Arizona weekly enterprise., 1888-03-17
DIsToRTEU MODES OF SPEECH.
"NTedicaI Greek" "Dog Latin'' and Other
 JarEons-London Cadgers' Dialects.

Medical Greek," Dog Latin" and Other
 Jargons-London Cadgers' Dialects.
 It may be interesting to glance at subject closely connected with that of artificial language-the attempts that haze been made to twist existing forms of speech into such new shapes as would form a new tongue. These efforts have been exhibited chiefly by persons who were anxious to have the use of a Ian guage which only themselves and their chosen friends should be able to speak or understand.
 Most famous of these distorted modes of speech is that which is variously | known in England as ''Medical Greek, ,'' "St Giles Creek and ''marrowskying. This consists of transposing all the initial | consonants in a sentence, and it does, | when spoken fast, give the effect of an unknown jargOn. Thus in Medical | Greek mutton chop is chutton mop, ] a bull dog is dull bog, butterfly is a | flutterby and so on. It is very simple | matter to acquire great degree of facil- | ity in speaking this lingo, but very diff | cult to understand it readily when spoken | fast. The following familiar verse, be- ginning "Hush my babe, lie still and slumber, y rendered into Medical Greek, will serve as good specimen of the dia- lect:
 Bush, hy mabe, stie ill sand lumber,
 Ally honegels buard gy thed;
 Blevenly hessings nithout wumber,
 Fently jawling on hy thead-
 It will be observed that when a word begins with two consonants only one of them need be taken. have also spelled phoneticallyz these- words. where the ordi- nary rules would give wrong sound.
 The name "Medical Creek comes from the fact that this dialect has long been in use among the medical students at the London hospitals, who find it con- venient when they wish to speak to each other in the presence of a patient without his being able to understand them. It is also largely spoken by the students of the London university.
 At Winchester college the students em- ploy form of what is known in this country as ''Dog Latin.' It consists of repeating the vowel of every syllable and prefixing to that vowel the letter 2, accenting this additional syllable Thus, s'Can you go with mel" would be 'sCagan yougou gogo. wigith mege?n The Winchester boys call this the '-Ziph'' language, and it is probably of consider able antiquity. De Quincey learned it in his youth, and Dr. Wilkins in his work | describes it as well known device for making conversation secret.
 A less complicated jargon prevails at some of the other English schools, con- sisting simply of adding the syllable wis to each word. Thus, "Willvis youvis govis withvis mevis?" This resembles the ''ugry igry ogry'' dialect of Ameri- can school girls, familiar to every one. In France, the boys add the syllable dregue in the same way: Thus, vous- dregue avezdregue tortdregue for vous avez tort.
 Two secret dialects are employed by the London cadgers, and only long prac- tice can make them intelligible to one who has not been born and bred in the precinct of St. Giles. The first of these is called ''Back Slang" and consists theoretically in spelling backward the principal words in a sentence. But as the orthographical notions of the average cadger are, to say the least, eccentric; and as many of the words which were originally formed in this way have been greatly altered in use, the vocabulary of a cadger is practically new language, uncouth and unintelligible to all except his own companions. For instance, penny ill back slang is yenep; pint is tenip, namesclop means policeman, and gennet ten shillings.
 The other dialect spoken by the street vagabonds of London is known as the rhyming slang, which is described by an English writer as s'the substitution of words and sentence which rhyme with other words intended to be kept secret. It transforms into rough speech the various odds and ends of old songs, ballads and street nicknames which are suitable to the purpose" "The same author gives list of examples. Thus frog and toad means ''the road;" finger and thumb means ''rum;' cat and mouse ga house," and I'm afoat "a boat"
 Back slang plays an important part in the lower forms of French argot in the peculiar slang spoken by Spanish thieves and called germania; in the German rothwelsch and in the Italian furbesco. In fact the author of slang dictionary, published in London in 1864, shows that the same principle runs through the jar gon of the Bazeegars, or wandering jug glers in Hindustan, and cites number of interesting examples to prove it.-H. T. Peck, Ph. D., in Home Journal.