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Shelta (/ˈʃɛltə/;[3] Irish: Seiltis)[4] is a tung spoken by Irish Wanderers, namely in Ireland and the Oned Kingdom.[5] It is widely known as the Cant, to its native speakers in Ireland as De Gammon, and to the speechly fellowship as Shelta.[6] It was often noted as a rownspeech to outshut outsiders from understanding talks between Wanderers,[5] althaugh this aspect is frequently over-emphasised.[6] The true rime of inborn speakers is hard to determine owing to sociolinguistic issues[6] but Ethnologue puts the rime of speakers at 30,000 in the OK, 6,000 in Ireland, and 50,000 in the OR. The rime for at least the OK is dated to 1990; it is not clear if the other rimes are from the same spring.[1][7]

Linguistically Shelta is today seen as a mixed tung that stems from a fellowship of travelling folk in Ireland that was originally predominantly Irish-speaking. The fellowship later went through a tide of widespread bilingualism that resulted in a tung based heavily on Hiberno-English with heavy infloods from Irish.[6] As sundry kinds of Shelta show sundry degrees of englishening (see underneath), it is hard to determine the extent of the Irish underlayer. The Oxford Companion to the English Language puts it at 2,000–3,000 words.[5]

Names and rootlore[]

The tung is known by sundry names. Folk outside the Irish Wanderer fellowship often refer to it as (the) Cant, the rootlore of which is a matter of debate.[6] Speakers of the tung refer to it as (the) Cant,[5] Gammon[5][6] or Tarri.[5] Amongst speechlorers, the name Shelta is the most commonly brooked name.[6]

Variants of the above names and additional names inhold Bog Latin,[5] Caintíotar,[citation needed] Gammon,[8] Sheldru,[5] Shelter,[5] Shelteroch,[5] the Ould Thing,[5] and Tinker's Cant.[5]

Rootlore[]

The word Shelta shows up in print for the first time in 1882 in the book The Gypsies by the "gypsilorer" Charles Leland, who claimed to have unearthed it as the "fifth Celtish tung". The rootlore of the word has long been a matter of mooting: latterday Celtlorers are convinced that Irish 'siúl' Irish outspeech: [ʃuːlʲ] "to walk" is at the root, either through a word such as 'siúltóir' Irish outspeech: [ʃuːlˠt̪ˠoːrʲ] "a walker" or a shape of the gerund 'siúladh' (cf. an lucht siúlta [ənˠ lˠuxt̪ ʃuːlˠt̪ˠə], "the walking folk" (w.f.w. the folk of walks),[9] the old-line Irish name for Wanderers).[6] The Dictionary of Hiberno-English cites it as maybe a corruption of the word "Celt".[8] Since Shelta is a mix of English and Irish staffcraft, the rootlore is not straightforward. The tung is made up mostly of Irish wordhoard, being branded as a staffcraft-wordhoard tung with the staffcraft being English-based.[10]

Roots and yore[]

Speechlorers have been documenting Shelta since at least the 1870s. The first works were forthset in 1880 and 1882 by Charles Leland.[6] Celtish tung loresman Kuno Meyer and Romani loresman John Sampson both assert that Shelta goes as far back as the 13th yearhundred.[11]

In the earliest but undocumented eld speechlorers surmise that the Wanderer fellowship was Irish-speaking until a time of widespread bilingualism in Irish and Hiberno-English (or Scots in Scotland) set in, leading to creolishening (possibly with a trilingual stage).[6] The resulting tung is referred to as Old Shelta and it is suspected that this stage of the tung showed distinctive marks, such as not-English wordsetting and wordbuilding marks, no longer found in Shelta.[6]

Within the diaspora, there are sundry under-boughs of Shelta. English Shelta is increasingly undergoing englishening, while Americkish Irish-Wanderer's Cant, orspringly also synonymous with Shelta, has by now been almost fully englishened.[5]

Speechly marks[]

Fellowshiplorer Sharon Gmelch bewrites the Irish Wanderers' tung as follows:[12]

Thus, it is not mutually anyetful with either English or Irish, out of design.

