Shelta
Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox language Shelta (Template:IPAc-en;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Irish: Template:Lang)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> is a language spoken by Irish Travellers (Template:Lang), particularly in Ireland and the United Kingdom.<ref name="McArthur">Template:Cite book</ref> It is also widely known as the Cant, known to its native speakers in Ireland as Template:Lang or Template:Lang, and known to the academic or professional linguistic community as Shelta.<ref name="Queen's">Template:Cite book</ref> Other terms for it include the Seldru, and Shelta Thari, among others (see below).
The exact number of native speakers is hard to determine due to sociolinguistic issues<ref name="Queen's" /> but Ethnologue puts the number of speakers at 30,000 in the UK, 6,000 in Ireland, and 50,000 in the US (the figure for at least the UK is dated to 1990; it is not clear if the other figures are from the same source).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Linguistically Shelta is today seen as a mixed language that stems from a community of travelling people in Ireland that was originally predominantly Irish-speaking. The community later went through a period of widespread bilingualism that resulted in a language based heavily on Hiberno-English with significant influences from Irish.<ref name="Queen's" /> As different varieties of Shelta display different degrees of anglicisation, it is hard to determine the extent of the Irish substratum. The Oxford Companion to the English Language puts it at 2,000–3,000 words.<ref name="McArthur" />
Names and etymology
The language is known by various names. People outside the Irish Traveller community often refer to it as [the] Cant, the etymology of which is a matter of debate.<ref name="Queen's" /> Speakers of the language refer to it as [the] Cant,<ref name="McArthur" /> Template:Lang<ref name="McArthur" /><ref name="Queen's" /> or Template:Lang.<ref name="McArthur" /> Amongst linguists, the name Shelta is the most commonly used term.<ref name="Queen's" />
Variants of the above names and additional names include Bog Latin,<ref name="McArthur" /> Gammon,<ref name="Dolan">Template:Cite book</ref> Sheldru,<ref name="McArthur" /> Shelter,<ref name="McArthur" /> Shelteroch,<ref name="McArthur" /> the Ould Thing,<ref name="McArthur" /> Tinker's Cant,<ref name="McArthur" /> and Shelta Thari.<ref>Template:Cite magazine Select "View This Story as a PDF" to bypass the partial pay-wall.</ref>
Etymology
The word Shelta appeared in print for the first time in 1882, in the book The Gypsies by the "gypsiologist" Charles Leland, who claimed to have discovered it as the "fifth Celtic tongue". The word's etymology has long been a matter of debate. Modern Celticists believe that Irish Template:Lang Template:IPA "to walk" is at the root, either via a term such as Template:Lang Template:IPA 'a walker' or a form of the verbal noun Template:Lang; thus, Template:Lang Template:IPA, 'the walking people', lit. 'the people of walks',<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> is the traditional Irish term for Travellers.<ref name="Queen's" />
The Dictionary of Hiberno-English cites it as possibly a corruption of the word Celt.<ref name="Dolan" /> Since Shelta is a mixture of English and Irish grammar, the etymology is not straightforward. The language is made up mostly of Irish lexicon, being classified as a grammar-lexicon language with the grammar being English-based.<ref name="Velupillai 2015 381">Template:Harvp</ref>
Origins and history
Linguists have been documenting Shelta since at least the 1870s. The first works were published in 1880 and 1882 by Charles Leland.<ref name="Queen's" /> Celticist Kuno Meyer and Romani expert John Sampson both assert that Shelta existed as far back as the 13th century.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In the earliest but undocumented period, linguists surmise that the Traveller community was Irish-speaking until a period of widespread bilingualism in Irish and Hiberno-English, and Scots language in Scotland set in, leading to creolisation (possibly with a trilingual stage).<ref name="Queen's" /> The resulting language is referred to as Old Shelta, and it is suspected that this stage of the language displayed distinctive features, such as non-English syntactic and morphological features, no longer found in Shelta.<ref name="Queen's" />
Within the diaspora, various sub-branches of Shelta exist. Shelta in England is increasingly undergoing anglicisation. American Irish-Traveller's Cant, originally synonymous with Shelta, has by now been almost fully anglicised.<ref name="McArthur" />
Linguistic features
Sociologist Sharon Gmelch describes the Irish Travellers' language as follows:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Thus, by design, it is not mutually intelligible with either English or Irish.
