simple, but it is a somewhat illogical language and therefore its "morphology" is just as complex as that of French. --216.143.120.131 14:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

inverse language!
it's jolly fun
it's addictive
like placing all the accents at the end of your words
ZapiekinKe likUu mistuRr KloezauWwa

s'ti ysae, enoyreve nac od ti!
tub ym niarb t'now epoc
ti t'nsah tog ghuone MAR ni ym metsys
won I evah a ehcadaeh, wao!

Removed: "a Frenchman might spell it 'Verlons'."

I've never seen this spelling used in French - in any case it is not logical as "Verlan" is a better phonetic spelling. To check, a search on www.google.fr shows up over 3000 mostly relevant pages for "Verlan" and no relevant pages for "Verlons". Enchanter

I agree. Never seen "verlons" anywhere FiP 12:00, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"tromé - metro (possibly the most widely-used example. originally pronounced "tromeh", it became shortened when accepted into common usage)"

Hmmm how do you pronounce tromeh ? Ericd 17:13 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

"tromay" may be closest to "tromé"(in french) FiP Как вы думаете? 10:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree, not the most widely-used example, not used at all in my area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.51.235 (talk) 14:45, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There should be a french version of this page. I would translate, but i don't know french very well. —Noldoaran (Talk) 01:45, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

there is. Ironically, i find the english version better ^^. as of today, the french version seems to be only a list of examples. FiP 12:00, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In Enlgish, is this what would be called butchers'-backslang?

My mother language is French. I never saw "à oilpé" before but I have seen "à loilpé" which would be an instance of another kind of French slang, viz. largonji, where the consonant l replaces the initial consonant cluster, and the latter, followed by an arbitrary syllable, is placed at the end of the word. For instance, largonji = jargon, à loilpé = à poil (naked), louchébème = boucher (butcher), etc. Which "arbitrary syllable" is placed at the end depends of context ("dialect" if you will), e.g., -èm in butchers' slang. -- Tonymec 03:49, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"à oilpé" is definitely correct. But I usually say "à oilp". Using "à oilpé" is almost "old school" for verlan, like saying "teufé" for "fête" (party). We now say teuf. Gobelet 22:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Examples; original research, POV, etc[edit]

It appears to me that the section titled "More examples of verlan" does not belong here, for a number of reasons. Most importantly, Wikipedia is not a dictionary; the collection of words is also potentially original research, and the numbering indicating how common they are most certainly is. In the meantime, until I see whether anyone cares about this article, I'm removing the worst non-NPOV statements from the list, but I'd rather see it gone, along with the list of phrases.

The rest of the article occasionally suffers from similar problems. I might take some steps towards improving it eventually. EldKatt (Talk) 19:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]


After some deliberation, I decided to remove both of these sections entirely. Trying to clean them up seems unnecessary, considering that the policy breach is obvious enough for objections to be unlikely. EldKatt (Talk) 19:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think you need to look beyond your constrained view of how an encyclopedia can function. Your zealousness is misplaced; the examples serve to increase a reader's understanding of how verlan functions. Wikipedia entries are often pure description (sometimes well-done, at that) without any grounding in real-world examples. Examples serve a purpose. They are not frivolous, nor superfluous.

connect to lunfardo or cant languages categories[edit]

hi, i think that this page should be added to the category in which lunfardo (basically the argentian/italian form of this) is.


i've added two other ways to say "comme ça" in verlan which are very used, as much as "kom ass". Moreover, there's a kind of "mistake" in the "other examples". It's said "Beur -> Rebeu". But the thing is that Beur is already the verlan for Arabe (Arab) and Rebeu is the verlan for the verlan Beur... It's a bit hard to explain. But you can trust me, I'm French and I use verlan everyday. What should we do with that example ? We could also talk about the English words that are commonly used in French and which are also transformed in verlan. For example: "bitch" is "tcheubi" or "tcheub"; "shit" is "teushi" and so on... That could give some ideas about the Verlan to English speakers who cannot understand it.

Skylie 16:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I always thought "beur" came from Afrikaans "Boer"... doubt we'll find any documentary evidence either way, though.

- That's unlikely. The few French people who knows of the "Boer" word almost never use it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.229.182.176 (talk) 17:27, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The grammar part is inaccurate[edit]

"There is no such thing as a verlan grammar so most of the time verbs are used in the infinitive, past participle or progressive form."

