Loucherbem : nm The word loucherbem (louchébem or louchébème or louch'bem, etc.) - resulting from the deformation by largonji of the word butcher, first attested in 1876 in the form luchebem - was used from the end of the XNUMXth century to designate the largonji of the louchébems ("butchers 'jargon"), in other words the butchers' slang. The louchébem remains in the twenty-first century known and used in this professional universe. This word is one of the oldest coming from verlan.
Definition: Louchébem is a largonji (jargon). The lexicographer Gaston Esnault explains the second term as follows (article Largonji): "This deformation of the words substitutes l for the initial consonant of the first syllable or - if the word begins with an l or a vowel - of the following syllable and restores, in end of a word, the etymological consonant, with a free suffix. "
Strictly, the louchebem would be a "more rigid variety of largonji [in which] the ending in èm [would be] obligatory".
Lexical creation: The process of lexical creation of Louchébem is similar to verlan and Javanese. We "camouflage" existing words by modifying them according to a certain rule: the consonant or the group of consonants at the beginning of the word is carried over to the end of the word and replaced by an "l", then we add a slang suffix of your choice, for example -em / th, -ji, -oc, -ic, -uche, -ès. Thus s-ac turns into l-ac-s-é, b-oucher into l-oucher-b-em, j-argon into l-argon-ji, etc.
Louchébem is first and foremost an oral language, and its spelling is very often phonetic.
History: As Gaston Esnault indicated in the Louchébème or Loucherbem article in his Dictionnaire historique des argots français (1965), the Louchébem does not seem to have been designed by the butchers of Paris. The oldest words resulting from the process, which, by deformation of the jargon word, will be called largonji (first attestation in 1881 in Richepin, new edition of La Chanson des Gueux), are found in the slang of the so-called dangerous classes of the first half of the nineteenth century: lomben pour bon in the slang glossary of Louis Ansiaume, convict in the Brest prison in 1821, La Lorcefé for La Force (name of a Parisian prison) in Les Mémoires de Vidocq (1828-1829), linspré for prince in Les Voleurs (Vidocq, 1836-1837), without counting the old forms resulting from a largonji without carry forward of the initial consonant at the end nor "suffix" (larque for mark "woman" in Ansiaume 1821, lousse pour pushes "Gendarmerie" in Dictionary of slang of 1827, etc.). The first attested word of the deformation with -em is lombem pour bon in a letter from a criminal (newspaper La Patrie of 1852), cited by Michel 1856 and Larchey 18585.
The louchebem of the butchers today: Still today the butchers use the louchebem in community. Here are some examples :
slang = largomuche
naked = loilpé
hello = lonjourbem
butcher = ladiebem
client = keylink
coffee = laféquès
how much = lombienquès
understands = lomprenquès
(in) soft = (in) sliced
woman = lamfé or lamdé (lamdé is more precisely a "lady")
crazy = crazy (crazy, crazy)
blunder (attention) = blundered
boy = larsonquès
gypsy = litjoc
leg = ligogem
mackerel = lacromuche
thank you = lercimuche
sir = lesieumic
piece = Lorsomic
package → pacson = lacsonpem
overcoat = lardeuss (lardeussupem)
sorry = lardonpem
to speak = larlepem
pas = in the lap (in the expression lomprenquès in the lap)
boss = latronpem or latronpuche
pork = lorpic
tip = lourboirpem
whore (prostitute) = lutinpem
bag = lacé
cracked = locdu
Louchébem passed in fluent French
Certain words of Louchebem have become common and today have their place in colloquial language.
It is in particular the case of the zany that the French humorist Pierre Dac (1893-1975), son of a butcher, helped to popularize, to the point of being sometimes presented as the very inventor of the word.
Examples:
cher = lerche (commonly used in its negative form: not lerche) or lerchem
in soft = in loucedé or in loucedoc
crazy = crazy, crazy
wallet = larfeuille or lortefeuillepem
filou = loufiah (unreliable person, then servile to apply in particular to waiters of bars and hotels)
naked = loilpé (i.e. naked)
The louchebem in history
An exact version of Louchébem (now almost extinct, except in the communities of former resistance fighters) was spoken by French resistance fighters during World War II.
Louchébem in the arts
We find a lot of sleazy terms in the literature of Alphonse Boudard: “I find myself this evening with Letters to the Amazon by Remy de Gourmont. That does not teach me the [dear] chemistry of India, the Hindus and the Clancul. No, and I can't read them, his sumptuous stammerings to dear Master. "(The metamorphosis of woodlice)
In the song Sale Argot by French rap group IAM, on the mixtape IAM Official Mixtape, rapper Akhénaton raps an entire verse in Louchébem.
In his album Mistrust of Little Girls, Philippe Marlu performs Lansonchouille, the first Louchébem song of the millennium, written by Stéphane 'Léfanstouf' Moreau.
The French writer Raymond Queneau (1903-1976) also used the loucherbem in a text of the same name in his collection Exercices de style, published in 1947.
In her youth novel Les Mystères de Larispem, Lucie Pierrat-Pajot portrays a caste of butchers who took power during the Paris Commune to form a populist state, where aristocrats no longer exist and all live equal. In this retro-futuristic Paris, Louchébem is commonly spoken, and the author explains that it was by learning of the existence of this form of slang that the inspiration for her book came to her.