Transcript

Elodie Vialleton:

Argot is the French word that refers to slang. It’s a word that first appeared in the French language in the sixteenth century, and in those days it referred to the community of beggars and their way of speaking. Of course, it’s evolved through the ages. One of the main meanings of the language is the type of language that the community of thieves used to speak in the nineteenth century. The reason thieves were using their own language was that they did not want to be understood by the police. So, for them argot was a kind of code.

Interviewer:

Was that the only function of argot ?

Elodie Vialleton:

There aren’t too many functions of argot . First, it’s a type of language that a community is using so as not to be understood by the rest of the population, or it’s a type of language that a community creates to strengthen the feeling of community, so to make the language their own.

Interviewer:

Can you give us a few examples of how the words enter argot ?

Elodie Vialleton:

There are two main ways words enter argot , at least in the French language. The first one is new words or borrowed words. An example of a new word that was formed by a community is the verb cambrioler , ‘to burgle’. That was a fully new created word used by thieves who did not want to be understood by the police.

A second way new words can enter argot is borrowed words. So, particular communities might bring in words from other languages into French argot , especially nowadays the argot spoken in the outskirts of Paris incorporates a lot of Arabic words because the population in that area that speaks that type of language is mainly from Arabic origin.

An example of that would be the word casbah, which is Arabic for ‘house’ [citadel] and which is used instead of maison in French. Or the word maboul also an Arabic word meaning ‘mad’ and that is commonly used to refer to mad people instead of fou in French. That’s an interesting one because it’s become a colloquial word in French that is used by a lot of people.

Another way words are created and become argot is by modifying existing words. So, one very, very well-known example of that is le verlan , which is words used back to front [backslang]. Le verlan means envers in French, it’s back to front, and envers means ‘back to front’. There are many examples of that, for example, le féca , which means le café [coffee], or le tromé , which mean le métro [the underground].

Words can also be modified by adding suffixes to them. So, for example, the suffix -ard produces lots of words in argot . One example is the word costume , which means a suit, becoming un costard in argot and then now used in colloquial French. Another example is -oche . La cantine [canteen] becomes la cantoche . Or –os: le matériel [equipment/material(s)/gear] becomes le matos . Somebody who likes music is called a musiquos .

Many words get shortened in argot , so, for example, un problème becomes un blème , un sandwich becomes un dwich , la prison becomes la zon .

What’s also interesting is that some words get created that have gone through more than one of those processes, so, for example, le métro , ‘the underground’, has become le tromé by being used back to front, and then it’s been shortened to le trome , so le trome is le métro .

Interviewer:

What are the attitudes of society towards argot ? Has it changed over time?

Elodie Vialleton:

I think people’s attitudes to argot has changed. Initially argot was mainly spoken by sections of the communities that were not well regarded in society. Also, because a lot of argot was created to talk about subjects or notions that were taboo such as talking about sex, talking about drugs, talking about money, which is a topic that people don’t like using in conversations very much in France, many of the words were considered rude and not words that the mainstream population would want to use ever. However, because that language featured in some works of literature, for example, it became more popular. One typical example is the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, which actually had an entire section dedicated to l’argot , and it also had a character, Gavroche, who spoke that type of language. That made it more popular and that meant that more people wanted to either identify with that use of the language or wanted to borrow from that language, and that is how it started the process of words and structures in argot becoming part of the mainstream language, and that became more and more popular, and there are now numerous words, which initially were argot words, which are now part of the common language and that you would find in any French dictionary.

Interviewer:

Is argot still evolving these days?

Elodie Vialleton:

Argot is still evolving today. One main source of new argot words is the suburbs of big cities, such as Paris and Marseille. There are places where deprived members of the population live and they create a new type of language to appropriate the French language, to make it their own and they certainly consider themselves as a different … as a community within society, and so using common words and common expressions is a way of forging a new identity.

Interviewer:

Does it change very fast?

Elodie Vialleton:

It can change quite fast because as soon as a word becomes mainstream then the community within which it was initially created stops using it because it’s lost its purpose as defining you as a different community. So, it keeps evolving. Some words become mainstream, and some new words are created.