The Secret Languages of Ireland

Abstract

SHELTA, or more correctly Sheldrii, a secret language found among a certain class of tramps in England and current among Irish tinkers, was discovered in 1876 by Charles Godfrey Leland, that enthusiastic, if somewhat erratic, student of everything appertaining to the customs and beliefs of peasantry, gypsies and vagabonds generally all the world over. The results of his investigations of Shelta were ultimately passed to the late John Sampson, the great authority on gypsy languages, and through him brought to the notice of Kuno Meyer, the Celtic scholar, by whom the language was at once hailed as a survival of the old Celtic used by the Druids. Unnoted until the time of Leland, it has since been investigated by a number of Celtic and Romani scholars, with results which would now seem to have failed to justify early enthusiasms.

The Secret Languages of Ireland:

with Special Reference to the Origin and Nature of the Shelta Language, partly based upon Collections and Manuscripts of the late Dr. John Sampson. By Prof. R. A. Stewart Macalister. Pp. x + 284. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1937.) 16s. net.