{"id":2077,"date":"2013-09-29T15:55:24","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T15:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2013-09-29T15:55:24","modified_gmt":"2013-09-29T15:55:24","slug":"hidden-meanings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/29\/hidden-meanings\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden Meanings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Double-Dutch.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2078\" alt=\"Double Dutch\" src=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Double-Dutch.png\" width=\"223\" height=\"243\" \/><\/a>Secret languages have been used for centuries, both verbally and non-verbally, as an essential way of communication where normal vocalization has been restricted or prohibited. Travellers used secret languages amongst themselves to retain their identity when they travelled through and worked in other communities; Polari was used by gay men in Britain when homosexual activity was illegal, to protect themselves from conspirators and undercover policemen, and was used considerably in the British Merchant Navy; American POWs in Vietnam developed a tapping code with their fingers when they were prevented from speaking to each other.<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays, there\u2019s little need for them and secret languages are usually no more than language games. We\u00b4ve all tried speaking in secret languages as kids, getting a kick out of no-one else being able to understand what we\u00b4re saying. Some classic secret languages are described below, using \u2018Mary had a little lamb\u2019 as an example for each.<\/p>\n<p><b>Pig Latin<\/b><\/p>\n<p>This is the most widely known secret language and is constructed by taking the first letter of a word and placing it at the end of the word, then adding \u2018ay\u2019:<\/p>\n<p>Arymay adhay aay ittlelay amblay.<\/p>\n<p><b>Double Dutch<\/b> (see picture)<\/p>\n<p>All consonants are replaced with a syllable, while vowels remain the same:<\/p>\n<p><i>M<\/i>uma<i>r<\/i>ug<i>y<\/i>ub <i>h<\/i>utcha<i>d<\/i>ud a <i>l<\/i>uli<i>t<\/i>ut<i>t<\/i>ut<i>l<\/i>ule <i>l<\/i>ula<i>m<\/i>um<i>b<\/i>ub.<\/p>\n<p><b>Eggy-Peggy<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u2018Egg\u2019 is added before each vowel:<\/p>\n<p>Meggary heggad egga leggittlegge leggamb.<\/p>\n<p>Eggy-Peggy is the English equivalent of the US spoken <b>Ubbi Dubbi<\/b> which adds \u2018ub\u2019 before each vowel sound.<\/p>\n<p>Have you ever been intrigued by secret languages? Which ones did you try speaking when you were younger?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secret languages have been used for centuries, both verbally and non-verbally, as an essential way of communication where normal vocalization has been restricted or prohibited. Travellers used secret languages amongst themselves to retain their identity when they travelled through and worked in other communities; Polari was used by gay men in Britain when homosexual activity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185,109,40],"tags":[123,25,330],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historic","category-invented-languages","category-language-acquisition","tag-language-learning","tag-languages","tag-speaking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2080,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions\/2080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}