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Turn any English text into Pig Latin, where Pig Latin becomes Igpay Atinlay, using the rules you grew up with: way, yay or ay endings, whole clusters or first letters, hyphens or none. Paste Pig Latin to decode it back to English, or turn your message into Ubbi Dubbi, Robber language and back slang.
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Last updated: October 5, 2026 · Published: 2026-04-09 · Updated: 2026-10-05
Punctuation, numbers, apostrophes and capital letters are kept.
Pig Latin
Idskay ovelay ecretsay anguageslay, andway Igpay Atinlay isway ethay easiestway oneway otay earnlay.
Your text in all 6 secret languages
Pig Latin is an English word game in which you move the consonants at the start of each word to the end and add ay, so pig becomes igpay and Latin becomes Atinlay. Words that start with a vowel keep their spelling and get an ending such as way: eat becomes eatway. Spoken quickly, it sounds like a foreign language to anyone who doesn’t know the trick.
It isn’t related to Latin. Pig Latin and hog Latin were joke names for fake or bad Latin long before they named the game, which has been played by American children since at least the 1880s and gave English the words ixnay and amscray.
Type or paste your text
Enter a sentence, a name or a whole secret message. Punctuation, numbers and capitals stay where they are.
Choose your rules
Pick the ending for vowel words (way, yay, hay or ay), move the whole consonant cluster or just the first letter (string becomes tringsay), and add hyphens if you like.
Copy it or decode it
Copy the Pig Latin, copy it in all six secret languages at once, or switch to Pig Latin to text to turn a message back into English.
The six rules the translator follows, with its actual output.
| Rule | Examples |
|---|---|
| One consonant at the start: move it, add ay | pig igpaylatin atinlaybanana ananabay |
| A consonant cluster: move the whole cluster | smile ilesmaystring ingstrayglove oveglaytrash ashtray |
| A vowel at the start: add way (or yay, hay, ay) | apple applewayeat eatwayI Iway |
| Qu stays together | queen eenquaysquare aresquayquiet ietquay |
| Y is a consonant at the start, a vowel after | yellow ellowyaymy ymayrhythm ythmrhay |
| Apostrophes and capitals are kept | don't on'tdayHello EllohayNASA ASANAY |
Pig Latin has no official rulebook, and the ending for words that start with a vowel is where people disagree most. All four are common, and all four are in the translator.
| Ending | eat | apple |
|---|---|---|
| -way | eatway | appleway |
| -yay | eatyay | appleyay |
| -hay | eathay | applehay |
| -ay | eatay | appleay |
Two other variations are common. Some people move only the first consonant, so string becomes tringsay rather than ingstray, and some write a hyphen before the moved letters, as in Ig-pay Atin-lay, which makes the message easy to read back.
| English | Pig Latin | Why it’s known |
|---|---|---|
| Pig Latin | Igpay Atinlay | The name itself |
| To be, or not to be | Otay ebay, orway otnay otay ebay | Hamlet, as quoted in Pig Latin by the OED |
| Hello, world! | Ellohay, orldway! | The classic first program |
| Nix | Ixnay | Gave English ixnay, meaning no or cancel |
| Scram | Amscray | Gave English amscray, meaning go away |
| Do you speak Pig Latin? | Oday ouyay eakspay Igpay Atinlay? | The question to ask |
Ixnay and amscray are the two Pig Latin words that made it into ordinary English. Ixnay comes from nix, itself from German nichts, nothing, and means no or drop it, as in “ixnay on the surprise party”. Amscray comes from scram and means get lost. Both are listed in major dictionaries.
No one knows who invented the game. These are the earliest records found by dictionary researchers.
| Year | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1807 | Hog Latin is recorded for mock or bad Latin, the sense the name started with. | Oxford English Dictionary |
| 1844 | Pig Latin first appears in print, in the Brooklyn Eagle, still meaning fake Latin. | Oxford English Dictionary |
| 1869 | Putnam's Magazine uses pig Latin for joke Latin endings like hoggibus and piggibus. | Oxford English Dictionary |
| 1889 | A Kansas newspaper prints the word game with hyphens, calling it hog Latin. | Etymonline; American Dialect Society list |
| 1895 | The game is called pig-latin in a Utah newspaper. | American Dialect Society list |
| 1896 | The Atlantic Monthly gives the Oxford English Dictionary its first quotation for Pig Latin as the game. | Oxford English Dictionary |
| 1929 | Ixnay, from nix, is recorded, in the film The Broadway Melody. | Boston Globe |
| 1930s | Amscray, from scram, appears in print and joins ixnay in everyday slang. | Boston Globe |
Earlier examples may still turn up as more old newspapers are digitized. The game itself is likely older than its first record, since children’s word games are passed on by talking, not writing.
To read Pig Latin, drop the final ay, then move the last consonants back to the front until you get a real word. The translator does this for every possible split and picks the most common English word. These are its actual results.
| Pig Latin | Decoded |
|---|---|
| Ellohay orldway! | Hello world! |
| Otay ebay, orway otnay otay ebay. | To be, or not to be. |
| Ixnay onway ethay ecretsay. | Nix on the secret. |
| Ig-pay atin-lay isway un-fay. | Pig latin is fun. |
With the way ending, will and ill both become illway, because the w could be the moved consonant or part of the ending. No decoder can always know which was meant, so the translator picks the more common word and highlights the word so you can check it. Hyphens solve the problem.
| Pig Latin | First choice | Also possible |
|---|---|---|
| illway | will | ill |
| inway | in | win |
| eatay | eat | tea |
| ellway | well | ell |
| ig-pay atin-lay | pig latin | Nothing else: the hyphen shows exactly what moved |
Children around the world play the same kind of game. Here is Hello friend in every language the translator speaks.
| Language | Hello friend | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Pig Latin | Ellohay iendfray | Starting consonants moved to the end plus ay, an ending added to vowel words. |
| Hyphenated Pig Latin | Ello-hay iend-fray | A hyphen before the moved letters, so it can always be decoded exactly. |
| First letter only | Ellohay riendfay | Moves just the first consonant: string becomes tringsay. |
| Ubbi Dubbi | Hubellubo frubiend | Ub before every vowel sound, made famous by the PBS show Zoom. |
| Rövarspråket (Robber language) | Hohelollolo fofrorienondod | Every consonant doubled with an o between, from Astrid Lindgren's Kalle Blomkvist books. |
| Back slang | Olleh dneirf | Each word spelled backwards, the London market slang that gave us yob from boy. |
| Game | Where | Rule | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubbi Dubbi | United States | Ub before every vowel sound. | Hubellubo frubiend |
| Rövarspråket | Sweden | Each consonant doubled with an o between. | Hohelollolo fofrorienondod |
| Back slang | Victorian London | Words said backwards. Gave English yob, from boy. | Olleh dneirf |
| Louchébem | Paris butchers | First consonant replaced by l and moved to the end, plus an ending: boucher becomes louchébem. | Not in the translator |
Ubbi Dubbi was popularized by the PBS show Zoom in the 1970s and again after its 1999 revival. Rövarspråket first appeared in Astrid Lindgren’s 1951 book Mästerdetektiven Blomkvist lever farligt (Bill Bergson Lives Dangerously). Back slang was recorded among London costermongers, street traders who used it to talk prices in front of customers, and yob is listed in John Camden Hotten’s slang dictionary of 1859.
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