Verlan: The Real-Time Cipher of Paris

Picture this: you’re sitting at a café terrace in Paris, soaking in the city’s ambiance. A group of teenagers walks by, chatting animatedly. You catch snippets of their conversation, and while it sounds unmistakably French, the words are twisted, jumbled, almost as if they’re speaking in code. What you’re likely hearing isn’t a new dialect or a foreign language, but Verlan—a unique form of French slang that functions like a spoken, real-time cryptographic algorithm.

Verlan is more than just slang; it’s a linguistic game, a social tool, and a vibrant part of modern French culture. Its name itself is a perfect example of how it works: Verlan is the inverted form of l’envers (lan-ver), which means “the reverse” or “backwards.” Let’s decrypt this fascinating linguistic phenomenon.

The Algorithm: How to Speak in Code

At its core, the rule of Verlan is simple: invert the syllables of a word. However, the application of this rule is more of an art than a science, guided by phonetics and flow rather than rigid mathematical precision.

The Basic Inversion

For two-syllable words, the process is usually straightforward. You swap the first and second syllables.

• français (fran-çais) → céfran (çais-fran)
• tomber (tom-ber) → béton (ber-tom)
• louche (lou-che) → chelou (che-lou)

But wait, you might ask, why does tomber become béton? Shouldn’t it be “bétom”? This is where the phonetic magic comes in. Verlan often involves dropping the final silent vowel (like the schwa, or ‘e muet’) of the original word before inversion. The goal is to make the new word sound natural and rhythmic, not clunky.

Consider the most famous Verlan word of all: meuf.

1. Start with the word femme (woman), which is pronounced roughly as “famm.”
2. Phonetically, you can break it into two syllables: fa-mme.
3. Invert them to get mme-fa.
4. Finally, drop the final “a” sound and smooth it out to create the punchy, one-syllable word: meuf.

The same logic applies to mec (guy/dude), pronounced “mek.” It becomes ke-meu, which is then condensed to keum.

Handling Trickier Words

What about words with one or three syllables? This is where the creativity shines.

• One-syllable words are often split into two phonetic parts. Chaud (hot) becomes o-ch, which is difficult to say, so it’s often left alone or not used in Verlan. But fou (crazy) brilliantly becomes ouf.
• Three-syllable words are often truncated first. The word énerver (to annoy) is shortened to énerve (é-nerve). The first two syllables are then inverted to nerve-é, which is smoothed into véner.

These unwritten rules are learned intuitively, and the “correct” Verlan form is the one that is adopted and understood by the community. It’s a consensus-driven system.

A Coded History: From the Fringes to the Mainstream

Syllable inversion as a form of secret language, or argot, has existed in France for centuries, used by prisoners and criminals to communicate without being understood by guards. The word Louchébem, a 19th-century butchers’ slang, followed a similar (though more complex) logic.

However, modern Verlan exploded in popularity in the post-WWII era, cementing itself in the 1970s and 80s within the working-class suburbs, or banlieues, surrounding Paris. For the youth of these multicultural areas, particularly those with immigrant backgrounds, Verlan became a powerful tool. It was a language of their own, distinct from the formal French of the establishment—the schools, the government, and the police (les flics → les keuflis → les keufs).

Verlan was a linguistic rebellion. It created a shared identity and an in-group solidarity, marking who was “in the know” and who was an outsider. This code was carried into the mainstream by French hip-hop artists in the 1980s and 90s, who broadcast the sound of the banlieues to the entire nation. The seminal 1995 film La Haine (Hate) was a masterclass in Verlan, introducing words like zyva (from vas-y, “go on”) to a global audience. Suddenly, the secret code wasn’t so secret anymore.

More Than Slang: The Social Power of Verlan

To dismiss Verlan as “just slang” is to miss its profound sociolinguistic function. It operates on several levels:

1. A Marker of Identity: Speaking Verlan signals belonging to a certain youth culture. It says, “I’m cool, I’m street-smart, I’m not part of the formal, bourgeois world.” It’s a badge of authenticity for some, though it can sound affected when used by outsiders trying to fit in.
2. A Tool of Exclusion: The primary function of any code is to protect information. Verlan allows speakers to have semi-private conversations in public spaces, excluding parents, teachers, and authorities from understanding. It’s a shield of linguistic privacy.
3. A Display of Linguistic Creativity: Mastering Verlan shows a playful and deep understanding of the French language. It’s not about breaking the language but about bending it into new, expressive shapes. It’s a constant, living evolution.

This evolution is best seen in the phenomenon of re-Verlanization. What happens when a secret code becomes too popular? You encrypt it again. The word arabe (Arab) was verlanized to beur. Over time, beur became so common that it was used in media and official documents, losing its edge. And so, a second layer of Verlan was applied: beur was re-inverted to become rebeu, making the code secret once more.

A Starter Pack for Your Next Trip to Paris

While some Verlan words are fleeting, many have become permanent fixtures of informal French. Here are a few essential terms:

• Meuf: Woman, chick (from femme)
• Keum: Guy, dude (from mec)
• Ouf: Crazy, nuts (from fou)
• Relou: Annoying, a pain (from lourd, meaning “heavy”)
• Chelou: Weird, shady (from louche)
• Ripou: Corrupt, often used for police (from pourri, meaning “rotten”)
• Cimer: Thanks (from merci)
• Laisse béton: Drop it, let it go (from laisse tomber). Popularized by the singer Renaud, this is a classic.

Verlan is a testament to the fact that language is not a static set of rules dictated by academies, but a living, breathing entity shaped by the people who use it. It’s a social tool, a cultural signature, and a form of everyday poetry.

So, the next time you’re in France and the conversation around you seems to twist and turn in on itself, listen closely. You might not be hearing gibberish, but rather witnessing the quick-witted, real-time decryption of a vibrant cultural code.