-I think this needs rethinking, because of the example used, which consists of 'être en train de +infinitive' and is then compared to a very different original sentence.

e.g. 'J'étais en train de choper une bombe' = J'étais en train de pécho..' but 'Je chopais' does not work Ok maybe this is just unclear and I'm confusing myself here. Can someone maybe clear it up a bit? cba

J'étais en train de pécho une bombe but not je pécho[ais] or je p[ais]cho ("I was hitting on a hot chick")

Metathesis?[edit]

Is Verlan considered an example of Metathesis (linguistics)? Dr spork 04:02, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

parisian slang[edit]

some of the examples here are parisian slang and are not widely used in other parts of france, however the influence of parisian slang over other cities has helped its dissemination examples such as garo, tromé, la-cui/la-celle are typically parisian


Add+Delete[edit]

i added and deletted (comment) some examples

--Grosronan on fr.wikipedia.org


"See Also"[edit]

The See Also list is very long; I think we should consider removing some of the links. Any suggestions as to how we should decide on which to get rid of? --Politizer (talk) 00:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Significance of Verlan Words in modern culture[edit]

In the spirit of Being Bold, I added two paragraphs to the 'Vocabulary' section, which I thought could be an interesting extension of what was being said. These paragraphs include the text found from "Some verlan words,..." to "... and a social position", in which I explain that some verlan words can take on an extra significance (or a different one) compared to the original word they were formed from, using the examples of meuf and beur/rebeu that were introduced before.

Feel free to edit what I put, or even move / delete it, should it turn out the be insignificant in the place I put it. I thought it was worth mentioning. For example, it could also be relevant in the Cultural Significance section.

85.168.78.28 (talk) 15:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your contribution; it's definitely something that's worth mentioning. Wikipedia does, however, have an original research policy, which states that we shouldn't add content unless the ideas have been published elsewhere and we can support them with a reliable source (i.e., we can't add our own analysis). Do you have any articles that might be able to support the claims you added? rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:06, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately no, I don't. I wrote this based on my own experience with the language, since I speak fluent French and live in Paris, so I didn't use any material to support it. I'll try to look around, see if I can find something.
EDIT: A Google search allowed me to come up with the following link, a short essay by Yvette Ellis of the University of Sunderland on contemporary French language. It mentions part of what I said in the Verlan section, even though it doesn't fully support it either. I'm afraid this is the best I can do though: http://www.well.ac.uk/cfol/argot.asp#verlan

85.168.78.28 (talk) 12:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is "darons" verlan?[edit]

Parents (parents) → darons

How is this verlan? Surely verlan for "parents" would be something like "rampa"? — 217.46.147.13 (talk) 14:45, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]


This is not. The verlan for "parents" is "ramps".
Daron meant "fortress" in the 13th century, then "master" in the 17th, and later "old man".
It currently means "father". "Mother" is daronne.
81.80.98.47 (talk) 02:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Never heard of "ramps" in my life, but I've found "J'habite chez mes ramps" on the Internet. Where is it used? As very often, verlan differs from region to region. Are you sure it means "old man", It's more like "boss" in my opinion.

In non slang, it means "boss, master", in slang, it means "dad". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.51.235 (talk) 14:39, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

..."Person With Down Syndrome"?[edit]

I have a difficult time believing that "Mongolien" means "Person with Down Syndrome" rather than "Person from Mongolia." If I'm wrong please feel free to correct me, but its a rather weird thing for an english article to have that phrase undefined, due to the obvious confusion. However, I could find no sources to back up the claim made in the article itself. 74.132.249.206 (talk) 18:36, 28 August 2011 (UTC) See the following links:[reply]

These all include uses of the term in this sense, which is enough to suggest to me that that usage is out there. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:14, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If this can help :
Mongolien = Person with Down Syndrome
Mongol = Person from Mongolia
Skull33 (talk) 07:50, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
>Mongolien is a very perjorative term, used for a dumb person in slang, or a person with the Down Syndrom (but very pejoratively), it was used because the
>persons who suffer from this disease have slanting eyes, like asian people for instance in Mongolia. Someone from Mongolia (Mongolie) is a Mongole, 
>someone who have this disease is sometimes called (but shouldn't be called) un mongolien, or un mongole (BOTH).

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== Pronunciation/spelling ==

I don't speak French but wouldn't céfran be pronounced [sefʁɑ̃], and not [sɛfʁɑ̃]? Shouldn't it be spelt cèfran?

Edit. Actually Wiktionary gives the spelling céfran but with pronunciation [sefʁɑ̃]. So probably only the pronunciation is wrong? If someone knows something about it, please edit the article.


- Most of the time it is [sefʁɑ̃] ("céfran" in French) but some says [sɛfʁɑ̃].

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:39, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology: About the name[edit]

Reversing "L'envers" make "verlan" (phonetically)

L'envers means the reverse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.51.235 (talk) 14:34, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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