'Nanti Parlyaree'
Most Showpeople would be shocked to learn that the lingo and slang common on British fairs since at least the late eighteenth century is mostly derived from Italian and Latin, liberally spiced with Romany, old English and Scots, Gaelic, Cant and even Yiddish! 19th and 20th century linguists dubbed it Parlyaree. Parlare, or Polari due to the prevalence of the term 'nanti-parlare' among Showpeople and market traders. The phrase is used to profess exasperation, dismay, surprise or simply 'no comment' - as is obvious when you look at the words themselves. 'Nanti' is used on its own to man 'no' or 'none'. And parlyaree? Well, it's pretty obvious really...
In Italian 'no comment' = niente parlare. From there it's a short step from niente to nanti, and hardly any distance to 'parlyaree' at all.
As a derivative of Latin, Italian is a 'Romance' language with a vocabulary that betrays its classical roots, as is French non parle of course, sounds very similar to niente parlare and nanty parlyaree.
Parlyaree was documented in great detail by the great lexicographer Eric Partridge, whose Dictionary of Slang can be found in most good libraries and offers a wealth of information on the more unusual cul de sacs of the English language.
Parlyaree
But why ITALIAN? Well, the medieval and early modern fair was part of an international commercial circuit traversed by merchants and traders from all over Europe, dominated by Italian and Flemish traders. Local businessmen, travelling entertainers, pedlars and peasants would regularly rub shoulders with these foreign venture capitalists. As the epitome of cooperative capitalism attending a fair meant that while you may well have been in competition with a neighbouring stall, you still needed their help to make a loose collection of stalls and booths an event. So the lingua franca, or Sabir developed as a common tongue understood from Northwestern Europe through Central, East and South Europe, and as far as the mediterranean and middle eastern countries - a tongue entertainers and stallholders could all understand, but the punters perusing the goods and watching the acts couldn't.
In time, Parlyaree shifted from a language to an argot or vocabulary; by that, we mean that the conjunctives (words such as 'the' 'and', 'he' 'she'...) disappear and are replaced with the English equivalents, leaving just distinctive nouns and verbs.
Most of the words used by fairground people have come from Parlyaree. The 'carser' or 'carsey' means a house and a toilet respectively, but share the same route in the Italian/Latin casa. A 'vile' (Fr/It = ville) was a town or city. Now lapsed from use, the word 'bone' meant good - obviously derived from Italian bueno or French bien. An 'omee' is a man - homme in French. If you want to hit someone you would 'mell' them - from the French melee for a brawl or fight, or the Italian mescolarsi. It also gave us naff - from the Romany naflo ('no good' - see below for other Romany lifts) munjarly (from It. mangiare) and bevvy - from the French bevvier (alcohol).
If you want a thing or random object in showland, ask for the (whatever) 'chatt'. This will not lead to a conversation, but you being handed the object in question (unless it's a skyhook and a long-stand, in which case you'll be waiting forever...). The term also appears in some Romany and Cant dialects (see below) and comes from the French chattel - as in goods and chattels. The term is apparently still used in theatre, which takes a lot of its jargon from Parlyaree, given the common roots of fairground and theatrical acting.
Other Parlyaree words have been picked up along the route of the fair. The 'tober' or site of the fair comes from the Gaelic towfer for a well. In these villages the well was the site of the regular market or fair that came to town, and so the term has come into common use across the UK.
But the thing about language is that it is elastic, it is always changing and adapting, and that goes double for cants, jargons and secret languages. Parlyaree has sucked in words from other languages. The term 'joskin'for a simpleton, fool or bumpkin is traced either to the Yiddish Joschen that means the same. Jewish traders and artisans were of course a major part of international commerce, especially in the German-speaking countries where the mix of Hebrew and German gave rise to Yiddish. Another possible root for this word could lie in the Yenische language spoken by the people of the same name, a group of hereditary travelling peddlars, salesmen and hawkers who plied their trade in the streets, markets and fairs ofSwitzerland and Western Germany who speak their own very distinctive Germanic language.
