#shelta

[croziers-compass]

Maybe you'll like this!

anyone else trying to learn their families language?

hi! my names axel and my dad is irish and my mum is romani. I want to learn these languages (esp gaeilge) but it’s so difficult to find the motivation to do so. id rlly like to make some friends who are also trying to learn their families languages :D

i’ve always been into languages and have tried to learn a few but never fully committed because i didn’t have a reason to commit and didnt have a passion for the language.

maybe if i meet enough ppl in the same boat i might make a disc server.

what language does your family speak, and can you speak it?

[umbratheshadowfamiliar]

Karmor Art Contest Submission

Cool facts about my Karmor below the cut:

He is an Irish Traveller and knows Shelta very well.

The other languages he speaks are English and Irish Gaelic

Every time he uses his power another crow tattoo appears on his skin

Big acts make large heavily detailed crows whereas smaller changes only make feathers or light sketches of beaks

He worries that one day the imagery of the mad crow will take over his entire body and no one will be able to seperate him from his tormentor.

The scar across his neck is from a barbed collar that the Mad Crow tied too tightly.

He is incredibly into Shakespeare which leads into how he is mute.

The Mad Crow saw that Karmor's favourite Shakespeare play was Titus Andronicus and told Kramor that if he continued to act up he would make a Lavinia out of him.

The Mad Crow only got as far as cutting out his tongue before Karmor got the message. Saving his hands from being cut off too.

Me d'reel for a nash of glimm again = I need another drink.

This scene is from when Albus and him go drinking for the second time. The small feather collected across his arms are from altering Albus' drink to get him more drunk.

[meichenxi]

UK accent bias, discrimination, minority languages and the question of the 'default, normal' english speaker

today I came across something overtly that is usually a covert problem, and I wanted to take a chance to talk about the questions it raises about what it means to be 'normal' and speak 'normal english' in an anglocentric, global world.

let's start at the beginning. I was aimlessly googling around and came across this article, discussing ergodic literature:

I hope that you will see what angered me right away, but if not:

brogue? inaccessible, insufferable brogue? that is so difficult to read you might want to relieve your frustrations by harming a housepet, or striking a loved one?

what????? the fuck??????

my dearly beloathed. this is not a made up sci-fi language. this was not written for your convenience.

this is the glaswegian dialect.

this is how it is written. scots, which is very similar to this, is a language whose speakers have been systematically taught to change and hide and modify their speech, to not speak it in the classroom, to conform. this is NOT comparable to any of the made-up dialects or ways of writing in cloud atlas or any other specularative fiction. the suggestion of ir is deeply insulting.

(the line between various 'dialects' and 'languages' I speak about here is by definition sometimes political, sometimes arbitrary, and often very thin. what goes for the glaswegian dialect here in terms of discrimination goes for scots in general - which is, in fact, even more 'inaccessible' than glaswegian because it has a greater quantity of non-english and therefore non-'familiar' words. speakers of different englishes will face more or less discrimination in different circumstances. caveat over.)

you can find it on twitter, in books, in poetry; and more than that, on the streets and in living rooms, in places that this kind of england-first discrimination hasn't totally eradicated.

an imporant note - this book in question is called Naw Much of a Talker, and it was written originally in Swiss-German and then translated into Glaswegian to preserve similar themes and questions of language and identity. rather than detracting from anything I'm saying, I think the fact this is a translated piece of fiction adds to it - it has literally been translated so it is more accessible, and the article writer did not even realise. it also highlights the fact as well that these are questions which exist across the globe, across multiple languages, of the constant tension everywhere between the 'correct' high language and the 'incorrect, backward' 'low' language or dialect. these are all interesting questions, and someone else can tackle them about german and swiss german -

but I am going to talk today about scots and english, because that is how the writer of this article engaged with this piece and that is the basis upon which they called it 'insufferable brogue', the prejudice they have revealed about scots is what I want to address.

so here, today, in this post: let's talk about it. what is 'normal' english, why is that a political question, and why should we care?

as we begin, so we're all on the same page, I would like to remind everyone that england is not the only country in the united kingdom, and that the native languages of the united kingdom do not only include english, but also:

scots

ulster scots (thank you @la-galaxie-langblr for the correction here!!)

