Chronicling Louchébem, the Resilient Secret Language of the Butchers of Paris

FAIN: FEL-281998-22

Valérie Saugera
University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT 06269-9000)

Completion of a book on Louchébem, a secret, highly endangered language (argot) spoken by Parisian butchers since the 13th century.

Louchébem, the secret language of Parisian butchers, is often classified as extinct, yet my recent fieldwork reveals otherwise. An argot borrowed from thieves’ slang that emerged in the nineteenth-century Villette slaughterhouse, Louchébem is still spoken in butcher shops, though in decline. The pressures on the butchers’ profession since the late 1980s lend urgency to the task of documenting Louchébem, especially given that scholarly research has overlooked this singular argot. Based on ethno-linguistic fieldwork, including data collected from 227 Parisian butchers, this book project chronicles Louchébem by tracing it to its origin, recording its history, and evaluating its current status. This project investigates an endangered cultural and linguistic phenomenon while shedding light on wider issues of modernity, including the role of tradition, the relationship between language and consumption, and the value of linguistic diversity in a world where languages are rapidly dying off.

Associated Products

Open Louchébem: Secrecy in the Argot of Paris Butchers (Article)
Title: Open Louchébem: Secrecy in the Argot of Paris Butchers
Author: Valérie Saugera
Abstract: Louchébem, the ancient trade argot of the Paris butchers, is based on a word formation (or rather deformation) process used to disguise French words according to a rule. The butchers did not invent the process but borrowed it from Largonji (a deformation of 'jargon'). Words from this source are attested in the argot of the so-called ‘dangerous classes’, who used it to produce language opaque to the authorities. Louchébem combines a means of secrecy, an opportunity for language play and a tool for constructing craft identity. In this article, I present the linguistic and sociolinguistic details of Louchébem based on primary data collected from 233 traditional butchers. I further investigate secrecy in the modern context, when the key to Louchébem is available on the internet over 150 years after the emergence of the butchers’ argot. My research shows that both internal and external factors influence how secret Louchébem really is.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://academic.oup.com/fmls/article-abstract/60/3/315/7811222?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Primary URL Description: Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 60, Issue 3, July 2024, Pages 315–335, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqae068 Published: 04 October 2024
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Forum for Modern Language Studies
Publisher: Oxford University Press

---