Anti-Languages: The Grammar of the Underworld

Most of us think of language as a tool for connection, a bridge that helps us share ideas and understand one another. But what if a language was designed to do the exact opposite? What if its primary purpose was to build a wall, to create a secret world understood only by the initiated, and to deliberately exclude outsiders? Welcome to the shadowy realm of anti-languages.

Coined by the influential linguist M.A.K. Halliday, the term “anti-language” describes the speech of an “anti-society”—a subculture that consciously sets itself up in opposition to the dominant, mainstream society. These aren’t just collections of slang words; they are systematic and creative linguistic rebellions. From the back alleys of Elizabethan London to the cell blocks of a modern prison, anti-languages are the grammar of the underworld, spoken to forge identity, protect secrets, and survive on the margins.

What Defines an Anti-Language?

An anti-language isn’t just a dialect or a collection of jargon. According to Halliday, it has several key features that set it apart. It is a language created by a group that feels under pressure or surveillance from the mainstream world. Its primary functions are both social and defensive.

Key characteristics include:

• Secrecy and Solidarity: The language serves to conceal meaning from outsiders (like police officers or prison guards) while simultaneously reinforcing a sense of belonging among its speakers. To speak it is to be part of the “in-group.”
• A New Worldview: An anti-language expresses an alternative social reality. The concepts that are important to the anti-society are given prominence, while the values of the dominant society are often ignored or inverted.
• Systematic Relexicalization: This is the core linguistic mechanism. An anti-language doesn’t invent a new grammar from scratch. Instead, it takes the grammar of the dominant language and systematically replaces its vocabulary (its lexicon). Think of it as pouring new, secret wine into old, familiar bottles.
• Over-lexicalization: Anti-languages often have an unusually rich vocabulary for concepts that are central to the group’s existence. A group of thieves might have a dozen words for “police”, while a prison community will have numerous terms for different types of guards, weapons, or punishments.

Echoes from the Past: Thieves’ Cant

One of the most famous historical anti-languages is Thieves’ Cant, also known as “Pedlar’s French.” Flourishing in Britain from the 16th to the 19th centuries, it was the tongue of vagabonds, rogues, highwaymen, and pickpockets. To the uninitiated, a conversation in Cant would sound like gibberish. To a fellow rogue, it was a vital tool for planning crimes, identifying allies, and avoiding the authorities.

Cant worked primarily through relexicalization. The sentence structure was English, but the key nouns and verbs were swapped out. Consider this classic example:

To nip a bung.

In standard English, this means “to steal a purse.” “Bung” was the Cant word for a purse, and “to nip” meant to cut or steal it (a meaning that survives in a different form today). A “nipper” was a cutpurse, often a child. Other examples from Cant include:

• Cove: A man or a fellow
• Glymmer: Fire
• Prig: A thief or to steal
• To mill: To beat or kill

A sentence like, “The prigging cove milled the flat for his glymmer”, would communicate a specific event to those in the know, while sounding like utter nonsense to a passing constable. This linguistic wall was essential for the survival of the criminal anti-society.

Inside the Walls: Modern Prison Slang

The conditions that gave rise to Thieves’ Cant are mirrored today in the high-pressure environment of prisons. A prison is, by definition, an anti-society—a closed world with its own hierarchy, economy, and moral code, all operating under the nose of a hostile dominant authority (the guards and the state). It’s a perfect incubator for an anti-language.

Prison slang is more than just a way to pass the time; it’s a language of survival. It’s used to communicate plans, warn of danger, and navigate the complex social landscape. The vocabulary is intensely focused on the realities of prison life.

• Kite: A smuggled letter. The term brilliantly captures the illicit and almost weightless nature of secret communication.
• Shiv or Shank: A makeshift knife. The existence of multiple, well-known terms is a perfect example of over-lexicalization for a crucial concept.
• Diesel Therapy: The grueling, disorienting experience of being transferred between prisons, often as a form of punishment.
• The Hole: Solitary confinement.
• Fish: A new, inexperienced inmate, vulnerable to exploitation.

Knowing this language is a matter of social survival. It signals that you are not a “fish”, that you understand the rules, and that you belong. Speaking the language builds trust and solidarity in an environment where both are scarce commodities.

The Grammar of Opposition

The true genius of an anti-language lies in its efficiency. Why invent a whole new grammar when you can simply hijack an existing one? The process of relexicalization is a masterclass in linguistic subversion.

Let’s go back to our Cant example. The English sentence is:

The man stole the purse. (Subject – Verb – Object)

The Cant version is:

The cove nipped the bung. (Subject – Verb – Object)

The grammatical structure is identical. The syntax, the word order, the way the verb functions—all are borrowed directly from English. It’s only the key lexical items—the content words—that have been replaced. This allows speakers to generate an infinite number of secret sentences without having to learn a completely new linguistic system. It’s a code that is both deeply creative and highly practical.

From the defiant camp of Polari (a language used by gay men in Britain when homosexuality was illegal) to the intricate codes of online hacker groups, anti-languages are all around us. They are a powerful testament to human creativity under pressure. They remind us that language is not just for describing the world as it is, but for creating the world we need—even if that world exists only in the shadows.