scottish gaelic

welsh

british sign language

irish

anglo-romani

cornish

shelta

irish sign language

manx

northern ireland sign language

and others I have likely forgotten

there are also countless rich, beautiful dialects (the distinction between dialect and language is entirely political, so take this description with a pinch of salt if you're outside of these speaker communities), all with their own words and histories and all of them, yes all of them, are deserving of respect.

and there are hundreds and thousands of common immigrant languages, of languages from the empire, and of englishes across the globe that might sound 'funny' to you, but I want you to fucking think before you mock the man from the call centre: why does india speak english in the first place? before mocking him, think about that.

because it's political. it's ALL political. it's historical, and it's rooted in empire and colonialism and all you need to do is take one look at how we talk about Black language or languages of a colonised country to see that, AAVE or in the UK, multi-cultural london english, or further afield - the englishes of jamaica, kenya, india. all vestiges of empire, and all marked and prejudiced against as 'unintelligent' or lesser in some way.

and closer to home - the systematic eradication and 'englishification' of the celtic languages. how many people scottish gaelic now? cornish? manx? how many people speak welsh? and even within 'english' itself - how many people from a country or rural or very urban or immigrant or working class or queer background are discriminated against, because of their english? why do you think that is?

if you think that language isn't political, then you have likely never encountered discrimination based on how you, your friends, or your family speak.

you are speaking from a position of privilege.

'but it's not formal' 'but it's not fit for the classroom' 'but it sounds silly'. you sound silly, amy. I have a stereotypically 'posh' english accent, and I can tell you for a fact: when I go to scotland to visit my family, they think I sound silly too. but in the same way as 'reverse racism' isn't a fucking thing - the difference is that it's not systemic. when I wanted to learn gaelic, my grandmother - who speaks gaelic as her own native language - told me, no, you shouldn't do that. you're an english girl. why would you want to learn a backward language like gaelic?

discrimination against non-'english' englishes is pervasive, systematic and insidious.

it is not the same as being laughed at for being 'posh'. (there's more about class and in-group sociolinguistics here, but that's for another post)

and who told you this? where is this information from? why do you think an 'essex girl' accent sounds uneducated? why do you think a northern accent sound 'honest' and 'salt of the earth'? what relationship does that have with class? why does a standard southern british english sound educated and 'intelligent'? who is in charge? who speaks on your television? whose words and accents do you hear again and again, making your policies, shaping your future? who speaks over you?

think about that, please.

and before anyone says: this is so true except for X lol - I am talking about exactly that dialect. I am talking about that accent you are mocking. I am talking about brummie english, which you think sounds funny. I'm talking about old men in the west country who you think sound like pirates, arrrrr.

(actually, pirates sound like the west country. where do you the 'pirate accent' came from? devon was the heart of smuggling country in the uk.)

so. to this person who equated a book written in scots, a minority and marginalised language, to being 'insufferable, inaccessible brogue':

and also to anyone who is from the UK, anyone who is a native english speaker, and anyone abroad, but especially those of you who think your english is 'natural', who have never had to think about it, who have never had to code-switch, who have never had to change how they sound to fit in:

it might be difficult to read - for you. it might be strange and othering - to you.

but what is 'inaccessible' to you is the way that my family speaks - your english might be 'inaccessible' to them. so why does your 'inaccessible' seem to weigh more than theirs?

and why does it bother you, that you can't understand it easily in the first go? because you have to try? or because perhaps, just perhaps, dearly beloathed author of this article, after being catered to your entire life and shown your language on screen, constantly - you are finally confronted by something that isn't written for you.

and for the non-uk people reading this. I would like you to think very carefully about what a 'british accent' means to you.

there is no such thing. let me say it louder:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BRITISH ACCENT

there are a collection of accents and languages and dialects, each with different associations and stereotypes. the clever aristocrat, the honest farmer, the deceitful *racial slur*. there are accents, languages and dialects that you hear more than others because of political reasons, and there are accents, languages and dialects which are more common than others because of discrimination, violence and the path of history.

