Cant (language)

This article is about the linguistic concept of a cant. For the Irish Cant (also known as Shelta/Gammon), see Shelta.

A Cant (or crypolect) is the jargon or argot of a group, often implying its use to exclude or mislead people outside the group.^[1]

Etymology

There are two main schools of thought on the origin of the word cant.

Derivation in Celtic linguistics

In Celtic linguistics, the derivation is normally seen to be from the Scottish Gaelic chainnt or Irish word caint (older spelling cainnt) "speech, talk".^[2] In this sense it is seen to have derived amongst the itinerant groups of people in Scotland and Ireland, hailing from both Irish/Scottish Gaelic and English speaking backgrounds ultimately leading to a creole language.^[2]

The most widely known form is "the Cant", known to its native speakers in Ireland as Gammon and to the linguistic community as Shelta.^[2]

In the Scottish context, it has given rise to the terms Scottish Cant (a variant of Scots with Romani and Scottish Gaelic influences) and the Highland Traveller's Cant (or Beurla Reagaird), a Gaelic-based cant.^[2]

Derivation outside Celtic linguistics

Outside Goidelic circles, the derivation is normally seen to be from Latin cantāre "to sing" via Norman French canter.^[1][3]

Within this derivation, the history of the word is seen to originally have referred to the chanting of friars in a disparaging way some time between the 12th^[3] and 15th century,^[1] then the singsong of beggars and eventually a criminal jargon.

Usage

The Thieves' Cant was a feature of popular pamphlets and plays particularly between 1590 and 1615, but continued to feature in literature through the 18th century. There are questions about how genuinely the literature reflected vernacular use in the criminal underworld. A thief in 1839 claimed that the cant he had seen in print was nothing like the cant then used by gypsies, thieves and beggars. He also said that each of these used distinct vocabularies, which overlapped, the gypsies having a cant word for everything, and the beggars using a lower style than the thieves.^[4]

In June 2009 it was reported that inmates in one English prison were using "Elizabethan Cant" as a means of communication that guards would not understand, although the words used are not part of the canon of recognised cant.^[5]

The word has also been used as a suffix to coin names for modern day jargons such as medicant, a term used to refer to the type of language employed by members of the medical profession that is largely unintelligible to lay people.^[1]

Examples of cants

• Banjački, from Serbia
• Barallete, from Galicia, Spain
• Bargoens, from the Netherlands
• Bron from León and Asturias
• Beurla Reagaird a Gaelic based cant used by Highland Traveller community in Scotland, Britain
• Fala dos arxinas, from Galicia, Spain
• Fenya from Russia
• Gacería, from Spain
• Germanía, from Spain
• Grypsera, from Poland
• Klezmer-loshn, from Eastern Europe
• Lunfardo, from Argentina and Uruguay
• Javanais, from France
• Louchébem, from France
• Meshterski, from Bulgaria
• Padonkaffsky jargon from Runet
• Polari from Britain^[6]
• Rotwelsch, from Germany
• Šatrovački, from the former Yugoslavia
• Thieves' cant, from Britain
• Verlan, from France
• Xíriga, from Asturias
• Scottish Cant a variant of Scots and Romani used by the Lowland Gypsies in Scotland, Britain
• Shelta, from the Irish traveller community in Ireland

See also

• Argot
• Code talker
• Jargon
• Lingo
• Patois
• Slang
  • Rhyming slang
• Vernacular

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} McArthur, T. (ed.) The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-214183-X
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Kirk, J. & Ó Baoill, D. Travellers and their Language (2002) Queen's University Belfast ISBN 0-85389-832-4
3. ^ ^{a b} Collins English Dictionary 21st Century Edition (2001) HarperCollins ISBN 0-00-472529-8
4. ^ Ribton-Turner, C. J. 1887 Vagrants and Vagrancy and Beggars and Begging, London, 1887, p.245, quoting an examination taken at Salford Gaol
5. ^ "Convicts use ye olde Elizabethan slang to smuggle drugs past guards into prison". Daily Mail. 2009-06-08. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191475/Convicts-use-ye-olde-slang-fool-guards.html. Retrieved 2009-06-25. 
6. ^ Partridge, Eric (1937) Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English