Re: Shelta, Polari, and my project "Nadsat 2000"

Danny Wier wrote:


>In the United Kingdom (and Ireland and possibly Canada and the US to a
>lesser extent), there are two "languages" (themselves constructed) that
>appear among two distinctive subcultures.  They are Shelta and Polari.....
>
>A few web addresses about Shelta:
>
>http://www.catseye.mb.ca/esoteric/shelta/
>(this is the "official" website)
Wha?????

>http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/gypsy/travell.htm
>http://www.siu.edu/departments/cola/ling/reports/shelta/ling.htm
VERY interesting.  They mention that there are descendants of Travellers in
the US South.  Have you ever encountered any?   I liked the theory that
(some part of) the origin may have been monks displaced by Henry VIII's
closure of the monasteries-- that would account perhaps for the more learned
elements??
I hope some of our resident Celticists take a look to see what's
indentifiable.  I spotted _graw_ 'love'-- and recall J.Joyce's comment on
the Irish lang.to the effect that no good can be expected of a language
whose word for love is "graw".

>While Shelta is based on nomadic people mostly in Ireland, Polari is
>identified with gay and lesbian circles in Britain.  Polari, a UK
>English "slanguage" (I think I invented that term, check it) with
>Romance (esp. Italian), Romany and Yiddish borrowings.  It is basically
>a language that originated among theater and circus culture.  In a time
>where homosexuality wasn't as tolerated as now, Polari became an
>internal "secret language" that strengthened the gay community.
>Therefore, Polari is called a "gay langauge" or "gay slang".
>
>And this is discussed at two websites I've found:
>
>http://www.chris-d.net/polari/
>http://members.aol.com/frij/>
Very amusing.  Just a few of those terms are also present in US gay slang
(probably older generation).  The Pythons used to babble some strange stuff
in their gay sketches; I'll have to see if I have any of those on tape.
First time around it was quite incomprehensible.
BTW the chris-d site linked me to:
http://www.stg.brown.edu/webs/corre/index.html  which has an interesting
discussion of  (the original) Lingua Franca, with wordlist.  Et alia.

>One more link of interest presents a new theory about Etruscan....
http://www.goohio.com//etruscan/>
    He should get together with the Phoenician fellow.

Thanks for the chuckles!