Vesre

Vesre (reversing the order of syllables) is one of the features of the Buenos Aires argot of Spanish known as lunfardo. Natives of Buenos Aires use vesre sparingly in colloquial speaking, and never in formal occasions. Some tango lyrics make widespread use of lunfardo and vesre to highlight the intended underworld atmosphere.

Most Argentines have been exposed to vesre through the media, but its use is not widespread outside of Greater Buenos Aires. Rosario, for example, has its gasó method for obfuscating words, and Córdoba has an entirely different set of colloquial conventions.

Spanish speakers outside Argentina or Uruguay have a hard time understanding vesre. Natives of Barranquilla, Colombia often call their city Curramba, in a stylized form of vesre.

Examples

• revés -> vesre (reverse)
• café -> feca (coffee)
• papel -> pelpa (paper)
• caballo -> llobaca (horse)
• pieza -> zapie (room; pieza is preferred in Argentina over cuarto or habitación)
• libro -> broli (book)
• flaco -> cofla (thin man; since the 1970s, usually a colloquialism for man)
• batidor -> ortiba (an informant to police; batir means to inform in lunfardo)
• vieja -> javie (old woman; usually an affectionate colloquialism for mother)
• amigo -> gomía (friend)
• doctor -> tordo (doctor, usually meaning physician but also used for lawyers)
• carne -> nerca (meat)
• pizza -> zapi

Occasionally, vesre is a stepping-stone towards further obfuscation, achieved by evolving into a longer word. For example:

• coche (car) -> checo -> checonato (after a then-famous sportsman named Cecconatto)
• cinco (the number five) -> cocín -> cocinero (literally cook; used mostly on the racetrack)

In other languages

Colloquial French has a form or vesre known as verlan. For example, the movie title Les Ripoux (known in English as My New Partner) is vesre for Les Pourris (the rotten ones).

Tagálog, the language of the Philippines, also has a similar construct known as binaliktad.

Serbian has a form of slang called šatrovacki followed in the 1990s with a more ambiguous slang called utrovački.