5/17/2020 Nadsat - Wikipedia

Nadsat
Nadsat is a fictional register or argot used by the teenage gang
members in Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel A Clockwork Nadsat
Orange. In addition to being a novelist, Burgess was a linguist[1] and Created by Anthony
he used this background to depict his characters as speaking a form Burgess
of Russian-influenced English. The name itself comes from the Setting and usage A Clockwork
Russian suffix equivalent of "-teen" as in "thirteen" (-надцать, - Orange (novel
nad·tsat'). Nadsat was also used in Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation and film)
of the book. Purpose Constructed
languages
Artistic
Contents languages
Fictional
Description languages
Function Nadsat
Russian influences Writing system Latin script
Other influences Language codes
Word derivation by common techniques ISO 639-3 –
Rhyming slang
See also "Quaint," said Dr. Brodsky, like
smiling, "the dialect of the tribe.
References Do you know anything of its
provenance, Branom?" "Odd
Bibliography bits of old rhyming slang," said
External links Dr. Branom ... "A bit of gipsy
talk, too. But most of the roots
are Slav. Propaganda.
Subliminal penetration."
Description
Drs. Brodsky and Branom,
Nadsat is a mode of speech used by the nadsat, members of the teen A Clockwork Orange, page
subculture in the novel A Clockwork Orange. The narrator and 114.
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 droogs, 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 vernacular speech.

Nadsat is basically English with some borrowed words from Russian. It also contains influences from
Cockney rhyming slang, the King James Bible, the German language, some words of unclear origin, and
some that Burgess invented. The word nadsat 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 from "на", meaning
"on" and a shortened form of "десять", the number ten. "Droog" is Russian друг "close friend".[2] Some

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of the words are almost childish plays on English words, such as eggiweg ("egg") and 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 fillers or discourse markers.

The original 1991 translation of Burgess' 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 (i.e. "droogs" became "фрэнды" (frendy). However, this solution was imperfect as it lacked the
original abstractness. 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, a polyglot who loved language in all its forms, was aware that linguistic slang was of a
constantly changing nature.[3] Burgess knew that if he used modes of speech that were contemporarily in
use, the novel would very quickly become dated. His use of Nadsat was essentially 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 existed independently of the rest of society. In A
Clockwork Orange, Alex's interrogators describe the source of his argot as "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.[4] One example is the
Russian word Lyudi, which is anglicized to lewdies, meaning "people".[5] Another Russian word is
Bábushka which is anglicized to baboochka, meaning "grandmother", "old woman".[5] Some of the
anglicised words are truncated, for example "pony" from ponimát’, "to understand", or otherwise
shortened, for example "veck" from čelovék, "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 as folk
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 to horrorshow.[5][6] In
this same manner many of the Russian loan-words become an English–Russian hybrid, with Russian
origins, but English spellings and pronunciations.[7] A further example is the Russian word for "head",
golová, which sounds similar to Gulliver known from Gulliver’s Travels. Consequently Gulliver becomes
the Nadsat expression for the concept "head".[5][6]

However, many of Burgess' loan-words, such as devotchka ("girl") and droog ("friend") maintain both
their relative spelling and meaning over the course of translation.[7]

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.

Word derivation by common techniques

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In addition, Nadsat's English slang is constructed with common language-formation techniques. Some
words are blended, others clipped or compounded.[4] In Nadsat-language a "fit of laughter" becomes a
guff (shortened version of guffawing); a "skeleton key" becomes a polyclef ("many keys"); and the "state
jail" is blended to the staja. 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 cancer.[7]

Rhyming slang
Charlie = "Chaplain" 
Chaplain and Chaplin (from Charlie Chaplin) are homophones. Using the principles of rhyming
slang Burgess uses Charlie Chaplin as a synonym for "Chaplain" and shortens it to Charlie.[8]
Cutter = "money"
[4][6] Cutter rhymes with bread and butter, a willful alteration of bread and honey "money".
Pretty polly = "money" 
Another colloquial expression used to describe the concept "money" is lolly. Lolly rhymes with
pretty polly, which is the name of an English folk song and in the world of A Clockwork Orange
becomes a new expression for "money".[8]
Hound-and-horny = "corny"
Twenty to one = fun, i.e. gang violence in the context of the story

See also
A Clockwork Orange (film)
Runglish
Newspeak
Verlan
List of nadsat words
List of fictional languages

References
1. Anthony Burgess, Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air.
2. Eric Partridge, et al., The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English; Wiktionary
друг (Russian)
3. "Yes, [Anthony] Burgess 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.
4. Oks, Marina; Christiane Bimberg (2009). "The Rebus of "Nadsat," or, A Key To A Clockwork
Orange". Textual intricacies: essays on structure and intertextuality in nineteenth and twentieth
century fiction in English. Trier: Wiss. Verl. Trier. pp. 37–56.
5. Jackson, Kevin (1999). "Real Horrorshow: A Short Lexicon Of Nadsat". Sight and Sound (9): 24–27.
6. Evans, Robert O. (1971). "Nadsat: The Argot and its Implications in Anthony Burgess' 'A Clockwork
Orange' ". Journal of Modern Literature (1): 406–410.
7. Watts, Selnon (2007). Understanding Nadsat Talk in Anthony Burgess' a Clockwork Orange.
8. Arnott, Luke (2009). The Slang of A Clockwork Orange (https://suite.io/luke-arnott/1wsx20r).
Retrieved 24 June 2015.

Bibliography
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5/17/2020 Nadsat - Wikipedia

Aggeler, Geoffrey. "Pelagius and Augustine in the novels of Anthony Burgess". English Studies 55
(1974): 43–55.
Gladsky, Rita K. "Schema Theory and Literary Texts: Anthony Burgess' Nadsat". Language Quarterly
(http://www.periodicals.com/html/ihp_e.html?el54143) 30 (1992): 39–46.
Saragi, T.; Nation, I.S. Paul; Meister, G.F. (1978), "Vocabulary learning and reading", System, 6 (2):
72–78, doi:10.1016/0346-251X(78)90027-1 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2F0346-251X%2878%2990027
-1)
Burgess, Anthony (1990). You've Had Your Time. NY: Grove Weidenfeld.

External links
Nadsat Dictionary (http://soomka.com/nadsat.html) Hyman, Stanley Edgar. July, 1963. Published
with A Clockwork Orange

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nadsat&oldid=946831417"

This page was last edited on 22 March 2020, at 17:54 (UTC).

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