Language Games

Language games are more commonly found amongst teenagers who do not want others to understand their conversations. Language games involve transforming speech in such a manner that only the intended can understand what is being said. Normal speech, or normally used languages are transformed to create new versions which keep the conversations private. This version can also be translated into written forms. Some feel that writing the coded language as it is spoken is how it should be done, while another section feels that it should be written in the pure form.

Language games are pretty prevalent amongst children who use this in their daily language, mainly for privacy. The usage of the game popularly has made some secret languages understandable by commoners as well, thus their privacy has been lost. Pig Latin is one of such language, some others are Gibberish and Verlan.

These games can be segregated in two ways, on basis of the language used and on basis of their function. To simplify this, the games that use English will form one group eg: Pig Latin and Tutnese. The other way to classify is on the basis of the way the coding works. Some languages add vowels while coding before each vowel, others add a consonant. These games have increasingly become popular and almost every language has a game associated with it.

Creating a language game of your own can be an extremely fun activity, especially if you have friends who share your enthusiasm. Understanding the nuances of the language you wish to transform is a good start. Another great way to get a good start is to go through some of the existing games, and using some the rules involved in them, but with a twist, in your own game. Transformation rules can be constantly upgraded depending on your inclination and need.

Some common games are, S-language, where every initial consonant is replaced with an ‘s', Elephant, where ‘eleph' and ‘elef' are inserted before every vowel sound, Gibberish, where ‘itug' or ‘idig' are inserted after the first consonant in every syllable, Jargon, where each vowel is replaced with a specific word, like ‘a' is replaced by ‘adaga', ‘o' by ‘odogo' and so on. Imagination and a sense of humor will make the task much easier, and definitely more fun.
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