But many more local words are picked up to - and not just the tober/towfer word. Gaelic also gave us the word 'brigh' for a pocket or pouch - on the fair, to 'brik' is to withdraw from the takings (with or without permission!) and it's no great mental leap to see how the word developed. Fairground people have long used the word 'Flatty' to describe non-Travellers. The term first appeared in the early 19th century as 'flats' - effectively meaning rustic or country people, who tended to be the customers for the fairs. The term flats probably comes from the Old Scottish/English word flatt = cowpat, a phenomenon commonly associated with farms. fields and by extension, the people who worked them.
It also used to be possible to count in Parlyaree - though it seems much less common now. Counting to ten is easy for anyone who knows some French or Italian -
| Parlyaree (Italian) | English |
| una (uno) | one |
| dooey (due) | two |
| tray (tre) | three |
| cater (quatro) | four |
| chinker (cinque) | five |
| sa (sei) | six |
| setter (sette) | seven |
| otter (otto) | eight |
| nobber (nove) | nine |
| dacha (dieci) | ten |
It should also be mentioned before moving onto the next section that Parlyaree passed on through the world of theatre and music hall (known as Polari) to become a slang/patois favoured by the gay fraternity in the 1930s and 40s. Incomprehensible to many, it allowed many gay men (of whom many worked in music hall and theatre) to speak freely. A number of scholars have recently revived interest into Polari as a language, though they frequently forget or omit to mention the language's roots on markets and fairgrounds, describing it as an exclusively gay language.
The Romany influence
From about the 1500s onward, the Romany or Romani/Romanes language found its way into common parlance and particularly fairs - Romanies were after all, prominent as fortune tellers, dancers and traders. Linguists have identified Romani as an Indo-European language derived from Sanskrit, the 'Latin' of India, brought by the Roma people on their long migration from Northern Indian from about 1000 onwards. As a result many Romani words are exactly the same as those in the modern languages of Urdu and Hindi, which are to Sanskrit as Latin and French are to Latin. Romany has of course become so prevalent in some quarters we don't even think of where it came from when Del Boy uses the word Kushti (Good) or a character from Brookside says 'divvi' (idiot, fool), but these are all Romani words, 'pani' (rain or water) as are 'chavvi' (child) 'chori' (steal, or stolen) radgie (from raj) or most common of all, 'pal' (friend) all essentially direct lifts from Sanskrit. the latter being the most famous bequest of the Romani language to English (besides Kushti...).
Cant
English Showpeople say that their Scottish cousins 'mang (speak) the cant'. Cant is a hybrid language of old Scots, Romany and Gaelic. Words such as 'shan' or 'cowie' come from this language, in common usage across Scotland and especially influential on the way Scottish Showpeople speak.Jargon
Then there is jargon. Endemic to every trade. the fairground is no different in that respect, having a healthy selection to choose from. Unsurprisingly, these jargon words are mostly related to travelling, fairground rides and stalls, and the vagaries of the business.
A good one to get your head around to start with is the term 'Ark' for a Speedway -
Now, the speedway is a ride with motorbikes and chariots - and looks nothing like an ark of the type associated with Moses, or built by Noah! But in that last individual lies the clue - the Speedway was originally a ride themed on Noah's ark, with animals in place of bikes. As times changed so did the ride, but among Fairground people the term stuck.
Similarly, among Scottish showpeople 'the hall' refers to the annual SECC winter carnival which was originally held at the Kelvin Hall. But aside from these 'historical' origins Fairground jargon has numerous other sources. If you hear someone refer to a baloon, for example, they are probably referring to a bouncy castle - because that is, effectively what it is. Equally commonsensical is the term 'jumpers' for a carousel, while any large ride is a 'machine' - any small ride is, in Scotland at least, a 'wee machine'. A rifle stall is a 'shooter' and a stall with lucky dip tickets is a 'pick'. A generator is called a lighting set, and after the fairs close, showpeople do not go to their caravans but their wagons and trailers. The site of a fair, or yard where Showpeople stay are known simply as 'grounds'.
One of the most interesting jargon words has to be 'joint', which means any sort of stall and is one of the few transatlantic crossovers, coming of course from the American slang for an establishment or bar. Joints are themselves comprised of components known as shutters (the panels/sides of a stall), quarterings (beams and struts, usually on a round stall), covered by a tilt (tarpaulin) and held together by cotters (metal pins).
Useful Links
Still to come - a glossary of words and terms, but for now, take a look at these links;
Circus and Fairground Slang
Romany Language
Scottish Traveller Cant