Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Verlan, l'envers

2012; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1787/9789264123557-14-en

2076-9660

Sarah Fuchs,

Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies

This chapter explores the social and cultural implications of the contemporary use of verlan. Verlan is the language game which inverts the syllables of words in order to encode the French language. Not just a game, verlan usage pervades everyday language, music, and culture of the beur population, the children of immigrants from North Africa, who live in the suburbs of cities such as Paris and Marseilles, France. The author finds verlan to be inextricably linked to modern French language and culture, as it reflects of the mixed identity of those who most often use it: not quite French, but not entirely magrebin (North African) either. Rather than subverting it, the culture with which verlan is most closely associated enriches French culture, just as verlan adds nuance and complexity to the French language.