Editing Nadsat (section)

== Description ==
{{Original research|section|date=May 2013}}
Nadsat is a mode of speech used by the ''nadsat'', members of the [[Youth subculture|teen subculture]] in the novel ''[[A Clockwork Orange (novel)|A Clockwork Orange]]''. The narrator and protagonist of the book, [[Alex (A Clockwork Orange)|Alex]], uses it in [[Grammatical person|first-person]] style to relate the story to the reader. He also uses it to communicate with other characters in the novel, such as his ''<abbr title="close friends">droogs</abbr>'', parents, victims and any authority-figures with whom he comes in contact. As with many speakers of non-standard varieties of English, Alex is capable of speaking standard English when he wants to.  It is not a written language: the sense that readers get is of a transcription of [[vernacular]] speech.

Nadsat is English with some borrowed words from [[Russian language|Russian]]. It also contains influences from [[Rhyming slang|Cockney rhyming slang]], the [[King James Bible]], German, some words of unclear origin and some that Burgess invented. The word ''nadsat'' is the suffix of Russian numerals from 11 to 19 ({{Lang|ru|-надцать}}). The suffix is an almost exact linguistic parallel to the English ''-teen'' and is derived from {{lang|ru|на}}, meaning 'on' and a shortened form of {{lang|ru|десять}}, the number ten. ''Droog'' is derived from the Welsh word {{lang|cy|drwg}}, meaning 'bad', 'naughty' or 'evil' and the Russian word {{lang|ru|друг}}, meaning a 'close friend'.<ref>Eric Partridge, ''et al.'', ''The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English''; Wiktionary [[wikt:друг#Noun|друг (Russian)]]</ref> Some of the words are almost childish plays on English words, such as {{lang|mis|eggiweg}} ('egg') and {{lang|mis|appy polly loggy}} ('apology'), as well as regular English slang ''sod'' and ''snuff it''. The word ''like'' and the expression ''the old'' are often used as [[Filler (linguistics)|fillers]] or [[discourse marker]]s.

The original 1991 translation of Burgess's book into Russian solved the problem of how to illustrate the Nadsat words by using [[transliteration|transliterated]], slang English words in places where Burgess had used Russian ones{{spnd}}for example, ''droogs'' became {{lang|ru|фрэнды}} ({{transliteration|ru|frendy}}). Borrowed English words with Russian inflection were widely used in Russian slang, especially among Russian [[hippie]]s in the 1970s–1980s. <!-- Since the 1990s anglicisms in Russian have been common particularly regarding computers and programming. --><!--Future translations would simply use the original untranslated Nadsat terms.-->