Shelta is a secret language.<ref>Template:Harvp</ref> Travellers do not like to share the language with outsiders, named Template:Lang, or non-travellers.<ref>Template:Harvp</ref> When speaking Shelta in front of Buffers, Travellers will disguise the structure so as to make it seem like they aren't speaking Shelta at all.<ref>Template:Harvp</ref>
Lexicon
While Shelta is influenced by English grammar, it is a mixture of Irish words as well. The word order is altered, syllables are reversed, and many of the original words are Irish that have been altered or reversed. Many Shelta words have been disguised using techniques such as back slang, where sounds are transposed. For example, Template:Lang 'kiss' from Irish Template:Lang, or the addition of sounds, for example Template:Lang 'father' from Irish Template:Lang.<ref name="McArthur" /> Other examples include Template:Lang or Template:Lang 'girl' from Irish Template:Lang, and the word Template:Lang 'door' from Irish Template:Lang.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Grammar
Shelta shares its main syntactic features with Hiberno-English and the majority of its morphological features such as -s plurals and past tense markers.<ref name="Queen's" /> Compare:
| Shelta | English |
|---|---|
| Template:Lang; Template:Lang | 'the man'; 'men' |
| Template:Lang | 'the woman' |
| Template:Lang | 'married' |
| Template:Lang | 'boy, lad' |
| Template:Lang | 'son' |
| Template:Lang | 'girl' |
| Template:Lang | 'hands' |
| Template:Lang | 'eyes' |
| Template:Lang | 'hair' |
| Template:Lang | 'mouth' |
| Template:Lang | 'kiss' |
| Template:Lang | 'trousers' |
| Template:Lang | 'shoes' |
| Template:Lang | 'clothes' |
| Template:Lang | 'coat' |
| Template:Lang | 'car' |
| Template:Lang | 'bed' |
| Template:Lang | 'candle' |
| Template:Lang | 'door' |
| Template:Lang | 'day' |
| Template:Lang | 'night' |
| Template:Lang | 'fish' |
| Template:Lang | 'take' |
| Template:Lang | 'go'; 'give', 'get' |
| Template:Lang | 'go', 'come' |
| Template:Lang | 'look', 'see', 'watch' |
| Template:Lang | 'head' |
| Template:Lang | 'thing, gizmo'; can refer to just about anything |
| Template:Lang | 'police' |
| Template:Lang | 'work', 'job' |
| Template:Lang | 'to be persistent about wanting something' |
| Template:Lang | 'to hit something or someone' |
| Template:Lang | 'steal, rob' |
| Template:Lang | 'talk, speak' |
| Template:Lang | 'shut up, stop talking' (see also Scots and dialectal English whisht) |
| Template:Lang | 'money' |
| Template:Lang | 'looking for' |
| Template:Lang | 'one's personal items' (usually) |
| Template:Lang | 'eat', 'food' |
| Template:Lang | 'to leave somewhere in a hurry' |
| Template:Lang | 'tree, bush' |
There is not as much importance put on gender in Shelta as in Irish. Plurals are shown with the English suffix /-s/ or /-i/, such as Template:Lang for 'man' becomes Template:Lang for 'men'.<ref>Template:Harvp</ref>
Phonology
Shelta has 27 consonants and 6 phonemic vowels.
Many words are complex by incorporating numerous consonants within, as in the word Template:Lang for 'tree, bush' with the consonant /ꭕ/ being a hissing sound that is held in the back of the throat, and is held longer than other consonants.<ref name="Velupillai 2015 381" />
The vowel system features phonemic lengthening for all vowels except for /Template:IPAlink/. Additionally, [ey, iy, ow, uw] can be realized as diphthongs in certain varieties of Shelta.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | Template:IPAlink | Template:IPAlink | |
| Close-mid | Template:IPAlink | Template:IPAlink | Template:IPAlink |
| Open | Template:IPA link |
Loanwords
Some Shelta words have been borrowed by mainstream English speakers, such as the word "bloke" meaning 'a man' in the mid-19th century.<ref>Oxford Dictionary – etymology</ref>Template:Full citation needed
Orthography
There is no standard orthography. Broadly speaking, Shelta can either be written following an Irish-type orthography or an English-type orthography. For example, the word for 'married' can either be spelled Template:Lang or Template:Lang; the word for 'woman' can either be spelled Template:Lang or Template:Lang.<ref name="Queen's" />
Comparison texts
Below are reproductions of the Lord's Prayer in Shelta as it occurred a century agoTemplate:When, current Shelta Cant, and modern English and Irish versions for comparison. The 19th-century Shelta version shows a high Shelta lexical content while the later Cant version shows a much lower Shelta lexical content. Both versions are adapted from Hancock<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> who notes that the Cant reproduction is not exactly representative of actual speech in normal situations.
| Shelta (old) | Shelta (current) | English | Irish |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Our Father, who art in heaven, | Template:Lang |
| Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Hallowed be thy name. | Template:Lang |
| Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, | Template:Lang |
| Template:Lang | Template:Lang | On earth as it is in heaven. | Template:Lang |
| Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Give us today our daily bread. | Template:Lang |
| Template:Lang | Template:Lang | And forgive us our trespasses, | Template:Lang |
| Template:Lang | Template:Lang | As we forgive those who trespass against us. | Template:Lang |
| Template:Lang | Template:Lang | And lead us not into temptation, | Template:Lang |
| Template:Lang | Template:Lang | but deliver us from evil. | Template:Lang |
| Template:Lang | Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory | Template:Lang | |
| Template:Lang | For ever and ever | Template:Lang | |
| Template:Lang | Amen. | Template:Lang |
See also
References
Bibliography
- Template:Cite book Also reissued by Armagh: Craobh Rua Books (1997).
- Template:Cite book
External links
Template:Languages of Ireland Template:Celtic languages Template:Irish Travellers