View source for Nadsat

{{short description|Fictional language in the novel "A Clockwork Orange"}}
{{Infobox language
| name = Nadsat
| familycolor =
| fam1 = [[Constructed language]]s
| fam2 = Artistic languages
| fam3 = Fictional languages
| creator = Anthony Burgess
| created = 1962
| setting = ''A Clockwork Orange'' (novel and film)
| script = Latin script
| iso3 = none
| glotto = none
|ietf = [https://www.kreativekorp.com/clcr/ art-x-nadsat]
}}

'''Nadsat''' is a fictional [[Social:Register (sociolinguistics)|register]] or [[Social:Argot|argot]] used by the teenage gang members in Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel ''A Clockwork Orange''. Burgess was a [[Social:Linguistics|linguist]] and he used this background to depict his characters as speaking a form of [[Social:Russian language|Russian]]-influenced English.<ref>Anthony Burgess, ''Language Made Plain'' and ''A Mouthful of Air''.</ref> The name comes from the [[Social:Russian language|Russian]] suffix equivalent of ''-teen'' as in ''thirteen'' ({{Lang|ru|-надцать}}, {{Lang|ru-latn|-nad·tsat}}). Nadsat was also used in Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of the book.

{{Quote box|width=30%|align=right|quote=<div style="text-align:left;">
"Quaint," said Dr. Brodsky, like smiling, "the dialect of the tribe. Do you know anything of its provenance, Branom?" "Odd bits of old rhyming slang," said Dr. Branom&nbsp;... "A bit of [[Social:Romani language|gipsy talk]], too. But most of the roots are [[Social:Slavic languages|Slav]]. [[Social:Propaganda|Propaganda]]. Subliminal penetration."</div>|source=Drs. Brodsky and Branom, ''A Clockwork Orange'', page 114.}}

== Description ==
Nadsat is a mode of speech used by the ''nadsat'', members of the teen subculture in the novel ''A Clockwork Orange''. The narrator and protagonist of the book, Alex, uses it in first-person style to relate the story to the reader. He also uses it to communicate with other characters in the novel, such as his ''<abbr title="close friends">droogs</abbr>'', 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 of [[Social:Vernacular|vernacular]] speech.

Nadsat is English with some borrowed words from [[Social:Russian language|Russian]]. It also contains influences from Cockney rhyming slang, the King James Bible, German, some words of unclear origin and some that Burgess invented. The word ''nadsat'' is the suffix of Russian numerals from 11 to 19 ({{Lang|ru|-надцать}}). The suffix is an almost exact linguistic parallel to the English ''-teen'' and is derived from {{lang|ru|на}}, meaning 'on' and a shortened form of {{lang|ru|десять}}, the number ten. ''Droog'' is derived from the Welsh word {{lang|cy|drwg}}, meaning 'bad', 'naughty' or 'evil' and the Russian word {{lang|ru|друг}}, meaning a 'close friend'.<ref>Eric Partridge, ''et al.'', ''The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English''; Wiktionary друг (Russian)</ref> Some of the words are almost childish plays on English words, such as {{lang|mis|eggiweg}} ('egg') and {{lang|mis|appy polly loggy}} ('apology'), as well as regular English slang ''sod'' and ''snuff it''. The word ''like'' and the expression ''the old'' are often used as [[Social:Filler (linguistics)|fillers]] or discourse markers.

The original 1991 translation of Burgess's book into Russian solved the problem of how to illustrate the Nadsat words by using transliterated, slang English words in places where Burgess had used Russian ones{{spnd}}for example, ''droogs'' became {{lang|ru|фрэнды}} ({{transliteration|ru|frendy}}). Borrowed English words with Russian inflection were widely used in Russian slang, especially among Russian hippies in the 1970s–1980s. <!-- Since the 1990s anglicisms in Russian have been common particularly regarding computers and programming. --><!--Future translations would simply use the original untranslated Nadsat terms.-->

== Function ==
Burgess was a polyglot who loved language in all its forms.<ref>"[He] loved to scatter polyglot obscurities like potholes throughout his more than 50 novels and dozens of nonfiction works. He could leap gaily from Welsh to French to Malay to Yiddish in one breath." Henry Kisor, ''Chicago Sun-Times'' 24 August 1997.</ref> 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."<ref>Anthony Burgess, 'Teenspeech', in Anthony Burgess, ''Homage to Qwert Yuiop'' London (Century Hutchinson) 1986, page 180.</ref> 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. In ''A Clockwork Orange'', Alex's interrogators describe the source of his [[Social:Argot|argot]] as "[[Biology:Subliminal stimuli|subliminal]] penetration".