if you say 'british accent', we - in the UK - don't know exactly what you mean. much more than the US, because the english-speaking people have been here longer, we have incredibly different accents just fifty miles away from one another.

but we can guess. you probably don't mean my grandmother's second-language english - even though, by american conversations about race, she is the whitest person you could possibly find. you don't mean my brother, who sounds like a farmer.

you mean my accent. tom hiddleston's accent. benedict cumberbatch. dame judy dench. sir ian mckellen. and they are all wonderful people - but what sort of people are they, exactly? what sort of things do they have in common? why is it that you associate their way of speaking with all of the charming eloquence of 'dark academia' or high levels of education, and my family's english with being 'backward' or 'country bumpkins' or 'uneducated' or, more insidiously, 'salt-of-the-earth good honest folk'?

we are an old country with old prejudices and old classes and old oppression and old discrimination and old hate. my brother speaks with a 'farmer' west country accent; my aunt with a strong doric accent that most english people cannot understand; my father with a mockable birmingham accent; my grandmother with a gaelic accent, because despite the fact that she is from the UK, as scottish as you can get, english is not her first language.

these people exist. my grandmother is a real person, and she is not a dying relic of a forgotten time. her gaelic is not something to drool over in your outlander or braveheart or brave-fuelled scottish romanticism, the purity and goodness of the 'celt' - but there are fewer people like her now. and I would like to invite everyone to think about why that is the case.

if you don't know, you can educate yourself - look up the highland clearances, for a start, or look at the lives of anglo-romani speakers in the UK and the discrimination they face, or irish speakers in northern ireland. like many places, we are a country that has turned inward upon itself. there will always be an 'other'.

and then there's me. raised in southern england and well-educated and, however you want to call it, 'posh'. so why is it that it is my voice, and not theirs, which is considered typically british all over the world?

I think you can probably figure out that one by yourself.

when you talk about the 'british accent', this is doing one of two things. it's serving to perpetuate the myth that the only part of the UK is england, rather than four countries, and the harmful idea that it is only england in the UK that matters. (and only a certain type of people in england, at that.)

secondly, it serves to amalgamate all of the languages and accents and dialects - native or poor or immigrant or colonial - into one, erasing not only their history and importance, but even their very existence.

dearly beloathed person on the internet. I have no idea who you are. but the language scots exists. I'm sorry it's not convenient for you.

but before I go, I would like to take a moment to marvel. 'insufferable, inaccessible brogue'? what assumptions there are, behind your words!

is it 'insufferable' to want to write a story in the language you were raised in? is it 'inaccessible' to want to write a story in the shared language of your own community?

I don't think it is.

I think it takes a special sort of privilege and entitlement to assume that - the same one that assumes whiteness and Americanness and Englishness and able-bodiedness and cisness and maleness and straightness as being the 'standard' human experience, and every single other trait as being a deviance from that, an othering. that's the same entitlement that will describe Turning Red as a story about the chinese experience - but not talk about how Toy Story is a story about the white american middle class experience.

people do not exist for your ease of reading. they do not exist to be 'accessible'. and - what a strange thing, english reader, to assume all books are written for you, at all.

and despite the fact that the text that prompted this was written by one group of white people, translated into the language of another group, and critiqued by a third - this is a conversation about racism too, because it is the same sort of thinking and pervasive stereotyping which goes into how white people and spaces view Black language and language of people of colour around the world. it's about colonialism and it's about slavery and it's aboutsegregation and othering and the immigrant experience and it's about the history of britain - and my god, isn't that a violent one. it's inseparable from it. language is a tool to signify belonging, to shut people out and lock people in. it's a tool used to enforce that othering and discrimination and hate on a systemic level, because it says - I'm different from you. you're different from me. this post is focusing more on the native languages of the UK, but any question of 'correct language' must inevitably talk about racism too, because language is and has always been a signifier of group belonging, and a way to enforce power.

it is used to gatekeep, to enforce conformity, to control, to signify belonging to a particular group, to other. talking about language 'correctness' is NOT and never CAN be a neutral thing.

it reminds me of a quote, and I heard this second hand on twitter and for the life of me cannot remember who said it or exactly how it goes, but the gist of it was a queer writer addressing comments saying how 'universal' their book was, and saying - no, this is a queer book. if you want to find themes and moments in it that are applicable to your 'default' life, 'universals' of emotion and experience, go ahead. but I have had to translate things from the norm my entire life, to make them relatable for me. this time, you do the translation.

