Imagine a secret society
of rogues operating in plain sight, using code
words to plot elaborate felonies and hoaxes. Well from the 16th to
the 19th centuries, Europeans believed
in exactly that. According to multiple
sources, these rogues spoke in a secret dialect
called thieves cant, which could supposedly be used
to describe everything from jewelry heists
to common foods. But was it a real dialect? Or was it simply invented
by authors to sell books? Today we're going to
take a look at thieves cant, a secret language used
by criminals for centuries. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel and let us
know in the comments below what other historic jargon you
would like to hear about. OK, let's learn more about
thieves and liars who kill indirectly,
unintentionally, and with no other weapon than
their tongues and malice. No one, no matter how famous
or influential in history, is immune to being taken in
by a fast talking con man. Even Reformation
leader Martin Luther was allegedly cheated by thieves
speaking a secret dialect. In 1528, Luther wrote the
preface for a German edition of a text called Der
Liber Vagatorum, which was later titled The Book
of Vagabonds and Beggars in English. The book contained a
glossary of thieves cant, explaining the coded
language to readers. In his preface,
Luther claimed that he had been cheated and befooled
by such tramps and liars more than he wished to confess. Clearly, he wasn't
too happy about it. In Luther's words, the slang was
proof of how mightily the devil rules in this world. 16th century readers
became entranced by the idea of a secret
villainous society operating out in the open. In 1566, Thomas Harman published
A Caveat for Common Cursetors in which he claims that rogues
used a secret language called thieves cant to lay out their
unlawful schemes right in front of upstanding citizens. Harman claimed his book was
for the utility and profit of his natural country. According to the author,
spreading information about thieves cant
was good, necessary, and his bounden duty, because
he was showing readers the abominable, wicked, and
detestable behavior of all these rowdy, ragged
rabble men of rakehells. That's a catchy phrase. The popularity of Harman's
book incited a trend of copycat glossaries,
dictionaries, and pamphlets on thieves cant. In fact, as late as 1859,
a New York police chief named George W. Matsell
published The Rogue's Lexicon so readers could better
understand outlaws. According to multiple
popular books, thieves, or rogues as
they're known amongst people who played Dungeons and
Dragons, took a solemn oath when they joined an
underground society of outlaws. In Richard Head's 17th century
book The Canting Academy, he described how
this oath worked. Allegedly, the thieves
chose nicknames and consciously forgot their
birth names before swearing to be a true brother and to obey
the commands of the great tawny prince. While it's not entirely clear
who the great tawny prince is, the term is most likely
a reference to the devil. This vow also mentioned
a coded language and its enforced secrecy. I will not teach anyone
to cant, nor will I disclose aught of our mysteries
to them although they flog me. In other words, the first
rule of thieves cant is you don't talk
about thieves cant. Thief, of course, is a
bit of a catch all term. There are lots of
different kinds of thieves. And thieves cant allegedly
have names for all of them. So for example, a prigger
refers to a thief, but each prigger often carried
different titles depending on their desired loot. Priggers of prancers took horses
while priggers of cacklers snatched hens. Thieves also called
themselves cony catchers, using the term cony a
nickname for rabbits, to describe helpless victims. A lock picker was called a kate,
and counterfeiters were said to draw the king's picture. This terminology
got so specific, the thieves cant
even coined a term for people who stole wet
clothes from clotheslines. Lullypriggers. That's a great name for a
90s all-female punk band. In the 16th century,
English vagrancy laws were incredibly harsh. After a third offense,
vagrants sometimes faced capital punishment. They'd actually kill
you for being a vagrant. This was in part because
thieves cant pamphlets like Thomas Harman's
aforementioned Caveat for Common Cursetors
became one of the most popular thieves cant texts. In fact, some believe it was
Harman who popularized rogues as a new term for thieves. He argued that
vagrants and thieves were all part of a law
breaking underground of impoverished rogues. And the hysteria he
created was a factor in the ever increasing
harshness of the penalties that vagrants faced. Harman's book was so
successful it completely changed the way society
viewed these people. For example, before
the book beggars, might be branded with a V
for vagrant as punishment. After the success of the book,
they were branded with R, outing them as rogues. That might not seem
like a big deal to us, but to them rogues were a lot
more dangerous than vagrants. Criminals spend a lot of
time worrying about getting caught committing a crime. So as you might
guess, thieves cant contain multiple terms
related to getting busted and the consequences thereof. For example, cattle
rustlers worried about getting sent
to the picture frame, which was another way
of referring to the gallows. The judges who ultimately
control the fate of the accused were called fortunetellers. And all thieves fretted over
