In “A Clockwork Orange,” what is the invented slang language called? It is called Nadsat. Anthony Burgess created Nadsat for his 1962 novel, giving its teenage characters a distinctive vocabulary that mixes English with heavily adapted Russian words and expressions.
The name comes from the Russian suffix “-надцать” transliterated as “-nadsat,” used in numbers from eleven through nineteen. In the novel, words such as “droog” for friend, “korova” for cow, and “mesto” for place help create the unsettling voice of Alex, the narrator.
Nadsat is more than decorative slang. Its partial opacity distances readers from the characters’ violence while also showing how language can form an in-group identity. Context usually makes the meanings understandable, and the vocabulary becomes less prominent as Alex’s psychological and moral position changes. A common mistake is treating “Droogish” as the language’s name; droog is only one Nadsat word.