This book explores the Irish Traveller community through an ethnographic
and folk linguistic lens. It sheds new light on Irish Traveller
language, commonly referred to as Gammon or Cant, an integral part of
the community's cultural heritage that has long been viewed as a form of
secret code. The author addresses Travellers' metalinguistic and
ideological reflections on their language use, providing deep insights
into the culture and values of community members, and into their
perceived social reality in wider society. In doing so, she demonstrates
that its interrelationship with other cultural elements means that the
language is in a constant flux, and by analysing speakers' experiences
of language in action, provides a dynamic view of language use. The book
takes the reader on a journey through oral history, language naming
practices, ideologies of languageness and structure, descriptions of
language use and contexts, negotiations of the 'authentic' Cant, and
Cant as 'identity'. Based on a two-year ethnographic fieldwork project
in a Traveller Training Centre in the West of Ireland, this book will
appeal to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, language in
society, language ideology, folk linguistics, minority communities and
languages, and cultural and linguistic anthropology.