#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.

I ware researching arcane languages for an adventure horror comic graphic novel I am writing.

I have a character I am calling a cryptolinguist, in this universe she is an expert on secret forms of communication. 

Here is what I found………..

 Anti-language

An anti-language is the language of a social group which develops as a means of preventing people from outside the group understanding it. It may use the same vocabulary and grammar, but in an unorthodox fashion.

Cryptolect

A cant (or cryptolect) is the jargon or argot of a group, often implying its use to exclude or mislead people outside the group.

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

Polari

A cant used by the homosexual community in Britain, in the London fish markets, and in the theatre, attested since at least the 19th century

Ciazarn (Carny)

 In addition to carny jargon, some carnival workers used a special infix ("earz" or "eez" or "iz") to render regular language unintelligible to outsiders. This style eventually migrated into wrestling, hip hop, and other parts of modern culture.

 Boontling

Boontling is a folk language native to the Anderson Valley of Northern California. Like many regional dialects, it is spoken by a limited number of speakers, and some speakers fear that it will “pike for the dusties,” a way of saying that it will disappear. 

  Hobo Signs