Rövarspråket

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Rövarspråket ("The Robber Language") is a Swedish language game. It became popular after the books about Kalle Blomkvist by Astrid Lindgren, where the children use it as a code, both at play and in solving actual crimes.

The principle is easy enough. Every consonant (spelling matters, not pronunciation) is doubled, and an o is inserted in-between. Vowels are left intact. It is quite possible to render the Rövarspråket version of an English word as well as a Swedish, e.g.:

sos-tot-u-bob-bob-o-ror-non

(or less intelligbly written without the hyphens) means stubborn. Needless to say, the code is not very useful in written form, but it can be tough when spoken by a trained (and thus quick) user. On the other hand, for an untrained speaker, a word or phrase can often be something of a tongue-twister or a shibboleth.

Today, the books (and subsequent films) are so well-known in Sweden that the language has become integrated in the culture of schoolchildren. Most Swedes are familiar with it, and understand it at some level.