I do not speak or write scots or glaswegian, but I grew up reading it and listening to it (as well as doric and gaelic in smaller measures, which are still familiar to me but which I can understand less). for me, that passage is almost as easy to read as english - and the only reason it is slightly more difficult is because, predictably, I don't have a chance to practice reading scots very often at all. it isn't inaccessible to me.

(I was about to write: can you imagine looking at a book written in french, and scowling, saying, 'this is so insufferably foreign!' and then point out how ridiculous that would be. but then I realise - foreign film, cinema, lyrics increasingly in english, reluctance to read the subtitles, the footnotes, to look things up, to engage in any active way in any piece of media. this is an attitude which even in its most mockable, most caricature-like form, is extremely prevalent online. *deep sigh*)

because. what is 'inaccessible'? it means it is difficult for people who are 'normal'. and what is 'normal', exactly? why is a certain class of people the 'default'? could that be, perhaps, a question with very loaded and very extensive political, social and historical answers? who is making the judgement about what language is 'normal'? who gets to decide?

I'd also like to note that this applies to everyone. it doesn't matter if you are a member of an oppressed group, or five, or none, you can still engage in this kind of discrimination and stereotyping. my scottish family, who have themselves had to change the way they speak and many of them lost their gaelic because of it, routinely mock anglo-romani speakers in their local area. I have an indian friend, herself speaking english because of a history of violence and colonialism, who laughed for five minutes at the beginning of derry girls because the girls sounded so 'funny', and asked me: why did they choose to speak like that? my brother, who sounds very stereotypically rural and 'uneducated', laughs at the essex accent and says that he would never date a girl from essex. I had a classmate from wales who was passionate about welsh language rights and indigenous and minority language education but also made fun of the accent of her native-english speaking classmate from singapore. it goes on and on and on.

take the dialect/language question out of the topic, and I think this reveals a much broader problem with a lot of conversations about media, and the implicit assumptions of what being 'normal' [read: white, anglo-centric, american, male, straight, young, able-bodied, cis, etc] actually means:

if something is written about an experience I do not share, is it inaccessible? or is it just written for someone else?

so, please. next time you want to write a review about a dialect or language you don't speak, think a little before you open your mouth.

the rest of the world has to, every time.

[tarend]

"Hey guys, it's your favorite power couple with the quick PSA we promised! We know what happened in orc city was horrible. Right? as a half-elf, it really made me sit my white ass down and listen, and i learned so much from my girlfriend Gorza. She's from west orc, and so we thought it was our duty to spread some awareness. of course there's no excuse for war crimes. we Know that. Killing people is horrible, you really shouldn't pegasus down starving orc kids after herding them to food points, byut!! Say it with me. We👏 don't 👏 judge 👏 a 👏 full👏 grown-ass 👏 race 👏 for 👏 the 👏 crimes👏 of👏a👏 few! we're all adults, right? Not all elves are bad!! Anyway, inspired by Taylorc Swift's banger, here's our own rendition of Imagine to get us through these trying times, because we Want to imagine. Imagine a better world for us all, where no one gets pegasus'd down for the color of their skin!! if you can, please Donate to our Delta Shelta Trelta fundraiser, we will be hosing a gala on Saturday to raise Awareness, and 100% of the donations will be going to the Elvish Committee for Genocide Prevention! Enjoy the song, and don't forget to like, scribe and subscribe, haha. Spread the love, you guys. Mwah!" #notmyking #notallelves #ourtruth #whosreadytogetwaaasted #orcciturday #swiftiesforlife #deltasheltatreltarules

[stromuprisahat]

For the Shelbys I think they're mixed, like in the 2nd EP their mom gets called a didicoy which according to Google is mixed Roma and non Roma. Also they have Irish Traveller heritage in addition to the Roma, Polly once talked about Shelta which is the Irish Traveller language

But how do Roma look? Do they all look like Esmeralda from hunchback of Notre Dame? Or if not dark skinned at least dark haired? This one British Roma writer complained no one believes he's Roma because he's blond, and his black haired relatives never have that problem, but to me they all look 'white'

I'm gonna steal a few pics from Czech papers:

Those aren't the best, because news tend to write about Roma in connection to crime or socially excluded areas full of trash, and I'm not gonna steal someone's facebook photos. (You should see some of the Ladies from my work.)

