Back slang

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Back slang is a language created by phonetically speaking words backwards and is typically pronounced from the written word and not the spoken word. It is thought to have originated in Victorian England, being used mainly by market sellers, such as butchers^[1] and greengrocers.

It is thought to have developed to allow the sellers to have private conversations behind their customers' backs as there was little regulation of selling, allowing them to pass off lower quality goods to less observant customers.

Back slang is specific to the English language, however other cultures have their own versions, such as the French Verlan where syllables, rather than the entire word, are reversed. Working class Yiddish-speakers in England also employed some English-style backslang, e.g. yok, meaning goy (Yiddish for gentile). Swedish contains the similar back slang, for example the word fika (Swedish for 'to have a coffee break'), which has the syllables of "kaffi" (older Swedish for 'coffee') reversed.