Mur-diddlyurdler!
Li8 Structure of English
Language games and microvariation
Today’s topics

What are language games?
uses
 types


What games can show us about
linguistic structure and cognition
What are language games?
Also called ludlings, secret languages, language
disguises, play languages…
 not technically separate languages
 rather, they consist of 1-2 simple phonological
rules appended to the grammar of an existing
language


they normally manipulate phonological elements
such as phonemes and syllables
Uses of language games


Artificial language games
Natural language games
 For fun (“language games”)
 To deceive others (“language disguises”, “secret languages”)
 To imitate groups or languages:
I just got Krusty's
mother's recipe for
matzoh brie!
I don't do the Jewish
stuff on the air! Ixnay on
the Oojay!
From the talk show Cooking with Krusty in the Simpsons
episode Ustykray the Ownklay, The Front
Some other English games




Cockney rhyming slang
Ubbi Dubbi/Ob/Oppen Gloppen/Pig Greek
 Tubo bube ubor nubot tubo bube
The Name Game
Pig Elvish
 Ovemë heten irstfë étterlé óten héten ndëen; hentë, fïén ódingca äen
ordwë fóén 3 ëttërslá róen esslë, ddaén näën "en" ndíngeth; fïen odingcá
äén órdwí fóén 4 ëtterslú roën órema, ddäën äen "th" ndïngeth fién hëten
óvedmï etterlá sién aen ówelvú, lsëeth ddáen äën ándomrí ówëlvë.
Héntï, hangëcí lläen "k" ótén "c". Ástlylú, ddáën ándómrú ccéntsáth nóen
óptën fóen hëten etterslï.
The Gibberish family


characterized by inserting a prespecified sequence (normally VC or VCVC) before each
nucleus in each word.
Apparently there is variation regarding whether or not to insert the sequence before wordinitial vowels


Some believe Gibberish involves [IdIg] (another calls this “Doublespeak”)
Ob [ab]
• Hobellobo, Thobomobas.
• “My father and his cousins and siblings are the most likely to use it. Last summer a youngster
wondered how to say 'Neosporin' in Ob. My father left the room and came back several minutes
later, announcing triumphantly, "nobeobospoborobin". I think everyone just refers to it with that
name, now.”

Ubbi Dubbi [] or []
• perhaps introduced on the PBS show ZOOM, or alternately, as a joke in a sketch by Bill Cosby (the
Dentist sketch)
• "To be or not to be" → "Tubo bube ubor nubot tubo bube“
• Used by Mushmouth on Fat Albert; cf. Partridge Family skit on SNL

Double Dutch [g] (spelled <ag> or <eg> (the latter also called Egg Latin))
• Heggow eggare yeggou deggoegging?
• Or “replace every C with a syllable starting and ending with that consonant suso wuworordodzuz
cucouldud gogetut popruretutty lolongung”



Op, Oppish, Oppen Gloppen [ap]
Slov [av]
[name unknown] <ubbagg> [combines Ubbi Dubbi and Double Dutch]
• Yubbaggou dubbaggon't wubbaggant tubbaggo knubbaggow.
Other English examples

Bicycle ([s] after each non-final consonant [or is it C-cluster?…])

Pig Greek (<ob> after each consonant)
Dong


Spelling out words, using:
• V: unaltered
• C → C + <ong>
• Let's go → Long ee tong song gong oh


Chinese Pig Latin ([an] after C, [gan] after V)
various Simpsons games


Ned Flanders: -(d)iddly-, skerdəlider = scare, okəlidokəli = okeedokee, murdidliurdler =
murder, pred-iddly-ictable
Zambuda “English pronounced wrong in every possible way. Long vowels became
short, c pronounced s when usually pronounced k, silent letters pronounced, and so
on. So a sentence like "knock before entering" would become "kE-nOsk beh-faw-ree
een-tee-rynj." (E=schwa, O=long o) Being high school students, we mostly used it for
words like "mOt-heer-foo-skeer," but some guys got to the point where they could
converse fluently in it”
Identity avoidance

Name Game



“But if the first two letters are ever the same, I drop them
both and say the name. Like Bob, Bob drop the B like ob Or
Fred, Fred drop the F go red Mary, Mary drop the M so ary
That's the only rule that is contrary.”
Fee fie mo Ichael (not *Michael)
w-, y-, and h-dialects of Pig Latin



W: way vs. a
Y: you vs. ooh/eww
H: who vs. ooh/eww
Phonemes vs. graphemes

Talking backwards (Cowan, Leavitt, Massaro & Kent 1982)

31-year-old philosophy professor
• negotiating for peace [negošietiŋ fOr pis]  [gniteIšogen rOf sip]


half of backward talkers reverse a phonological representation of each word; the
other half reverse orthographic representation.
Woman talking backward (Cowan & Leavitt 1992)


