by Lottie Perry-Evans
The fictional argot in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is used by
Anthony Burgess to reflect the generational gap between the youth subculture
and the older generation. Nadsat is used by the first-person narrator, both to
relate the story to the reader and to communicate with other characters in the
novel. This sub-language is predominantly comprised of anglicised Russian
words, however, it also contains influences from Cockney rhyming slang, the
King James Bible, the German language; some words are of unclear origin and
some are invented by Burgess himself. Also,
some vocabulary is almost childish English, such as eggiweg (egg) and appy
polly loggy (apology), which further widen the appearance of a generational gap
and lower the maturity levels of the teens who speak the language. Alex mainly
uses this childish language whilst at home around his parents and when
referring to home, which shows he is keen to hide his rebellious nature from
his parents and to keep his home life and rebellious teenage life as separate
as possible.
Although there are these other influences, Russian
influences play the biggest role in Nadsat. Most of the Russian-influenced
words are slightly anglicised loan-words, often maintaining the original
Russian pronunciation. For example the Russian word “Lyudi” (meaning people) is
anglicised to “lewdies”: “He had books under his arm and a crappy umbrella and
was coming round the corner from the Public Biblio, which not many lewdies used those days.”[5]
Another example of a Russian word
which has been anglicised by Burgess is “Babushka” (meaning grandmother or old
woman) which he changes to “baboochka”: “The starry old baboochkas were still there on the black and suds Scotchmen we’d
bought them.”[6] There are at least a dozen words on
every page that are non-English, with roughly three per cent of the text being
foreign or borrowed.
Burgess was aware that linguistic slang was of a constantly
changing nature. If he used modes of speech that were contemporarily in use,
the novel would quickly become dated. He was aware that his character needed to
have a unique voice that would remain ageless (therefore appealing to a wide
range of readers) while reinforcing Alex’s indifference to his society’s norms.
Alex’s name itself suggests his disregard for the law since it comes from the
Latin: ‘a
lex’ which means outside the law. His name can also be traced back
to Russian origin, coming from the Russian name Aleksei. Burgess also uses Nadsat to
suggest that youth subculture existed independently of the rest of society. The
use of Nadsat by teenagers is recognised by a couple of psychiatrists in the
novel, who are working on Alex at the time: Dr Brodsky says his language is
“quaint”. He then asks his partner Dr Branom, if he knows anything about its
provenance. “Odd bits of old rhyming slang” he says, with “a bit of gipsy talk
too. But most of the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration.”[7]
However, not all the Russian words have to be guessed from the context, for the
author does not want the novel to be totally unintelligible. Alex adds a few
side-notes during the first couple of chapters in the novel which aids the
readers’ understanding of Nadsat: “Pete had a rooker (a hand, that is) … and
poor old Dim had a very hound-and-horny one of a clown’s litso (face, that is)”.[8]
Throughout the novel, Burgess is playing with ordinary speech conventions, as
if he is testing our ability to read.
It is fair to ask whether three per cent of the words should
be anglicised Russian words instead of, say, Arabic or French. If most readers
have to arrive at an understanding from contextual repetition of the words,
surely Arabic words would serve just as well. Russian was chosen over other
European languages because languages more closely related to English, such as
German or French, would have been too similar to English for the full
distancing influence of the language to take effect. For the Anglo-American
reader, the Slavic words connote communist dictatorship, without moral value
and without hope. The idea of the argot being tied in with communism is further
enhanced by the fact that the novel was published just after the erection of
the Berlin Wall. Burgess makes this argot Russian, as if to warn his readers of
what society may become if it structures itself along totalitarian lines. It
could become a society in which the youth take control and are irrespective of
their parent’s views and moral values. M. Keith Booker argues that Nadsat represents
various forms of entrapment and conditioning which may reflect the subtle
influence of Russian propaganda as well as having an ‘alienating’ effect on its
teen speakers, since it cannot be understood by mainstream society. [9]
Anthony Burgess is describing a common enough linguistic phenomenon. People in
their forties may understand the slang contemporaneously used by teenagers but
they can’t necessarily use it in the correct context, so it loses its meaning.
It is not known where children learned the argot; even children themselves do
not know how or where they picked it up. This has been a linguistic phenomenon
for centuries; however, Burgess is exaggerating this linguistic process apparently
beyond what seems realistic to heighten this generational gap.
