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A language game is a concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein at the beginning of his book Philosophical Investigations. A language game is a simple language, combined with a context that shows what to do with the language. One example he gives is a language for building, containing two words, 'slab' and 'brick'. When A says 'slab' to B, B finds a slab and gives it to A; likewise, when A says 'brick' to B, B finds a brick and gives it to A.
In another sense, language games are not technically artificial languages so much as heuristics for altering language, like a code. They are used primarily by groups attempting to conceal their conversations from others, as a form of weak cryptography. Most common examples are: Pig latin, which is used all over the globe; the Gibberish family, prevalent mainly in the USA and Hungaria, and Verlons in France. Each of these "languages games" involves a usually simple standard transformation to speech, thus encoding it. The languages can be easily decoded by a skilled speaker, who swaps or removes the necessary letters or syllables.
A common difficulty with language games is that they are usually passed down orally. While written translations can be made, they are often imperfect, and thus spelling can vary widely. Some factions argue that words in these spoken tongues should simply be written the way they are pronounced, while others insist that the purity of language demands that the transformation remain visible when the words are imparted to paper. Contrary to what proponents of either side may tell you, there is no one definitive written lexicon for language games, but it is rather a matter of dialect.
| Host Language | Game Name | Basic Rules | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dutch | reversed elements & words | mercantile code | |
| English (etc.) | Pig latin | first consonant to end ay | |
| English | bicycle | schwa ess after all consonants | |
| English | Cockney Rhyming Slang | canonical rhyming word pairs; speakers often drop the second word of common pairs | trouble & strife = wife |
| English | eggegg langeggwagegg | apparently, insert "egg" after each syllable | |
| English | gibberish | insert "itherg" before the first vowel in a syllable | Gibberish is also a family of related language games. |
| English | Ubbi dubbi | insert "ub" before the first vowel in a syllable | PBS show Zoom; part of the gibberish family |
| English | yardle bardle | ||
| English | zambuda | ||
| French | Louchebem | inital consonant to end, var. suffixes, prepend "L" | |
| French | Verlan | ||
| German | "lav" inserted after some vowel sounds | ||
| Hungarian | repeat vowel add "v" | Hungarian counterpart of Ubbi dubbi | |
| Italian | Latino Maccheronico | ||
| Japanese | Ba-bi-bu-be-bo | ||
| Mandarin | Fanquie | ||
| Portuguese | Sima | ||
| Portuguese | Linga do Pe | ||
| Russian | Fufajskij yazyk | ||
| Russian | porosyachia latin | ||
| Spanish | "f" added to certain syllables |