Example: garage [graž] reversed as [žarg]
Evidence that she reverses phonemes (rather than letters):
• 1. no silent letters pronounced in reverse forms
• 2. homographs were always pronounced differently (two <g>'s in garage)

Not functioning as "reversed tape recorders":
• Compound units (diphthongs and affricates) were consistently preserved as units
rather than being reversed.
• choice [tšojs] was reversed as [sojtš] (rather than *[sjošt])
• This reflects phonological constraints on the woman's acoustic analytic capabilities.
Underdetermination 
microvariation in Pig Latin/
Backslang

Definition of the Underdetermination
Thesis (e.g. Quine 1975)

“"Given any amount of data, there are
always (infinitely) many hypotheses
which fit equally well with the data.”
Underdetermination of
sampled waveforms




Digital sampling of analog waveforms yields a set of discrete points, not
a continuous wave
The shape of the wave is inferred from these points by an equation that
yields a curve of most likely fit
As the Underdetermination Thesis points out, there is actually an infinite
number of waveforms compatible with these points
Elaboration:…
sampled points
(time/amplitude pairs)
inferred curve of best fit
excerpt from waveform of me
saying [aaaa] at 91 Hz
Two analyses compatible with the data
14
12
10
Input Data
8
f(x)
2x^2 - 6x + 6
6
-8x^6 + 72.8x^5 - 250*x^4 +
401*x^3 - 297*x^2 + 79.2*x +
6
4
2
x
3
2.
7
2.
4
2.
1
1.
8
1.
5
1.
2
0.
9
0.
6
0.
3
0
0
Pig Latin
Trigger typically ig-pay atin-Lay
 How would you formalize the rule(s)?
 What predictions does each rule
hypothesis make for other types of
form?

ig-pay atin-lay = imple-say?

Traditional View of Pig Latin:

“A jargon systematically formed by the transposition
of the initial consonant to the end of the word and
the suffixation of an additional syllable” (The
American Heritage Dictionary (1992:1372))
What if the word doesn’t have an initial C?
 What if the word has more than one initial C?

Second try at a formulation:
SPE
“Pig Latin…is defined by…a rule which moves the
initial consonant sequence in the word, if any, to
the end, and which then adds the sequence [ey] to
its right” (Chomsky & Halle 1968:342)
 Predictions:

vowel-initial words (e.g. oven) should yield the
output oven-ay,
 complex onsets (e.g. tree) should yield ee-tray

Complex Onsets:
dialect variation with truck
90
77.7
80
70
60
50
40
30
19.4
20
10
2.1
0
uck-tr-ay




ruck-t-ay
uck-tray
(transpose entire onset)
ruck-tay
(transpose initial C)
ruck-tray
(transpose entire onset, retain 2nd C)
No productions of *tuck-ray, *tuck-tray!
ruck-tr-ay
(n = 449)
(n = 112)
(n = 12)
VCV-initial words:
dialect variation with oven
40
36
35
30
25
20
15.6
14
15
9.3
10
8.1
7.6
6.2
1.9
5
1
0.7
0.2
0.2
0.2
oven-ov-
w-oven-
ay
w-ay
0
oven-ay
ven-o-ay oven-way oven-hay oven-yay en-ov-ay
NULL
ven-ov-ay oven-v-ay h-oven-h- y-ovenay







oven-ay
(add -ay)
ven-o-ay (initial  transposition)
oven-way
(add w)
oven-hay
(add h)
oven-yay(add y)
en-ov-ay (initial  transposition)
no output
(n = 208)
ven-ov-ay
oven-v-ay
(n = 90)
(n = 82)
(n = 54)
h-oven-h-ay
y-oven-y-ay
ven-ay
(n = 47)
(n = 44)
oven-n-ay
(n = 36)
w-oven-w-ay
oven-ov-ay
yay
(copy max  + del.)
(1st consonant copying)
(add h, overapplication!)
(add y, overapplication!)
(delete first V)
(add n)
(add w, overapplication!)
(copy max )
(n = 11)
(n = 6)
(n = 4)
(n = 2)
(n = 2)
(n = 2)
(n = 1)
(n = 1)
Appendix vs. complex onset


Many phonological processes treat clusters of rising
sonority (e.g -tr-) differently than clusters of falling sonority
(-rt-).
Does this surface in language games?



40/499 (8%) treat tr- and sc- differently in survey
NB no evidence for this difference in trigger data
Cf. Pierrehumbert and Nair 1995:




Made-up game that inserts -ətStimuli limited to CVAfter conditioning, test CCV- words
Finding: sO- and OR- clusters treated differently
Conclusions
Psychological reality/universality of identity
avoidance
 Psychological reality of phonemes


Games typically manipulate phonemes, not
graphemes
Inventory of computations
 Disparity in fast vs. careful performance
