The Cryptic Language of 'A Clockwork Orange'

Russian is spoken by nearly 180 million people worldwide, and its perception as an international language of espionage makes you feel like a character from a James Bond movie—but here is another cool reason why you should look into the Russian language: It can help you understand Nadsat. Nadsat is the cryptic language used in Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.

Future-proofing a fictional language

A Clockwork Orange is the brainchild of a keen linguist, and therefore was always going to be about language. The dystopian, futuristic universe which Anthony Burgess created for his most famous novel was only made more apocalyptic by the obscure, fictional slang that Alex and his droogs spoke. Burgess was a polyglot and spoke most Western European languages as well as Malay, Chinese, Russian, Hebrew and Japanese—he knew that using the slang of his time would only make his characters' speech sound outdated in years to come. He, then, created a unique dialect by basing his Nadsat vocabulary on Russian, and other linguistic elements, such as rhyming slang, compound words, and archaism. In the words of his own characters, Alex spoke a type of "Slav, mixed with bits of old rhyming slang and a bit of gypsy talk too."

For example, take the word Nadsat. It is the English transliteration of надцать, the suffix you add to numbers from one to nine to make eleven to nineteen. It is the rough equivalent of "teen" in English and possibly the best name Burgess could have chosen.

Now, let's take a look at some of that foreign vocabulary, shall we?

Benet Vincent and Jim Clarke, lecturers from Coventry University, are looking at how Nadsat can be translated into other languages. Their blog Ponying the Slovos is a heap of information and even features a full list of Nadsat words.

So, how similar to Russian is Nadsat? Can you really understand it if you speak Russian?

Take this short extract from the book, for example.

"Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point of view of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till's guts."

In the sentence above, there are nine Nadsat terms, eight of which derive from Russian.

Deng comes from деньги (money). Crasting comes from красть (to steal). Pretty polly rhymes with lolly and so it also means money (in rhyming slang, of course, not Russian). Tolchock comes from толчок and it means "push," here "hit" (but in vulgar slang it can also mean "toilet"). Veck comes from человек (human), here "man." Viddy comes from видеть (to see/watch someone). Starry comes from старый (old). Ptitsa comes from птица (bird) and in this case means "woman," and smecking comes from смех (laughter).

So, if you speak Russian, the above sentence would now read: "Our pockets were full of money, so there was no real need from the point of view of stealing any more money to hit some old man in an alley and watch him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering old grey-haired bird in a shop and go laughing off with the till's guts."

There are many more—hundreds even—Nadsat words, the majority of which are of Russian origin. If you were still wondering what moloko, devotchka and droog mean, they are all Russian: молоко (milk), девочка (girl), and друг (friend).

Who would have guessed that Russian could open up a door to the twisted world of an alternate sci-fi reality? Pretty horrorshow, isn't it my droogs?

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