#shelta

USian, but American is the primary identity I claim, yet it is important to me to know the people I came from. That I've been able to add a little bit more vocabulary to the small amount of Cant I've been fortunate enough to learn is huge for me. Thank you for that.

Be safe,

hi there! we're so glad that you've enjoyed our posts about the experience of being irish travellers / romanichal in ireland & the rest of the uk.

it's amazing you've been able to learn some cant, especially since we've been rather closed off in regards to the language due to the unfortunate racism we face, i have some resources for you below if you want to further it in any way!

infographic card that also includes some basic romanes!

brief history of the languages

a pdf dictionary of shelta words

further dissection into the language but tw for a slur in the title

Useful Phrases When Visiting Zelazny’s Amber

Thari is the language spoken by those characters in Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber who reside in the immortal city.  This is a real language outside the books, however, known by many names – Shelta, Tinker’s Talk, Gammon, Bearla lagair, Traveller’s Cant.  Only two sentences of it appear in the series, but they are real sentences in the esoteric language of a prehistoric guild.

Going back to the earliest beginnings of history, itinerant bronze-workers and masons – and possibly bards and druids – spoke a version of this tongue and shared it with no one outside their brotherhood, with neither closest friends nor family, thereby protecting the secrets of their craft.  Over time, it became the speech of the wanderers or the lucht siúlta, the “people of walks.”  And it protected and bound them, while also creating a vehicle of identity for them, much as Romani did for the Roma.

Some examples are provided here:

ENGLISH                                        THARI

please                                             grasi

thanks                                             maa’ths

you’re welcome                               hu grālt’a

good morning                                  slum hawrum

good evening                                   slum dorahōg

how are you?                                   l’esk mwīlša a hu?

I’m doing well, thank you                 mwī’lin topa, mun’ia du hu

long life to you                                stafa tapa hu

good health                                     bin lar’t ang lart

and you                                           ang hu

I beg your pardon                            mwili g’egyn hu lashoolath

God bless you                                  Dhalyōn mun’ia

it’s good to see you                         yoordjeele’s soonee-in munya

any news?                                       bwikad hu grīson?

later, friend                                    ar, soobya

my sweetheart                                mo rud’u

love of my heart                              gra a mo gris

pleasant sleep                                 lasul kuldrum

good night                                       muni kon

now leave the beer                          nurt get in gater

if you’re a piper, have a pipe           stimera dhi-ilsha, stimera aga dhi-ilsha

bread, meat and whiskey!                tēs, fē ang shīhŭkh!

well done                                        mun’i srek

hello                                               grālt’a

good-bye                                         muni got-in to

Perhaps not much, but at least a start.  Maybe it was intentional, maybe not, but it is interesting that this secret language belongs to the “people of walks” and the ruling family of Amber wander among worlds by going on a Shadow-walk or “walking among shadows” on “the Road to Amber.”  To gain their power to do this, they must first survive the ritual of a mystically charged Pattern upon which, with great difficulty, they walk.  However that may be, there is a common phrase in Thari, which goes more or less like this:  “Mislo granhes tober” – “The traveller knows the road.”

It's time to see our native languages recognised in the UK as co-official languages with English.

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Shelta of the Lautari

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