Pig Latin - Rules and Variations

Rules and Variations

The usual rules for changing standard English into Pig Latin are as follows:

  1. In words that begin with consonant sounds, the initial consonant or consonant cluster is moved to the end of the word, and "ay" is added, as in the following examples:
    • happy → appy-hay
    • question → estion-quay
  2. In words that begin with vowel sounds or silent consonants, the syllable "way" is simply added to the end of the word. In some variants, the syllable "ay" is added, without the "w" in front. Sometimes the vowel will be moved and followed by the syllable "hay"; however, that method may lead to rather unpronounceable words, as in upbraid→ pbraiduhay.
    • another→ another-way, another-ay, nother-ahay
    • about→ about-way, about-ay, bout-ahay
  3. In compound words or words with two distinct syllables, each component word or syllable is sometimes transcribed separately. For example: birdhouse would be ird-bay-ouse-hay.

Transcription varies. A hyphen or apostrophe is sometimes used to facilitate translation back into English. Ayspray, for instance, is ambiguous, but ay-spray means "spray" whereas ays-pray means "prays."

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