Igpay Atinlay

[Dale Coye]

In a message dated 3/8/2003 1:45:17 PM Central Daylight Time,
sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM writes:


> Gerald Cohen writes:
> >1959 I. & P. OPIE Lore & Lang. Schoolch. xiv. 321 'Pig Latin'..thus:
> >'Unejay ithsmay isay igpay' (June Smith is a pig).
>
> >    This 1959 example comes well after the start of Pig Latin (first
> >attestation: 1937; but assumed to have started prior to World War I).
> >Still, maybe this sort of pig-example was spoken early on in Pig
> >Latin.
> ~~~~~~~~
> The pig latin of my late 30's eastern Nebraska childhood would have had a W
> before the AY-suffix on words beginning with a vowel. Thus June Smith is a
> pig would be "unejay ithsmay isway away igpay."
> I'm quite sure I remember that my mother, born 1905, also had known this
> version from her early childhood in St. Louis.
> A. Murie
>

Oh great!  There are regional boundaries for Pig Latin!  I learned to add the
syllable "lay" after words beginning in vowels, so it would be "islay alay
igpay"--  My grandmother taught me that who lived in Ithaca, NY, but raised
in South Jersey (b. 1901)