The Irish Traveller community is a minority group that has very much held on to their traditional lifestyle, customs, and values in the mid of mainstream settled Irish society. Nevertheless, the community had to go through substantial cultural, economic, and social changes in the course of the last century. These changes have naturally had an impact on language use: Their heritage language Cant, a combination of the Travellers’ own lexical items with Irish English morphosyntax, has, since our earliest records dating from the late 19th century, traditionally fulfilled clear functional purposes in Traveller-related situations. In the course of the last century, a slow decrease in functions and use could be observed, with English taking over in more and more contexts. This contribution explores the interrelationship between the Travellers’ social stance and individual identity, and their use of and attitudes towards Cant.
The Case of Cant: The Irish Travellers and their Linguistic Repertoire in the Context of a Changing Cultural Identity.. Available from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283297736_The_Case_of_Cant_The_Irish_Travellers_and_their_Linguistic_Repertoire_in_the_Context_of_a_Changing_Cultural_Identity [accessed Jun 18, 2017].