Acant is thejargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.[1] It may also be called acryptolect,argot,pseudo-language,anti-language orsecret language. Each term differs slightly in meaning; their uses are inconsistent.
There are two main schools of thought on the origin of the wordcant:
Anargot (English:/ˈɑːrɡoʊ/; fromFrenchargot[aʁɡo] 'slang') is a language used by various groups to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The termargot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, occupation, or hobby, in whichsense it overlaps withjargon.
In his 1862 novelLes Misérables,Victor Hugo refers to that argot as both "the language of the dark" and "the language of misery".[4]
The earliest known record of the termargot in this context was in a 1628 document. The word was probably derived from the contemporary nameles argotiers, given to a group of thieves at that time.[5]
Under the strictest definition, anargot is a proper language with its own grammatical system.[6] Such complete secret languages are rare because the speakers usually have some public language in common, on which the argot is largely based. Such argots arelexically divergentforms of a particular language, with a part of its vocabulary replaced by words unknown to the larger public;argot used in thissense issynonymous withcant. For example,argot in this sense is used for systems such asverlan andlouchébem, which retain French syntax and apply transformations only to individual words (and often only to a certain subset of words, such as nouns, or semantic content words).[7] Such systems are examples ofargotsà clef, or "coded argots".[7]
Specific words can go from argot into everyday speech or the other way. For example, modern Frenchloufoque 'crazy', 'goofy', now common usage, originated in thelouchébem transformation of Fr.fou 'crazy'.
In the field of medicine,physicians have been said to have their own spoken argot, cant, or slang, which incorporates commonly understood abbreviations and acronyms, frequently used technicalcolloquialisms, and much everyday professional slang (that may or may not be institutionally or geographically localized).[8] While many of these colloquialisms may prove impenetrable to most lay people, few seem to be specifically designed to conceal meaning from patients (perhaps because standard medical terminology would usually suffice anyway).[8]
The concept of theanti-language was first defined and studied by the linguistMichael Halliday, who used the term to describe thelingua franca of ananti-society.[9] An anti-society is a small, separate community intentionally created within a larger society as an alternative to or resistance of it.[9] For example,Adam Podgórecki studied one anti-society composed of Polish prisoners; Bhaktiprasad Mallik of Sanskrit College studied another composed of criminals in Calcutta.[9]
These societies develop anti-languages as a means to prevent outsiders from understanding their communication and as a manner of establishing a subculture that meets the needs of their alternative social structure.[10] Anti-languages differ fromslang and jargon in that they are used solely among ostracized social groups, including prisoners,[11] criminals, homosexuals,[10] and teenagers.[12] Anti-languages use the same basic vocabulary and grammar as their native language in an unorthodox fashion. For example, anti-languages borrow words from other languages, create unconventional compounds, or utilize new suffixes for existing words. Anti-languages may also change words usingmetathesis, reversal of sounds or letters (e.g., apple toelppa), or substituting their consonants.[9] Therefore, anti-languages are distinct and unique and are not simplydialects of existing languages.
In his essay "Anti-Language", Halliday synthesized the research of Thomas Harman,Adam Podgórecki, and Bhaktiprasad Mallik to explore anti-languages and the connection between verbal communication and the maintenance of a social structure. For this reason, the study of anti-languages is both a study ofsociology and linguistics. Halliday's findings can be compiled as a list of nine criteria that a language must meet to be considered an anti-language:
Examples of anti-languages includeCockney rhyming slang,CB slang,verlan, thegrypsera of Polish prisons,thieves' cant,[13]Polari,[14] andBangime.[15]
Anti-languages are sometimes created by authors and used by characters in novels. These anti-languages do not have complete lexicons, cannot be observed in use forlinguistic description, and therefore cannot be studied in the same way a language spoken by an existing anti-society would. However, they are still used in the study of anti-languages. Roger Fowler's "Anti-Languages in Fiction" analyzesAnthony Burgess'sA Clockwork Orange andWilliam S. Burroughs'Naked Lunch to redefine the nature of the anti-language and to describe its ideological purpose.[16]
A Clockwork Orange is a popular example of a novel where the main character is a teenage boy who speaks an anti-language calledNadsat. This language is often referred to as an argot, but it has been argued that it is an anti-language because of the social structure it maintains through the social class of the droogs.[12]
In parts ofConnacht, in Ireland,cant mainly refers to anauction, typically onfair day ("Cantmen and Cantwomen, some from as far away as Dublin, would converge on Mohill on a Fair Day, ... set up their stalls ... and immediately start auctioning off their merchandise") and secondly means talk ("very entertaining conversation was often described as 'great cant'" or "crosstalk").[17][18]
In Scotland, two unrelated creole languages are termedcant.Scottish Cant (a mixed language, primarilyScots andRomani withScottish Gaelic influences) is spoken by lowland Roma groups.Highland Traveller's Cant (orBeurla Reagaird) is aGaelic-based cant of the Indigenous Highland Traveller population.[2] The cants are mutually unintelligible.
The word has also been used as asuffix 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.[1]
Thethieves' cant was a feature of popular pamphlets and plays, particularly between 1590 and 1615, but continued to feature in literature through the 18th century. There are questions about how genuinely the literature reflectedvernacular use in the criminal underworld. A thief in 1839 claimed that the cant he had seen in print was nothing like the cant then used by "gypsies, thieves, and beggars." He also said that each of these used distinct vocabularies, which overlapped, the gypsies having a cant word for everything, and the beggars using a lower style than the thieves.[23]
... a language that hides as much as it communicates. How did this "anti-language" emerge? The slave trade may explain why the Bangande were determined to keep their own language. ...what British linguistMichael Halliday calls an anti-language.
informal Indonesian dialect used by certain communities or in certain areas for socializing
Media related toCant languages at Wikimedia Commons