Back slang is an English coded language in which the written word is spoken phonemically backwards. It is thought to have originated in Victorian England, being used mainly by market sellers, such as butchers and greengrocers, to have private conversations behind their customers' backs and pass off lower quality goods to less observant customers.[citation needed]
Some back slang has entered standard English. For example the term 'yob' was originally back slang for 'boy'.
The appellation back slang is specific to the English language. Other languages, however, have similar coded forms, such as the French verlan, in which it is syllables, rather than the entire word, that are reversed. Swedish has a similar phenomenon: the word fika (Swedish for 'to have a coffee break'), for example, is derived from a reversal of the syllables in "kaffi" (older Swedish for 'coffee').
In some regions, the term back slang is used more generally for other codings such as the inclusion of extra syllables in the middle of words.
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