What made Verlan Popular in the 1980s?

Verlanhas had an enormous impact upon French argot for many years and has gradually evolved into the form it takes today. Despite its long and engrained position as a part of French language and literature, it was not until the 1980s that it saw its true rise to power. Its great surge to the national stage is owed almost wholly to the mass media. 

Be it via television, film, music or literature, technology permitted the transmission of the multiethnic and hybrid cultures of les cités (the suburbs) into wider society, and this included their use of argot – and in particular verlan – in ordinary speech. Ever since the 1977 hit single Laisse Béton by popular French singer songwriter Renaud, the francophone world has born witness to the inexorable diffusion of this now omnipresent syllabic inversion. 

For young people in the 1980s, verlan provided a fashionable way to distinguish themselves from both previous generations and more upright members of society. They used it as an unambiguous social marker between those who could and could not understand it; there is a definite appeal to the ability to communicate without being understood by others and young people certainly took great pleasure from the annoyance which they aroused in all members of society who had no idea what this new language meant. It became a game of wit and cunning between young members of the banlieues, as they tried to out-do others with their innovative verlan creations.

At this stage, two major and intertwined events occur: firstly, the use of verlan in Rap and particularly in the hip-hop revolution of the late 1980s. This revolution had a profound effect on poorer suburbs and continues to be the dominant cultural force within these areas, but its bubble of influence also swelled to include the young middle-class. They listened to the same popular radio stations as people in the suburbs and began to pick up on this ground-breaking use of language and – in an attempt to appear ‘cool’ – began to emulate their hip-hop idols. 

This is inevitably followed by the popularisation of verlan, which itself has had a considerable cultural impact on the whole of France. Groups such as Suprême NTM, IAM and Assassin kick-started this process as they used verlan as a tool to make their songs both original and, more practically, to increase their options when it came to finding words which rhymed and sounded most appropriate. For example, the word femme (meaning woman) has a somewhat soutenu (formal) resonance, whereas meuf has a kind of suitable vulgarity.