pig Latin 的詞源

這種幼稚變形語言（有許多不同的版本）最早出現在1889年，而同樣意義的hog Latin則可以追溯到1807年。

The animals play quite an important part in the naming [of children's languages], as the hog, dog, fly, goose, pigeon, pig, all give names, with Mr. Hog leading. Among the names the Latins take the lead, and Hog Latin leads the list, being accredited as naming nearly as many languages as all the other names combined. Besides Hog Latin, there is Dog Latin, Pig Latin, Goose Latin, and Bum Latin. Then there is Greekish and Peddlers' French and Pigeon English. ... Very few can give any reason for the naming of the languages. In fact, no one can fully say where the great majority of names came from, for in most cases in the naming the following pretty well expresses the difficulty: "It was born before I was. I can't tell how young I was when I first heard of it." ["The Secret Language of Children," in The North Western Monthly, October 1897]

在這些兒童語言的命名中，動物們扮演了相當重要的角色，像是豬、狗、蒼蠅、鵝、鴿子、豬這些動物都為語言命名，其中以Mr. Hog為首。拉丁語的命名則更為突出，Hog Latin名列前茅，據說它幾乎命名了所有其他語言的總和。除了Hog Latin，還有Dog Latin、Pig Latin、Goose Latin和Bum Latin。此外，還有Greekish、Peddlers' French和Pigeon English。…… 很少有人能解釋這些語言命名的原因。事實上，沒有人能完全說明大多數名稱的來源，因為在大多數情況下，命名的過程幾乎可以用這句話來表達困難：“它在我出生之前就存在了。我無法確定我第一次聽說它時有多小。”——摘自《北方月刊》，1897年10月。

至於這種語言本身，可以參考loucherbem，這是一種20世紀的法語俚語，類似於豬拉丁語，得名於該語言中boucher一詞的變形（據說起源於巴黎的肉販）。還可以比較Ziph，這是一種由溫徹斯特學院的學生使用的變形語言（德奎西在1859年提到過）。