Stuck on another suuuuuper long drive? Try a secret language and you’ll go from ‘are we there yet?’ to ‘OMG ROFL’.
Sample secret languages
Try some of these to get the hang of crazy new ways of talking…
PIG LATIN
It’s the basic, old standard of made-up languages. You probably know already, but if you want to try it, take the first sound of a word, move it to the end and add ‘ay’. So ‘magazine’ would become ‘agazine-may’. Cassie and Nicole would be Assie-cay and Icole-nay. If you have a word that starts with a vowel, put ‘yay’ at the end of it, for example, ‘umbrella-yay’ or ‘I-yay’.
Try it out: ‘I-yay ish-way Um-may and-yay Ad-day ould-way uy-bay us-yay ome-say ips-chay.’ That means,”I wish Mum and Dad would buy us some chips.”
OBISH
A bit rarer than Pig Latin and pretty easy to get the hang of. To speak this lingo, add ‘ob’ before every vowel sound. So ‘horse’ turns into ‘hoborse’ and ‘dance’ becomes ‘dobance’ (you don’t put an ‘ob’ at the end of these words since you don’t sound the ‘e’ at the end of these words). Talk quickly and it can be really hard to decipher! If a word starts with a vowel or is very short you might need to say it fast to try and hide it, or add a nonsense word in there instead, like ‘olive’ instead of ‘of’.
Try it out: ‘Tobotobal Gobirl obis the bobest.’ That means “Total Girl is the best”.
DIY your own language
- Give your language a name. For example, if your name is Jessica, maybe you’d want to call it J-Speak.
- Figure out the rules of your language. If you want people to understand and speak it, it’s good if there are simple rules around what to do with words. Will you say everything backwards? Will you give everything code names? Up to you!
- Maybe your secret language will be a written one! If so, you’ll need to work out symbols to replace each letter of the usual 26-letter alphabet. Simple ones that are easy to draw work best, espesh in a car which can be a bit bumpy. Give your ‘key’ (that decodes the symbols) to your bestie or sibling and they’ll be able to read your awesome lingo!
