Convert English text to Pig Latin

Translate ASCII English words with one explicit language-game variant: move the initial consonant cluster and add ay, or add yay after a vowel start.

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ToolPig Latin
Input
Output
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How it works

Words beginning with a, e, i, o, or u keep their letters and receive yay; every other word moves its leading consonant run behind the first vowel and receives ay. Y is always a consonant here, and the transformed spelling is recased for all-capitals or initial-capital input.

  • Indiana University describes the language game mechanically as moving an English onset or consonant cluster to the end and adding a vowel.
  • Other spoken variants use different vowel-start suffixes, so the selected yay rule is a convention rather than a standard.

Worked example

Convert English text to Pig Latin
Consonant-starting words move the cluster to the end and add 'ay'
Input
											Hello World
Output
												Ellohay Orldway

When to use this

Children use disguised speech during play, linguistics lessons demonstrate English word onsets, and coding exercises compare token boundaries with punctuation preservation.

Edge cases

  • rhythm has no a, e, i, o, or u, causing the full word to move as one consonant run and produce rhythmay.
  • don't and mother-in-law are transformed as separate letter runs around their apostrophe and hyphens, not as single lexical words.
  • café converts only the ASCII caf portion and leaves é in place, while words written wholly outside A–Z are untouched.

References