getting Frummagened, which was another term for being hanged. Most imaginatively,
to climb the gallows was to ride a horse
full by an acorn which makes the experience sound a lot
more fun than it probably was. Of course, the best part
of being a successful thief is the loot. And unsurprisingly,
the thieves cant head a whole heap of
code named to discuss the items the thieves snatched. For m jewelry thieves might
be after a chunk o' gin, which was code for a
diamond, or a chunk o' brandy, which indicated a ruby. Sapphires were referred
to as berry wine. While the less glamorous
sounding Irish apricot, which you might assume
refers to a precious stone, were actually just potatoes. Not every thief stole jewels. Some were just hungry. Thieves cant
dictionaries promised to expose a secret world,
simultaneously entrancing and repulsing readers. One glossary of
the cant promised that readers would find the
devil's cabinet open inside. And they delivered some
pretty scary stuff. For example, according to a
1760 dictionary of thieves cant, innocent people were well
served to avoid badgers. This term didn't refer to
the fuzzy faced omnivore of the scientific
family mustelidae, but rather to a crew
of desperate villains who rob and slay
near rivers, and then throw the remains there in. The thieves cant was a code. And as such, it was meant to
be difficult for outsiders to understand. That being said, some of it was
so downright indecipherable it borders on completely random. If a modern person heard
someone use the name Oliver, they might think of
the classic musical based on Charles Dickens'
book Oliver Twist. But if a 16th century
rogue mentioned Oliver, he was using thieves code
to reference the moon. Why was the moon named Oliver? Nobody really knows. But that's just the beginning. The thieves cant contain far
more befuddling code words. Marriage music meant
crying children. Rhino was code for money. And rogues called
eggs cackling farts. While no one knows exactly
how much of the thieves cant was real and how much
was imagined by authors, at least several modern
words can be traced back to the secretive code. The word phony finds
its origin in the cant. As early as 1770,
English thieves were practicing a ruse
called the fawney raid. In this scheme, a rogue
would drop a cheap ring in front of their mark. They would then offer to sell
it for less than its supposed worth. Although the jewelry's true
value was next to nothing. The fawney or ring, was a
fake used to trick the mark. Some linguists
believe the thieves may have adapted the
word fawney from fainne, the Irish word for ring. But that's just a guess. Your average modern person
doesn't need code words to refer to the moon or eggs. But many modern words
related to lawbreaking still come from thieves cant. A swindler, for example,
refers to a liar or cheat in modern English. Which is exactly how outlaws
used the term centuries ago. Similarly, the word
pigeon is still used to describe someone
who easily falls for a con. Thieves cant also turned grease
into a term for bribing someone and popularized the
phrase left in the lurch as an idiom for betrayal. All of these terms, still fairly
common in modern parlance, were borrowed or perhaps
stolen from thieves cant. In England, thieves
cant had another name. Peddler's French. Though it might be
confusing, this nickname didn't mean the dialect
originated in France. In reality, it was a
subtle way for the English to insult the French. Europeans of the
era where apparently big on naming things in a
way that insulted each other. For example, Italians called
syphilis the French disease, while the French attempted to
rename it the Italian disease. But while scholars agree thieves
cant didn't come from France, they can't seem to agree
on where it did originate. Researchers have detected
French, English, Italian, Russian, Latin, Yiddish,
and Romani influences within the slang terms. But its true roots
remain unknown. English prisoners revived
thieves cant as recently as 2009 to smuggle controlled
substances into penitentiaries. The criminals called
dope chat, or onik, while crack was cobbie. According to an anonymous source
working at HM Prison Buckley Hall in England, it was
the most ingenious use of a secret code authorities
had ever come across. The source explained that
Elizabethan cant was only used by a tiny number of people. And it is quite amazing
that it has been resurrected in order to buy substances. Some inmates will try anything
to get contraband behind bars. While the idea of thieves
cant may be tantalizing, many scholars argue that
the secret dialect outlined in Thomas Harman's 16th century
dictionary was fabricated. Harman may have incorporated
some actual slang in his book, but some sections were
likely the product of his own invention. His stories about clever
rogues for example, were simply lifted
from folklore. And while authors like
Charles Dickens later used thieves cant in their
novels to make their tale seem more realistic, many
thieves cant dictionaries simply borrowed from
earlier versions, potentially repeating
fabricated words. That being said,
author Maurizio Gotti notes that several courts'
records mentioned thieves cant, indicating that at least
some words were legitimate. So if the cant was real,
seems like those thieves did a good job
keeping their secrets. So what do you think? What's your favorite
thieves cant word? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