Speaking about Czech Cikáni (which might "officially" be a slur like Gypsies, but those I know never call themselves Romové)- yes, they're darker than the rest of us. Most of Czechs are various shades of pale and while all hair and eye colours are possible, the most common is naturally straight-ish mousy brown hair and blue or light brown eyes. Our Gypsies have light to middle brown skin and dark eyes and hair- more often curling than the rest of us.

Of course there are exceptions. There's still plenty of issues on both sides- persisting (covert) racism and abuse of social system the most prominent two dividing the groups-, but there are families mixed on various levels, so "non-typical" colouring of some individuals isn't impossible, but there's still the way the majority looks like.

(One of my favs is the story of one of grandma's acquaintances, who was a typical Gypsy and married a typical white Czech. They had four children together- regarding their looks in turns one child taking completely after one parent, another after the other one.)

They also tend to be much more temperamental than average Slavic Czech- bold, loud, outgoing, no nonsense in my experience, but we're a boring, asocial family, so it's even more noticeable for me.

I tried to find decent pics of ordinary "Slavic" Czechs for comparison, and getting anything that isn't painted faces from sport events or what disturbingly resembles extremist protesters, isn't as easy as I thought.

[sl-newsie]

American Woman (Thomas Shelby x American OC) Ch. 35: How To Grieve?

Masterlist: https://www.tumblr.com/sl-newsie/739551758747090944/american-woman-thomas-shelby-x-american-oc?source=share

“Get up, Verena.”

John kicks my tensed body and in my confused state, drunk of sadness, I’m lifted up and walked into the kitchen. John steers me into a chair and I continue to stare down with glazed eyes.

“Perk up, Verena. Like us. We’re here ‘cause the fucking booze is in here.” Arthur slides me a glass. “Drink up.”

Polly swats his arm. “Arthur, find better words!”

“Does swearing in Gypsy count?” John teases.

The Romanian woman’s eyes flash as she brandishes a cutting knife. “There’s no reason for us to be speaking Rokka or Shelta in any case.”

“What about Verena? She speaks Dutch!”

“Only a few phrases,” I finally speak, still staring at nothing. “I’m not fluent.”

John puts down his drink and kneels down next to me. “Hey, love. Did he bark at you too?”

“He’s just lost his wife, John,” I inform him harshly. “Maybe for once stop thinking like a soldier and think like a brother.”

I slide away from the table and sit down where Karl is playing. If Charlie wasn’t so unstable I’d suggest for them to play together. Finn offers a look that asks if I want to talk but I hold up a hand to decline.

“Hello, Karl!” I try to sound upbeat.

The young lad grins in delight. “Hello, Verena! Want to play?”

We partake in designing an imaginary track for his train to go through. In the background I hear the normal banter of who’s the boss and how things used to be. Eventually the beginnings of a scuffle form and Karl stands up to look at the angry grown ups.

“Fooking pheasant!” he blurts.

Everyone stops what they’re doing to gape at the child. Lord, we need this! We need the purity of children to drive away the madness of this world.

Ada stoops down to hug him. “Karl! You can’t say things like that!”

Polly sighs and glares at John. “Now look what you’ve done.”

They start talking about family again and it’s time I gave them space. Thomas is right. I’m not family and they need to plan their future without me.

“I need to pop out a sec,” I excuse myself. “Need to use the water closet.”

“That’s English talk, Steenstra,” John teases.

“I’m in England. What do you expect?” I call from the hallway.

“An American trying to be English!” Arthur joins in.

