Verlan

An interesting variant of the French language is something called "verlan"--a type of slang which has been growing popular in recent years, especially in the banlieu (a.k.a. the suburbs), which is where all the riots and car burnings have taken place in France in recent years and is also considered the seat of urban hip-hop and rap culture in Paris. Words in verlan are derived from taking their inverse--an in fact, this is where the word "verlan" comes from (à l'invers = inverted). You take the last syllable of the word, stick it at the beginning of the word, and voila, you have your new word in verlan. Other popular examples:

"le genar" = "l'argent" (the word for money)
"meuf" = "femme" (the word for woman)
"Ça cheumar" = "Ça marche" (the phrase for "that works.")
"la turvoi" = "la voiture" (the word for car)

You get the idea. Here are a bunch of other words in verlan. I liken it a little bit to the U.S. gangsta rap practice of adding the "-izz" sound to words--as in, "fo' shizzle", or, "in the hizzouse" á la Snoop Dogg--to create a kind of coded English language. Or perhaps you could describe it as the "French pig Latin", but cooler. Anyways, as I'm having a hard enough time learning regular French as it is, I'm not planning on incorporating verlan into my everyday lexicon, at least not for the time being...