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.
