Šatrovački


Šatrovački or šatra is an argot within the Serbo-Croatian language. Šatrovački was initially developed by various subcultures in Yugoslavia, and became employed as a device of secret communication within various ingroups. Today, it is primarily used among youth as a form of pig latin. It is more widespread in urban areas, such as capitals Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo.

Usual šatrovački

Words are formed by replacing the syllable order. For example: pivo, becomes vopi. The new word has the same meaning as the original word stem. Since the spelling is nearly phonetic it does not change. However, sometimes one of the vowels is changed to make the new word easier to pronounce, avoid ambiguity, or if the stem word is not in nominative. For example, trava would become vutra instead of vatra.
Some words are more commonly spoken in Šatrovački than others, but there is no specific rule. Examples of transformed sentences are:

Utrovački

Utrovački is a more complex form of šatrovački. Words are formed using: U + last part + ZA + first part + NJE. E.g. vikipedija becomes ukipedijazavinje. Today, utrovački is not widely used.
Alternative Utrovački is same as above, but without "ZA", e.g. pivo becomes uvopinje, or cigare becomes ugarecinje.

Syllable omission

A more simplified version of šatrovački is using only parts of the word, while excluding the first syllable, and is most commonly used among young people in Serbia. For example, koncert would be shorthened to cert. The rules of creating a new word that can be used in nominative while the stem is not apply similarly to standard šatrovački. An example of a full sentence would be:
This is particularly characteristic of Novi Sad youth subculture, and is very rarely spoken outside of Vojvodina.

Common examples

A very rare but present form of expression found in the Belgrade projects. Words are reconstructed by adding various suffixes so that the original word remains relatively intact. Usually, the basis is šatrovački. The resulting words have a generally diminutive meaning.

Examples

These diminutives can later be combined using the Šatrovački method, resulting in words like kajblo, or kićblo. However, this is a rare usage, confined to the area of Zemun and New Belgrade.
Also there is another type of šatrovački, where the words are reconstructed by addition of letter P followed by the vowel preceding the inserted P after each syllable. Since syllables, usually, end on a vowel that vowel is repeated after the inserted P as follows:
šapatropovapačkipi

Examples