Thieves' cant
Thieves' cant (also known as thieves' argot, rogues' cant, or peddler's French)
History
Harman included a canting
The influence of this work can be seen from the independent life taken on by the "Beggar King Clause", who appears as a real character in later literature. The ceremony for anointing the new king was taken from Thomas Harman and described as being used by
Sources
It was commonly believed that cant developed from
There is doubt as to the extent to which the words in canting literature were taken from street usage, or were adopted by those wishing to show that they were part of a real or imagined criminal underworld. The transmission has almost certainly been in both directions. The Winchester Confessions indicate that Roma engaged in criminal activities, or those associated with them and with a good knowledge of their language, were using cant, but as a separate vocabulary - Angloromani was used for day to day matters, while cant was used for criminal activities.[3] A thief in 1839 claimed that the cant he had seen in print was nothing like the cant then used by Roma, thieves and beggars. He also said that each of these used distinct vocabularies, which overlapped; the Roma having a cant word for everything, and the beggars using a lower style than the thieves.[4]
Examples
- ken – house
- bob ken - a house that can easily be robbed[5]
- boozing ken – alehouse
- stauling ken - a house that will receive stolen goods[6]
- lag – water; as a verb, penal transportation
- bene – good
- patrico – priest
- autem – church
- darkmans – night
- glymmer – fire
- mort – woman
- cove – man[7]
- cully - a victim[8]
- bung - a purse[8]
- fence - a person who buys stolen goods[9]
- fencing cully - a person who will receive stolen goods[10]
- fambles - hands; also goods that are probably stolen[11]
- bite - to cheat or cozen[10]
- prog - meat[12]
- scowre - to run away[12]
- cuttle-bung - a knife with a curved blade[13]
- foin - a pickpocketing technique in which conversation and deception are used to steal a purse from a victim; also someone who uses this technique[14]
- nip - pickpocketing by slashing and palming a purse; also a person who uses this technique[8]
- knuckle - a young pickpocket[8]
- stall - a person who identifies and manoeuvres a victim so that their purse can be stolen[8]
- bulk the cull to the right! - an instruction by a pickpocket to a stall to distract a cully by striking them on their right breast, so that their purse may be stolen[8]
- budge - a person who breaks into houses to allow entry for their gang.
Equivalent of thieves' cant in other languages
See also
- A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew
- Rhyming slang – Any system of slang in which a word is replaced with a phrase that rhymes with it
- Lunfardo – Argot of Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Nihali – Isolate language spoken in India
- Polari – Form of slang
- Tsotsitaal and Camtho – Variety of mixed languages mainly spoken in the townships of Gauteng province
- Šatrovački – secret language game
References
- ^ Mikanowski, Jacob (5 December 2013). "The Tongues of Rogues: How secret languages develop in closed societies". Slate.
- ^ Rid, Samuel (1610). Martin Markall, the Beadle of Bridewell, as quoted in Reynolds, Bryan (2002). Becoming Criminal: Transversal Performance and Cultural Dissidence in Early Modern England. John Hopkins University Press. p. 33.
- ^ ISSN 1528-0748. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 October 2011.
- SalfordGaol
- ^ But 2017.
- )
- ^ Harman, Thomas. A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursetors (1814, [1566]), p. 65.
- ^ a b c d e f McMullan 1984, p. 100.
- S2CID 64940066.
- ^ a b Sorensen 2017, p. 28.
- ^ Sorensen 2017, pp. 28, 50.
- ^ a b Sorensen 2017, p. 48.
- ^ McMullan 1984, p. 101.
- OCLC 9619815.
Bibliography
- Judges, A.V., (1930, reprinted 1974) The Elizabethan Underworld, includes the main works of rogue literature
- Aydelotte, F., (1913, reprinted 1967) Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds, provided analysis of the literature.
- Coleman, J., (2004) A History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries, Volume 1: 1567-1784
- Green, J., Romany Rise, Critical Quarterly, Volume 41 Page 118 - October 1999 (commenting on Becker-Ho, A., Les Princes du Jargon (1990 & 1993)
- Harman, T. (1814) A caveat or warning for common cursetors, vulgarly called vagabonds.
- Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit and Pickpocket Eloquence. 1811 edition of a dictionary compiled by Captain Grose in 1785.
- Transcription of canting terms from 1736 and published then by Nathan Bailey
- The Lexicon of Thieves Cant
Further reading
- George W. Matsell (1859), Vocabulum, or, The rogue's lexicon: compiled from the most authentic sources,[1] a dictionary of American thieves' cant.
External links
- ^ See also Vocabulum, or, The rogue's lexicon: compiled from the most authentic sources at Google Books