It is not always obvious what the author has achieved with
his use of such atypical vocabulary and it does not always appear to be
necessary in the narration of the story. It is also clear that there are times
when Burgess enjoys the use of this argot and allows it to demonstrate his love
for language. It seems that his intention so far, was to amuse the reader in
the way that puns or nonsense verse amuse us. ‘A Clockwork Orange’, however, is
not nonsense. On the dust jacket of the Heinemann edition of ‘A Clockwork
Orange’, the publisher suggests that this is “a fable of good and evil”
demonstrating “the importance of human choice”.[10]
This, however, is not the case since the novel actually presents a vision of
society as it has developed at some future time, a vision that is not only
unpleasant but it almost entirely unbearable. There is no sign of hope for the
future and Burgess holds no shred of hope for society. The other characters do
not act as aids in the author’s telling of the story; they are merely participants
in events that illustrate Alex’s total lack of moral values. That is not to
say, however, that the author is unconcerned with moral values. He sympathises
with Alex, yet shows his actions to be utterly deplorable. Burgess is creating
a hopeless version of society taken over by youth. The youth don’t share the
values of their elders, nor do they admit any sort of associations with them.
Parents are not to be obeyed, nor do they set an example. The use of childish
English slang emphasises this point and creates a clear separation between the
two generations.
The Nadsat glossary, which readers will find themselves
referring to relatively frequently until they familiarise themselves with the
language, is dominated by multiple terms for acts of violence and other
criminal activities, for women, sex, parts of the body and money. This gives a
sharp picture of the values of the teenage thugs from whose point of view the
novel is narrated. Their speech is an invented argot very much based on the
principles of classic criminal slang, and contrasted with the speech of the members
of the norm society. The language is used to assert the teenagers’ opposition
and contempt for everything that is, in their own words, bourgeois, middle-aged
or middle-class. However, beneath the provocative surface of the vocabulary,
Alex’s own language is thoroughly middle-class: he has no regional dialect and
his language is scrupulously grammatically correct, which shows interesting
parallels with his love for classical music. In this way Alex is distinguished
from his aptly named friend ‘Dim’ who is communicatively sub-normal. The sense of Alex knowing more is accentuated
by his love of classical music, Ludwig van Beethoven in particular – a genre
associated more often with conformist intellectuals than with rebellious teens.
The use of Nadsat also prevents Alex from appearing dull to the reader by
removing the use of conventional swear words and low-level language, whilst
still allowing him the expected teenage rebellion of swearing as part of his
speech.
Literary techniques such as alliteration, onomatopoeia,
rhyme, chiasmus and hyperbole, are all plentiful in the speech of Alex and his
friends. These techniques are designed to signify energy, confidence and
creativity: to emphasise their freedom from the patterns of the language and so
their freedom from the norms and constraints of society. The rhyming slang used
is probably designed to connect the anti-language with that of the modern
London underworld whilst also showing it to be playful and creative. The fact
that the reader cannot understand the language means they have no emotional
attachment to it and so the acts of violence aren’t as horrifying. Burgess
himself said “to tolcheck a chelloveck in the kishkas does not sound as bad as
booting a man in the guts”.[11]
By disconnecting the emotive response to the words from their meaning, Nadsat
creates a cushioning layer between the acts of violence and how the reader
understands these acts. Burgess has chosen the vocabulary of over two hundred
words which he used to create Nadsat very carefully, one of the more
interesting choices being the exclusion of most abstract nouns. Concrete nouns
for blood (krovvy), money (cutter) or drugs (knives) are present; however, any
abstract concepts to do with knowledge, philosophy or love are conspicuously
absent in Nadsat. This shows the lack of emotion of the teens who speak it and
shows they are not able to communicate on any deep or meaningful level.
However, Alex is not unintelligent – when he is forced to speak in regular
English, his grasp of vocabulary is substantial.
In conclusion it is clear that Nadsat is absolutely
essential to the writing of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ – it allows readers to connect
with Alex, a protagonist that would otherwise remain loathsome. The language
gives readers the option of distancing themselves from the violence in the
novel; and prevents the novel from becoming dated. One of the key reasons for
Burgess’ choice to create Nadsat was the same force that also drove Joyce and
Tolkien to create their linguistic innovations: a clear and sustained love of
language. Finally it makes the book more enjoyable to read on the whole as
Burgess’ love of language comes across in the writing of the novel.
[1]
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange and Nadsat
[2]
Page 173, Anthony Burgess: The Artist as a Novelist, Geoffrey Aggelar,
University of Alabama, AL, 1979
[3]
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange and Nadsat
[4]
Page 51, A Clockwork Orange, Penguin Books, 1972
[5]
Page 10, A Clockwork Orange, Penguin Books, 1972
[6]
Page 13, A Clockwork Orange, Penguin Books, 1972
[7]
Page 91, A Clockwork Orange, Penguin Books, 1972
[8]
Page 6, A Clockwork Orange, Penguin Books, 1972
[9] ‘Clockwork
Language Reconsidered: Iconicity and Narrative in Anthony Burgess’ ‘A Clockwork
Orange’’, Robbie B. H. Goh, Journal of Narrative Theory, 2000
[10] ‘The
Argot and Its Implications in Anthony Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange”’ – Robert
O. Evans, Journal of Modern Literature, 1971
[11]
Anthony Burgess himself
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