Pig Latin is a game of alterations played on the English language game. To form the Pig Latin form of an English word the initial consonant sound is transposed to the end of the word and an ay is affixed (Ex.: "banana" would yield anana-bay). The purpose of the alteration is to both obfuscate the encoding and to indicate for the intended recipient the encoding as 'Pig Latin'.

The reference to Latin is a deliberate misnomer, as it is simply a form of jargon, used only for its English connotations as a 'strange and foreign-sounding language'. The origins of Pig Latin are unknown. One early mention of it was in Putnam’s Magazine in May 1869: “I had plenty of ammunition in reserve, to say nothing, Tom, of our pig Latin.

‘Hoggibus, piggibus et shotam damnabile grunto’, and all that sort of thing”. The Atlantic January 1896 also included a mention of the subject: “They all spoke a queer jargon which they themselves had invented. It was something like the well-known ‘pig Latin’ that all sorts of children like to play with”.

Thomas Jefferson wrote letters to friends in pig Latin, and also recorded his sexual acts in his diary in pig Latin. (see Hailman and Lewis in the references below) Pig Latin is mostly used by children for amusement or to converse in perceived privacy from adults or other children. A few Pig Latin words, such as ixnay (nix), amscray (scram), and upidstay (stupid), have been incorporated into English slang.[citation needed]

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