Shelta is a dern tung. Wanderers do not like to share the tung with outsiders, named “Buffers”, or not-Wanderers. When speaking Shelta in front of Buffers, Wanderers will hide the structure so as to make it look like they aren't speaking Shelta at all.[13]

Wordhoard[]

While Shelta is stightled by English staffcraft, it is also a mix of Gaelish and Irish words as well. The word order itself is altered, with syllables reversed and many of the original words are Irish that have been altered or reversed. Many Shelta words have been disguised brooking techniques such as back slang where clings are transposed (for byspel gop "kiss" from Irish póg) or the faying of clings (for byspel gather "father" from Irish athair).[5] Other byspels inhold lackin or lakeen "girl" from Irish cailín, and the word rodas "door" from Irish doras. The word for “son” is wended from the Gaelish mac to the Shelta kam.[14]

It also inholds a certain rime of introduced lexical items from Romani such as the word gadje "not-Wanderer" or "kushti" (from the Romanichal word for "good").

Staffcraft[]

Shelta shares its main wordsetting marks with Hiberno-English and most of its wordbuilding marks such as -s morefolds and forthwitten tide markers.[6] Liken:

Shelta Anglish
De Golya nacked de greid The child stole the gelt
Krosh into de lorch Get into the wain
De Feen The man
De Byor The Woman
Sooblik Boy
Lackin Girl
Solk/Bug Nim
Bug Go/Yeave/Yet
Krosh Go/Come
Gloke/Gratch/Oagle/Dashe Look/See/Watch

Reardwork[]

Shelta has 27 withlides and six clipples.

The withlides are /p, pʲ, b, bʲ, m, mʲ, w, t, tʲ, d, dʲ, n, nʲ, θ, ð, r, rʲ, l, ʎ, ʃ, t͡ʃ, j, k, kʲ, g, gʲ, χ/. Many words are complex by incorporating many withlides within, as in the word skraχo for “tree, bush’ with the withlide /χ/ being a hissing cling that is held in the back of the throat, and is held longer than other withlides.[15]

Incidentally, there is not as much weight put on kun in Shelta. Plurals are shown with the English word tail /–s/ or /-i/, such as gloχ for “man” becomes gloχi for “men”.[16]

Clipples[]

Front N.-front Central Back
Close i u
Near-close ɪ
Close-mid e o
Mid ə
Open-Mid ɛ ɔ
Near-open æ
Open ɑ ɒ

Leanwords[]

Some Shelta words have been borrowed by mainstream English speakers, such as the word "bloke" meaning "a man" in the mid-19th yearhundred.[17]

Rightspelling[]

There is no mean rightspelling. Broadly speaking, Shelta can either be written following an Irish-like rightspelling or an English-like rightspelling. For byspel, the word for "married" can either be spelled lósped or lohsped, a "woman" can either be spelled byohr or beoir.[6]

Comparison texts[]

Beneath are reproductions of the Lord's Bead in Shelta as it was a yearhundred ago, latterday Shelta, and Anglish and Irish versions for comparison. The 19th yearhundred Shelta version shows a high Shelta lexical inholding while the Cant version shows a much smaller Shelta lexical inholding. Both versions are adapted from Hancock[18] who bemarks that the Cant reproduction is not exactly representative of true speech in normal situations.

Shelta (old) Shelta (current) Anglish Irish
Mwilsha's gater, swart a manyath, Our gathra, who cradgies in the manyak-norch, Our Father, who art in heaven, Ár n-Athair atá ar neamh,
Manyi graw a kradji dilsha's manik. We turry kerrath about your moniker. Hallowed be thy name. Go naofar d'ainm,
Graw bi greydid, sheydi laadu Let's turry to the norch where your jeel cradgies, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, Go dtaga do ríocht, Go ndéantar do thoil
Az aswart in manyath. And let your jeel shans get greydied nosher same as it is where you cradgie. On earth as it is in heaven. ar an talamh, mar a dhéantar ar neamh.
Bag mwilsha talosk minyart goshta dura. Bug us eynik to lush this thullis, Yeave us today our daily bread. Ár n-arán laethúil tabhair dúinn inniú,
Geychel aur shaaku areyk mwilsha And turri us you're nijesh sharrig for the eyniks we greydied And foryeave us our sins, Agus maith dúinn ár bhfiacha
Geychas needjas greydi gyamyath mwilsha. Just like we ain't sharrig at the needies that greydi the same to us. As we foryeave those who sin ayenst us. Mar a mhaithimid ár bhfiachóirí féin
Nijesh solk mwil start gyamyath, Nijesh let us soonie eyniks that'll make us greydi gammy eyniks, And lead us not into costening, Is ná lig sinn i gcathú
Bat bog mwilsha ahim gyamyath. But solk us away from the taddy. but free us from evil. ach saor sinn ó olc.
Diyil the sridag, taajirath an manyath Yours is the kingdom, the might and the wolder
Gradum a gradum. For ever and ever
So be it. Amen.
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