Nadsat
fictional language in the novel "A Clockwork Orange"
Nadsat is a slang language. It was invented by Anthony Burgess when he wrote a book called A Clockwork Orange. The book is about a teenager called Alex. Alex speaks Nadsat in the book. Stanley Kubrick turned the book into a film, also called A Clockwork Orange.
| Nadsat | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Anthony Burgess |
| Date | 1962 |
| Setting and usage | A Clockwork Orange (novel and film) |
| Purpose | |
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | None |
| IETF | art-x-nadsat |
The name of the slang language Nadsat comes from Russian. So do many words in the language itself. In Russian, numbers between ten and twenty end with -nadsat. This is like the way the same numbers end with -teen in English. So Nadsat means 'teen'.
Although there is 1950s Russian slang in Nadsat, there are other languages too. However, most words in Nadsat are English or variations of English. One type of English variation used is rhyming slang.
- Examples
- viddy: to see (from Russian slang)
- appy polly logy: apology (rhyming slang)