Šatrovački is a Serbian slang feature of permuting syllables of words. The term is sometimes used to describe other slang practices, as well. Šatrovački is spread among youth in informal speech and is used in similar fashion in other Serbo-Croatian languages.

Words are formed by replacing the syllable order. For example: pivo (beer), becomes vopi. The new word has the same meaning as the stem. Since Serbian is spelled using alphabet that is nearly phonetic, the spelling does not change. However, sometimes one of the vowels is changed to make the new word easier to pronounce, avoid ambiguity, or if the stem word is not in nominative. For example, trava (weed, often used for marijuana) would become vutra instead of vatra (fire).

Some words are more commonly spoken in šatrovački then others, but there is no specific rule. Examples of transformed sentences (although, most of the words in a single sentence are rarely transformed) are:

Brate, neću da igram fudbal. (Mate, I don't want to play soccer.)

Tebra, ćune da igram dbalfu.

Pazi brate, murija! (Watch out mate - cops! murija itself being a slang word for law enforcement)

Zipa tebra, rijamu!

Utrovački

Utrovački is a more complex form of šatrovački. Words are formed using: U + last part + ZA + first part + NJE. E.g. vikipedija (wikipedia) becomes ukipedijazavinje. Today, utrovački is not commonly used.

Common examples

• mojne! - nemoj! (don't, imperative).
• tebra - brate (brother, vocative)
• ganci - cigan (gypsy)
• derpe - peder (homosexual, offensive)
• ljakse - seljak (villager, derogatory depending on usage)
• zipa - pazi (pay attention, imperative)
• tenkre - kreten (idiot)
• Tarmi Rićmi - Mitar Mirić (a folk singer)
• vugla - glava (head)
• vutra - trava (weed, slang for marijuana)
• vopi - pivo (beer)
• vozdra - zdravo (hello)
• čkapi - pička (cunt)
• konza - zakon (law, slang for excellent)
• dbalfu - fudbal (soccer)
• vuspra - sprava (tool or device, refering to spliff)
• Šone - Neša (male name or nickname)
• Šomi - Miša (male name or nickname)
• Kiza - Zoki (male nickname)

See also

• Serbian language
• Verlan - same principle as Satrovacki, in French
• Vesre - ditto, in Argentine Spanish.