Travellers, have historically been separated from the larger
group of Irish society; customs and practices emphasise the
division and reinforce Travellers' internal security: the
main symbol of their difference, their linguistic code,
which operates as a secret or protective language, is known
variously as Shelta, Gammon or Cant. The Thesis provides a
critical examination of the historical and academic analysis
to date of Shelta and reports on the results of an empirical
study carried out by the researcher into sociolmguistic
aspects of Shelta in Ireland today.
Theories about the background and history of Irish Travellers are reviewed and the relationship between
Travellers and Gypsies is analysed. Traveller identity and
aspects of Traveller culture are examined with particular
emphasis on family organization and ritual cleanliness
because these show how Travellers maintain the borders
between themselves and settled people.
The Gypsy language, Romani, is well known and has been
widely studied. Shelta has been less documented and its
relationship with English Cant has been obscure. A theory
is put forward about this historical relationship.
Up to now, Shelta has generally been considered to be an
artifically devised jargon constructed for disguise
purposes. It is suggested, however, that there is reason
to believe that Shelta may be the remains of a natural
language augmented by a disguised vocabulary from Irish and
English, having moved to an English syntactic structure.
In recent years, Travellers have undergone rapid social
change: their former patterns of employment have been
rendered obsolete and there has been a movement towards the
towns. Changes in Shelta are examined in this new context
and the future role of Shelta as part of Traveller culture
is considered.