BBC future: Could you erectify a luxurimole flackoblots? Have you hidden your chocolate cake from Penelope? Or maybe you’re just going to vada the bona omi?
If you understand any of these sentences, you speak an English “anti-language”. Since at least Tudor times, secret argots have been used in the underworld of prisoners, escaped slaves and criminal gangs as a way of confusing and befuddling the authorities.
Thieves’ Cant, Polari, and Gobbledygook (yes, it’s a real form of slang) are just a few of the examples from the past – but anti-languages are mercurial beasts that are forever evolving into new and more vibrant forms.
A modern anti-language could very well be spoken on the street outside your house. Unless you yourself are a member of the “anti-society”, the strange terms would sound like nonsense. Yet those words may have nevertheless influenced your swear words, the comedy you enjoy and the music on your iPod – without you even realising the shady interactions that shaped them. (please read the whole thing)
3 comments:
"If you understand any of these sentences, you speak an English “anti-language”."
"Anti-language" is the anti-language term for "code."
Anti-language could explain many of Ritmo's comments.
Onay ayway I'mway oinggay otay eadray oughthray allway atthay
onway away icenay Aturdaysay afternoonway.
If I talk about the "Amish" instead of Blacks, or if I say something critical about homosexuals but immediately follow it up with "not that there's anything wrong with that,", the famous NTTAWWT, those are both examples of anti-language or Rabel's "code." And in a society as unfree as ours more people use code than don't.
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