Let me explain what I mean. I’m British-Italian, so I’m a native speaker of both languages. In Italy, there’s a strong rap subculture that has adapted many Italian words. They don’t simply translate English rap slang words, but rather modify Italian words to convey a similar meaning or sometimes shorten them. Let me give you some examples. The word “Bro” has become “Fra’,” which is a shortened version of the word “fratello” (brother). “Situation” (situazione in Italian) became “situa.” In my opinion, sometimes these words sound good in rap songs, but believe me, they don’t always work. Italian is a romance language, and you can’t simply shorten words and expect good results. Sometimes, when people try to use these slangs, they sound strange and ridiculous.
So, I was wondering if this peculiar “conversion” of native languages into a kind of “new native English rap slang” is effective or not in other countries, particularly in other european countries. I’m genuinely curious about languages such as German, Hungarian, or Norwegian, which have their own distinct characteristics, and how it’s impacting them. Thanks
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In Hungarian rap, slang is usually taken from Budapest inner-city slang, which itself originates from Yiddish and Romani vocabulary. For example using “haver” for “friend” and “csaj” for “chick”.
Yes some similar tendencies can be seen in Hungarian as well. Relatively few English slang words are lifted directly but Gen Z is swiftly changing that trend because of their extreme exposure to the internet. We’ve been shortening some words for a long time. Situation has been shortened from szituáció to szitu for like 30 years.
I don’t listen to rap so I’m not even sure who are the most popular up and coming artists now, but some the most famous hip-hop / rap bands are still Bëlga and Animal Cannibals and what they usally go for is rythm, poetic rhymes and the overall flow of the lyrics rather than using an overabundance of slang or vulgarity.
It’s a bit different in Russian. There are a lot of loan words in the lexicon of pop/rap/whatever singers and even more English words that have been russified. Russian words are rarely being transformed into something English-like. Just a few examples:
Кринж – cringe. In Russian the word can be used with the proper grammar like кринжую, кринжуем, кринжуешь (I cringe, we cringe, you cringe).
Чилл – chill. Same as previous.
Олды – old people. Just a new word to specify older generation, usually parents.
Рандом – random. There’s a Russian words “случайно” with the same meaning but it doesn’t sound so cool, I guess.
I don’t listen to rap but as far as I’m aware we have our own words to use.
A rapper by the name Mister Peanutbutter or Herra Hnetusmjör is quite popular over here.
>So, I was wondering if this peculiar “conversion” of native languages into a kind of “new native English rap slang” is effective or not in other countries, particularly in other european countries.
It’s not “English” anymore if you adapt a word from your own language though?
Can’t answer your question regarding German rap unfortunately, since I generally run away screaming as fast as possible whenever I hear rap. (The last time I heard rap that I could get on board with was literally in the 90ies.)
Though I have to give credit to rappers because imo its one of the few genres in the German music scene where a lot of people actually try to sing in German instead of creating terrible English lyrics.
Rappers in Poland use the Polish slang that is used by the dudes who are “cool”, smoke weed, are against the system, etc.
There are words like “joł” derived from the English yo or “elo” derived from the English hello, both mean hi but sounds cooler.
In early 00’s Hungary I heard Kamikaze – Nomen est Omen. Its gypsies from Esztergom, they either hungarified some loan words or just strait up referenced various countries natively. I don’t really like rap but these guys went hard.