Nadsat

The Nadsat is the name of the Anglo-Russian Argot invented by the writer Britannique Anthony Burgess for his novel the Clockwork orange , published in 1962. This language accurately was then taken again by Stanley Kubrick in her film adaptation of the novel in 1971, with the film Clockwork orange . For a complete listing of the terms and their significance, to see Nadsat (lexicon).

Description

The word Nadsat is derived from a Russian Suffixe correspondent with that of the numbers from 11 to 19 (- надцать): the parallel is one cannot more clearly with English - teen , at the same time suffix which finishes the numbers from 13 to 19, and word which designates the teenagers.

The creation of this Jargon is the fruit of a long reflection on behalf of Anthony Burgess. Anxious to depict in its book a futuristic company in which the language spoken by the heroes would not be dated (any slang being it by definition), he chooses the invention.

The precise idea of Nadsat comes to him after a voyage in the USSR during the summer 1961. It creates a timeless language thus, while giving free course to its verbal imagination and its fascination for sonorities of the Russian language .

This language comprises moreover, to a lesser extent, of the contributions of the gipsy, French, the slang London Cockney, and other sources such as the Malayan one and Dutch. The whole learnedly enriched by proper imagination by the author.

Nadsat constitutes, strictly speaking, plus a Registre of language that a true language. Alex, the hero of the novel, is completely able to speak “correctly” when he wants it. Its picturesque Jargon is also very quickly understandable for the reader or the spectator. Nadsat is in fact a Lexique of additional words that Alex uses to describe the world such as it sees it.

The register of the Nadsat words is systematically on the plan of the concrete one or the semi-abstract: it is thus impossible to speak Philosophie in Nadsat. Perhaps this testifies to the opinion of Anthony Burgess as for the vacuity of the mental diagram of the young delinquents.

Function of Nadsat

Nadsat, such as it is employed by Alex, reflects a universal social reality: the children and the teenagers create languages of the slang type in order to communicate between them or within the framework of specific sociocultural groups. The fact that Alex uses such a language to exchange with those of his age, reinforces the impression of opposition between the young people and the adults within the company. Its employment reflects a completely different attitude with respect to the existence.

Nadsat has moreover as a function, “to censure” graphic descriptions of the misdeeds of Alex. The words which convey a strong emotional load in the language running (such as rape or murder ) are neutralized because of their replacement by unknown words, not connoted, that the reader or the spectator simply takes for money cash. This largely contributes to elude the monstrosity of the behaviors of Alex, and to make it appear under one day plus sympathetic nerve.

Lastly, from the point of view of the editor, the use of Nadsat causes considerable collateral, desensitizing with the eyes of the public of concepts of a hardness such as they would normally have been regarded as impossible to publish in a register general public.

See too

Nadsat (lexicon)

External bonds

the Clockwork orange on line,
an exposure of the College library of Angers, devoted to the novel of Anthony Burgess and his various adaptations.
Dictionary Natsat-French in line

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