Cheat chits, secret signs and petty hints, all coded to perfection to master exams are a norm with students. But secret languages especially created to avoid eavesdropping and get away with blurting out not-so-pleasant remarks on someone is a rising trend among teenagers.
‘P’, ‘K’, ‘Z’ languages are what young ‘uns are talking these days and attracting those curious stares, though ‘P’ is the most common it’s ‘K’ and ‘Z’ that take centrestage this time around.
“I’ve been speaking this language with my friends in college and it becomes easier to communicate something you don’t want the others to hear. Sometimes my cousins and I talk in that language when our parents are around, as we don’t want our elders to understand what we’re trying to say. Outings become more fun that way and we cousins bond all the more,” says Darshini Shankar Narayan, an architecture student.
What makes these languages simple is that they don’t need a genius mind to create it. You only have to add a particular letter of the alphabet at the end of every vowel. For example, you want to say, “I want to go home” in the ‘K’ language, all you have to do is add an ‘K’ after every vowel in the sentence. So then it becomes, “Ika wakant toko goko hokome.” Some say it’s a great way to talk when in the company of boys.
Yamini Arab, a 19-year-old says, “Boys cannot understand head or tail of what we’re talking. When I am with a group of friends and I need to say something I don’t want the others to hear, I speak the secret language with my close friends. That’s the fun of it.”