The costermongers of London number between thirty and forty thousand.
Like other low tribes, they boast a language, or secret tongue, in
which they hide their earnings, movements, and other private affairs.
This costers’ speech, as Mayhew remarks, offers no new fact, or
approach to a fact, for philologists; it is not very remarkable for
originality of construction; neither is it spiced with low humour,
as other cant. But the costermongers boast that it is known only to
themselves; that it is far beyond the Irish, and puzzles the Jews.
_The main principle of this language is spelling the words
backwards,—or rather, pronouncing them rudely backwards._ Sometimes,
for the sake of harmony, an extra syllable is prefixed, or annexed;
and, occasionally, the word is given quite a different turn in
rendering it backwards, from what an uninitiated person would have
expected. One coster told Mayhew that he often gave the end of a word
“a new turn, just as if he chorussed it with a tol-de-rol.” Besides,
the coster has his own idea of the _proper_ way of spelling words, and
is not to be convinced but by an overwhelming show of learning,—and
frequently not then, for he is a very headstrong fellow. By the time
a coster has spelt an ordinary word of two or three syllables in the
proper way, and then spelt it backwards, it has become a tangled knot
that no etymologist could unravel. The word GENERALISE, for instance,
is considered to be “shilling” spelt backwards. Sometimes Slang
and Cant words are introduced, and even these, when imagined to be
tolerably well known, are pronounced backwards. Other terms, such as
GEN, a shilling, and FLATCH, a halfpenny, help to confuse the outsider.
After a time, this back language, on BACK-SLANG, as it is called by the
costermongers themselves, comes to be regarded by the rising generation
of street sellers as a distinct and regular mode of speech. They never
refer words, by inverting them, to their originals; and the YENEPS and
ESCLOPS, and NAMOWS, are looked upon as proper, but secret terms. “But
it is a curious fact, that lads who become costermongers’ boys, without
previous association with the class, acquire a very ready command of
the language, and this though they are not only unable to spell, but
‘don’t know a letter in a book.[56]’” They soon obtain a considerable
stock vocabulary, so that they converse rather from the memory than the
understanding. Amongst the senior costermongers, and those who pride
themselves on their proficiency in BACK-SLANG, a conversation is often
sustained for a whole evening, especially if any “flatties” are present
whom they wish to astonish or confuse. The women use it sparingly, but
the girls are generally well acquainted with it.
The addition of an _s_, I should state, always forms the plural, so
that this is another source of complication. For instance, _woman_
in the BACK-SLANG, is NAMOW, and NAMUS, or NAMOWS, is _women_, not
NEMOW. The explorer, then, in undoing the BACK-SLANG, and turning the
word NAMUS once more into English, would have _suman_,—a novel and
very extraordinary rendering of _women_. Where a word is refractory in
submitting to a back rendering, as in the case of _pound_, letters are
made to change positions for the sake of harmony; thus, we have DUNOP,
a pound, instead of _dnuop_ which nobody could pleasantly pronounce.
This will remind the reader of the Jews’ “_old clo! old clo!_” instead
of _old clothes, old clothes_, which would tire even the patience of a
Jew to repeat all day.
This singular BACK tongue has been in vogue about twenty-five years.
It is, as before stated, soon acquired, and is principally used by the
costermongers (as the specimen Glossary will show), for communicating
the secrets of their street tradings, the cost and profit of the goods,
and for keeping their natural enemies, the police, in the dark. COOL
THE ESCLOP (look at the police) is often said amongst them, when one of
the constabulary makes his appearance.
Perhaps on no subject is the costermonger so particular as on money
matters. All costs and profits he thinks should be kept profoundly
secret. The Back Slang, therefore, gives the various small amounts very
minutely.
FLATCH, halfpenny.
YENEP, penny.
OWT-YENEPS, twopence.
ERTH-YENEPS, threepence.
ROUF-YENEPS, fourpence.
EVIF, or EWIF-YENEPS, fivepence.
EXIS-YENEPS, sixpence.
NEVIS-YENEPS, sevenpence.
TEAICH, or THEG-YENEPS, eightpence.
ENIN-YENEPS, ninepence.
NET-YENEPS, tenpence.
NEVELÉ-YENEPS, elevenpence.
EVLÉNET-YENNEPS, twelvepence.
GEN, or GENERALIZE, one shilling, or twelvepence.
YENEP-FLATCH, three halfpence.
OWT-YENEP-FLATCH, twopence halfpenny. &c. &c. &c.
GEN, or ENO-GEN, one shilling.
OWT-GENS, two shillings.
ERTH-GENS, three shillings.
The GENS continue in the same sequence as the YENEPS above, excepting
THEG-GENS, 8s., which is usually rendered THEG-GUY,—a deviation with
ample precedents in all civilised tongues.
YENORK, a crown piece, or five shillings.
FLATCH-YENORK, half-a-crown.
Beyond this amount the costermonger reckons after an intricate
and complicated mode. Fifteen shillings would be ERTH-EVIF-GENS,
or, literally, three times 5s.; seventeen shillings would be
ERTH-YENORK-FLATCH, or three crowns and a half; or, by another mode of
reckoning, ERTH-EVIF-GENS FLATCH-YENORK, _i.e._, three times 5s., and
half-a-crown.
DUNOP, a pound.
Further than which the costermonger seldom goes in money reckoning.
In the following Glossary only those words are given which
costermongers principally use,—the terms connected with street
traffic, the names of the different coins, vegetables, fruit and fish,
technicalities of police courts, &c.
The reader might naturally think that a system of speech so simple as
the BACK-SLANG would require no Glossary; but he will quickly perceive,
from the specimens given, that a great many words in frequent use in a
BACK sense, have become so twisted as to require a little glossarial
explanation.