== Russian influences ==
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.<ref name="textual intricacies">{{cite book |last=Oks |first=Marina |title=Textual intricacies: essays on structure and intertextuality in nineteenth and twentieth century fiction in English |year=2009 |publisher=Trier: Wiss. Verl. Trier |pages=37–56 |author2=Christiane Bimberg |chapter=The Rebus of "Nadsat," or, A Key To A Clockwork Orange }}</ref> One example is the Russian word {{lang|ru-latn|lyudi}}, which is anglicized to {{lang|mis|lewdies}}, meaning 'people'.<ref name="real horrorshow">{{cite journal |last=Jackson |first=Kevin |title=Real Horrorshow: A Short Lexicon Of Nadsat |journal=Sight and Sound |year=1999 |issue=9 |pages=24–27 }}</ref> Another Russian word is {{lang|ru-latn|bábushka}} which is anglicized to {{lang|mis|baboochka}}, meaning 'grandmother', 'old woman'.<ref name="real horrorshow"/> Some of the anglicised words are truncated, for example {{lang|mis|pony}} from {{lang|ru-latn|ponimát’}}, 'to understand', or otherwise shortened, for example {{lang|mis|veck}} from {{lang|ru-latn|čelovék}}, 'person, man' (though the anglicized word {{not a typo|chelloveck}} is also used in the book).

A further means of constructing Nadsat words is the employment of homophones (known as [[Social:Folk etymology|folk etymology]]). For example, one Nadsat term which may seem like an English composition, {{lang|mis|horrorshow}}, actually stems from the Russian word for 'good'; {{lang|ru-latn|khorosho}}, which sounds similar to {{lang|mis|horrorshow}}.<ref name="real horrorshow"/><ref name="argot implications">{{cite journal |last=Evans |first=Robert O. |title=Nadsat: The Argot and its Implications in Anthony Burgess' 'A Clockwork Orange' |journal=Journal of Modern Literature |year=1971 |issue=1 |pages=406–410 }}</ref> In this same manner many of the Russian loan-words become an English–Russian hybrid, with Russian origins, and English spellings and pronunciations.<ref name="understanding Nadsat talk">{{cite book|last=Watts|first=Selnon|title=Understanding Nadsat Talk in Anthony Burgess' a Clockwork Orange |year=2007 }}</ref> A further example is the Russian word for 'head', {{lang|ru-latn|golová}}, which sounds similar to ''Gulliver'' known from ''Gulliver’s Travels''; {{lang|mis|Gulliver}} became the Nadsat expression for the concept 'head'.<ref name="real horrorshow"/><ref name="argot implications"/>

Many of Burgess's loanwords, such as {{lang|mis|devotchka}} ('girl') and {{lang|mis|droog}} ('friend') maintain both their relative spelling and meaning over the course of translation.<ref name="understanding Nadsat talk"/>

== Other influences ==
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 name Aladdin.

== Word derivation by common techniques ==
Nadsat's English slang is constructed with common language-formation techniques. Some words are blended, others clipped or compounded.<ref name="textual intricacies"/> In Nadsat language a 'fit of laughter' becomes a {{lang|mis|guff}} (shortened version of ''guffawing''); a 'skeleton key' becomes a {{lang|mis|polyclef}} ('many keys'); and the 'state jail' is blended to the {{lang|mis|staja}}, which has the [[Double entendre|double entendre]] {{lang|mis|stager}}, 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.  A ''cancer stick'', which is (or was) a common English-slang expression for a cigarette, is shortened to a {{lang|mis|cancer}}.<ref name="understanding Nadsat talk"/>

== Rhyming slang ==
This feature of Nadsat is derived from Cockney.
; {{lang|mis|Cutter}} = 'money': {{lang|mis|Cutter}} rhymes with ''bread and butter'', a wilful alteration of ''bread and honey'' 'money'.<ref name="textual intricacies"/><ref name="argot implications"/>
; {{lang|mis|Hound-and-horny}} = 'corny'
The language was also used in the film made by Kubrick.

== See also ==
* Runglish
* [[Social:Newspeak|Newspeak]]
* Verlan
* Polari
* List of nadsat words
* List of fictional languages

==References==
{{Reflist|40em}}

== General bibliography ==
* Aggeler, Geoffrey. "Pelagius and Augustine in the novels of Anthony Burgess". ''English Studies'' '''55''' (1974): 43–55. {{doi|10.1080/00138387408597602}}.
* Burgess, Anthony (1990). ''You've Had Your Time: Being the Second Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess''. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. {{ISBN|978-0-8021-1405-1}}. {{oclc|806307724}}.
* Gladsky, Rita K. "Schema Theory and Literary Texts: Anthony Burgess' ''Nadsat''{{-"}}. ''Language Quarterly'' '''30''':1–2 (Winter–Spring 1992): 39–46.
* {{cite journal |last1=Saragi |first1=T. |last2=Nation |first2=I. S. Paul |last3=Meister |first3=G. F. |title=Vocabulary Learning and Reading |journal=System |volume=6 |year=1978 |issue=2 |pages=72–78 |doi=10.1016/0346-251X(78)90027-1 }}

==External links==

{{Constructed languages}}

[[Category:Constructed languages]]

{{Sourceattribution|Nadsat}}