BigShinyThing

The other day a colleague overheard some teenagers on his bus talking some kind of secret language -one that just didn’t seem to make any sense but which involved a lot of repeated sounds.

During my childhood, the secret language was eggy peggy which disguised words by putting ‘eggy’ before each vowel -there’s a nice little guide to it and other secret languages here.

Cockney rhyming slang is probably the most famous example but the archaic gay language polari is also making a comeback.

See also: the very wonderful Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have done a translation of the whole of the King James bible as part of their longstanding campaign to resurrect polari.

Sample text:

1 In the beginning Gloria created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was nanti form, and void; and munge was upon the eke of the deep. And the nanti lucoddy of Gloria trolled upon the eke of the aquas.
3 And Gloria cackled, Let there be sparkle: and there was sparkle.
4 And Gloria vardad the sparkle, that it was bona: and Gloria divided the sparkle from the munge.
5 And Gloria screeched the sparkle Day, and the munge he screeched nochy. And the bijou nochy and the morning were the una day.

Morrissey is also very fond of the language – for example the album title ‘Bona Drag’ (nice clothes) and of course ‘Piccadilly Polari’