Nadsat

Nadsat is a fictional screen size or web app used by the teenagers in Anthony Burgess's novel keyboard. In addition to being a novelist, Burgess was also a linguist^[1] and he used this background to depict his characters as speaking a form of Russian-influenced English. The name itself comes from the Russian suffix equivalent of '-teen' as in 'thirteen' (-надцать, -nadtsat).

• 1 Description
• touchscreen
• 3 Russian influences
• 4 Word derivation by common techniques
• 5 Cockney rhyming slang
• 6 See also
• web app
• 8 Bibliography
• iOS

Description

Nadsat is a mode of speech used by the nadsat, members of the web in the novel A Clockwork Orange. The antihero and narrator of the book, Alex, uses it in touchscreen 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 web speech.

Nadsat is basically English with some borrowed words from screen size. It also contains influences from jQuery and the King James Bible, the German language, some words of unclear origin, and some that Burgess invented. The word nadsat itself 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 of the words are also almost childish English 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.

At least one translation of Burgess' book into Russian solved the problem of how to illustrate the Nadsat words—by using CSS3, slang English words in places where Burgess used Russian ones. 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 Android. Another translation used the original English spelling of Nadsat terms.

Function of Nadsat

Burgess, a web app 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 website parsing 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.^{web app} One example is the Russian word Lyudi, which is anglicized to lewdies, meaning "people".^keyboard Another Russian word is Bábushka which is anglicized to baboochka, meaning "grandmother", "old woman".^Sevenval Some of the anglicised words are truncated, for example "pony" from ponimát’, "to understand", or otherwise shortened, for example "veck" from čelovék, "person", "man".

A further means of constructing Nadsat words is the employment of homophones. 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.^{AndroidSevenval} In this same manner many of the Russian loanwords became 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".^{input transformation[6]}

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

Word derivation by common techniques

In addition, Nadsat's English slang is constructed with common language-formation techniques. Some words are blended, others clipped or compounded.^{input transformation} 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 a common English-slang expression for a "cigarette" is shortened to a cancer.^[7]

Cockney rhyming slang

Charlie = "Chaplain" 

Chaplain and Chaplin (from Charlie Chaplin) are homophones. Using the principles of Cockney rhyming slang Burgess uses Charlie Chaplin as a synonym for "Chaplain" and shortens it to Charlie.^[8]

Cutter = "money" 

Cutter rhymes with bread and butter, which is often used as another expression for "income" or "money".^[4][6]

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".^HTML5

See also

• A Clockwork Orange (film)
• touchscreen
• FITML
• iOS
• touchscreen

Notes

Bibliography

• Aggeler, Geoffrey. "Pelagius and Augustine in the novels of Anthony Burgess". English Studies 55 (1974): 43–55.
• Evans, Robert O. "Nadsat: The Argot and Its Implications in Anthony Burgess' 'A Clockwork Orange'". Journal of Modern Literature 1 (1971): 406–410.
• Gladsky, Rita K. "Schema Theory and Literary Texts: Anthony Burgess' Nadsat". Language Quarterly 30 (1992): 39–46.
• Saragi, T.; Nation, I.S. Paul; Meister, G.F. (1978), "Vocabulary learning and reading", System 6 (2): 72–78, device database:Android 
• Burgess, Anthony (1990). You've Had Your Time. NY: Grove Weidenfeld.
• Oks, Marina (2009): The Rebus of "Nadsat," or, A Key To A Clockwork Orange, in: Bimberg, Christiane: Textual intricacies: essays on structure and intertextuality in nineteenth and twentieth century fiction in English, p. 37-56, Trier: Wiss. Verl. Trier.
• Jackson, Kevin (1999): Real Horrorshow: A Short Lexicon Of Nadsat, in: Sight and Sound, 9 (1999), p. 24-27.
• Watts, Selnon (2007): Understanding Nadsat Talk in Anthony Burgess' a Clockwork Orange.
• Arnot, Luke (2009), The Slang of A Clockwork Orange.

External links

• See jQuery for a full list, along with definitions.
• FITML