| Nadsat | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Anthony Burgess |
| Date | 1962 |
| Setting and usage | A Clockwork Orange (novel and film) |
| Purpose | |
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | None |
| IETF | art-x-nadsat |
Nadsat is a fictionalregister orargot used by the teenage gang members inAnthony Burgess's dystopian novelA Clockwork Orange. Burgess was alinguist and he used this background to depict his characters as speaking a form ofRussian-influencedEnglish.[1] The name comes from theRussian suffix equivalent of-teen as inthirteen (-надцать,-nad·tsat). Nadsat was also used inStanley Kubrick'sfilm adaptation of the book.
"Quaint," said Dr. Brodsky, like smiling, "the dialect of the tribe. Do you know anything of its provenance, Branom?" "Odd bits ofold rhyming slang," said Dr. Branom ... "A bit ofgipsy talk, too. But most of the roots areSlav.Propaganda. Subliminal penetration."
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Nadsat is a mode of speech used by thenadsat, members of theteen subculture in the novelA Clockwork Orange. The narrator and protagonist of the book,Alex, uses it infirst-person style to relate the story to the reader. He also uses it to communicate with other characters in the novel, such as hisdroogs, parents, victims and any authority-figures with whom he comes in contact. As with many speakers of non-standard varieties of English, Alex is capable of speaking standard English when he wants to. It is not a written language: the sense that readers get is of a transcription ofvernacular speech.
Nadsat is English with some borrowed words fromRussian. It also contains influences fromCockney rhyming slang, theKing James Bible, German, some words of unclear origin and some that Burgess invented. The wordnadsat is the suffix of Russian numerals from 11 to 19 (-надцать). The suffix is an almost exact linguistic parallel to the English-teen and is derived fromна, meaning 'on' and a shortened form ofдесять, the number ten.Droog is derived from the Welsh worddrwg, meaning 'bad', 'naughty' or 'evil' and the Russian wordдруг, meaning a 'close friend'.[2] Some of the words are almost childish plays on English words, such aseggiweg ('egg') andappy polly loggy ('apology'), as well as regular English slangsod andsnuff it. The wordlike and the expressionthe old are often used asfillers ordiscourse markers.
The original 1991 translation of Burgess's book into Russian solved the problem of how to illustrate the Nadsat words by usingtransliterated, slang English words in places where Burgess had used Russian ones – for example,droogs becameфрэнды (frendy). Borrowed English words with Russian inflection were widely used in Russian slang, especially among Russianhippies in the 1970s–1980s.
Burgess was apolyglot who loved language in all its forms.[3] However, he realized that if he used contemporary slang, the novel would very quickly become dated, owing to the way in which teenage language is constantly changing. He was therefore forced to invent his own vocabulary, and to set the book in an imaginary future. Burgess was later to point out that, ironically, some of the Nadsat words in the book had been appropriated by American teenagers, "and thus shoved [his] future into the discardable past."[4] His use of Nadsat was pragmatic; he needed his narrator to have a unique voice that would remain ageless, while reinforcing Alex's indifference to his society's norms, and to suggest that youth subculture was independent from the rest of society. InA Clockwork Orange, Alex's interrogators describe the source of hisargot as "subliminal penetration".
Russian influences play the biggest role in Nadsat. Most of those Russian-influenced words are slightly anglicized loan-words, often maintaining the original Russian pronunciation.[5] One example is the Russian wordlyudi, which is anglicized tolewdies, meaning 'people'.[6] Another Russian word isbábushka which is anglicized tobaboochka, meaning 'grandmother', 'old woman'.[6] Some of the anglicised words are truncated, for examplepony fromponimát’, 'to understand', or otherwise shortened, for exampleveck fromčelovék, 'person, man' (though the anglicized word chelloveck is also used in the book).
A further means of constructing Nadsat words is the employment of homophones (known asfolk etymology). For example, one Nadsat term which may seem like an English composition,horrorshow, actually stems from the Russian word for 'good';khorosho, which sounds similar tohorrorshow.[6][7] In this same manner many of the Russian loan-words become an English–Russian hybrid, with Russian origins, and English spellings and pronunciations.[8] A further example is the Russian word for 'head',golová, which sounds similar toGulliver known fromGulliver's Travels;Gulliver became the Nadsat expression for the concept 'head'.[6][7]
Many of Burgess's loan-words, such asdevotchka ('girl') anddroog ('friend'), maintain both their relative spelling and meaning over the course of translation.[8]
Additional words were borrowed from other languages: A (possibly Saudi-owned) hotel was named 'Al Idayyin, an Arabic-sounding variant on "Holiday Inn" Hotel chain, while also alluding to the nameAladdin.
Nadsat's English slang is constructed with common language-formation techniques. Some words are blended, others clipped or compounded.[5] In Nadsat language a 'fit of laughter' becomes aguff (shortened version ofguffawing); a 'skeleton key' becomes apolyclef ('many keys'); and the 'state jail' is blended to thestaja, which has thedouble entendrestager, so that its prisoners got there by a staged act of corruption, as revenge by the state, an interpretation that would fit smoothly into the storyline. Many common English slang terms are simply shortened. Acancer stick, which is (or was) a common English-slang expression for a cigarette, is shortened to acancer.[8]
This feature of Nadsat is derived fromCockney.
The language was also used in the film made by Kubrick.
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