They can have their family meeting. I can make some calls to Uncle Colon and maybe arrange to stay with him. If Thomas isn’t willing to open up and I have no part of this family then there’s no use for me to stay.

I turn the corner and someone runs into me, almost sending us crashing to the floor.

“Finn? Wha-?”

“Tommy’s gone!” he gasps. “Just outside-!”

“Whoa, slow down. Go tell the others.”

Finn races off to the kitchen and I sprint across the polished floor just in time to see a Gypsy wagon driving down the road. Is he leaving? For good?

“Tommy! Tommy!” Arthur shouts as he and John sprint past me, trying to catch up.

“Let him go!" Polly tells them.

The brothers watch devastated as the wagon gets further and further away. My own mental state turns eerily calm when I spot a slip of paper on the nearby table.

“Here. Here’s a note.”

Ada picks it up. “Says he’ll be back in Birmingham in three days. Went with Johnny Doggs. He took Charlie with him.” She looks at me. “Did he ever tell you anything?”

I shake my head slowly with unblinking eyes, my brow furrowed. “Why would he? He shut me out just like all of you. What makes me so special?”

“You know why,” Polly says. “He talks to you.”

Take care of him. Okay then, Grace. How can I do that when he’s days away? He up and left and now Polly and Ada want me to stay until he comes back. What keeps haunting me the most is the out of context interpretation of her words. Take care of him. Not marry him. 

“You alright, Verena?” Ada asks from across the kitchen.

I hum a ‘yes’ as I chop up potatoes. “Where did the boys go?”

“John and Arthur took Michael to teach him how to shoot.”

I huff a laugh and continue chopping. “With alcohol, I presume?”

“They did what?” Polly demands and reaches for her coat. “I’m going out.”

Ada tries to convince her to stay but it’s no use. “Michael’s grown up now, Pol.”

Polly’s heels click away on the stone floor. Ada and I stand in silence until we hear the door close.

“She won’t like to see him handling a gun,” Ada mutters. “Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

“No, no. It’s the least I can do. In my family it’s always a gift to cook for grieving families. Food provides comfort and brings people together. If they can actually shoot a pheasant then I can learn to clean and cook it.”

“You know there are people we hire to do that?”

“Yes. I need to do this myself.”

I swear Ada mutters something along the lines of ‘just like Tommy’ but I let it slide. If cooking is all I can do to help then by God I will do it. I won’t try asking about leaving again. No matter how many times I tell Polly I shouldn’t still be here she talks me into staying. Who can say no to Polly?

That’s what the days turn into. Ada and me keeping watch at Arrow House, waiting for a sign. Today is a sunny day which calls for a walk outdoors. Usual pastimes that I use to try to fill in the days. Finn stops by to chat now and then but I’m starting to feel like a pet cat rather than a useful friend. Not if I have anything to say about it!

Beep… Beep…

“Hello?”

“Arthur, it’s Verena. Tell Polly that unless Thomas returns by tomorrow then I’m leaving for Ireland. She can’t keep me here and she knows why.”

On the other end I hear Arthur grunt. “Pol will be sad to hear it, but I’ll let her know.”

“Thank you. Any news on your end?”

Silence. “Mr. and Mrs. Changretta tried to ship off to New York. Your territory.”

Arthur fails to elaborate but I deduct from his voice that there’s more to tell. “And…?”

“We sent her to find your father’s pub. She’ll be welcomed there, right?”

“Yes, of course. But what about Mr.-?”

“Taken care of,” he cuts me off.

I frown at the receiver. “How-?”

“You don’t want to know. And you will not know. But we did it much more merciful than what Tommy planned.”

My heart skips. “Thomas? He’s back? Why didn’t you bloody say so?!”

The man chuckles. “Maybe we’re all looking for an excuse to keep you here.”

I piece my thoughts together and try hard not to imagine what Hell was originally planned for the man behind Grace’s death. “He’s searching for himself, Arthur. What if he can’t come back?”

More silence. “Then the old Tommy Shelby will be one to mourn as well, love.”

He’s back. Thomas is back. In Birmingham. Does that mean he’ll come back to Arrow House? I will not be kept cooped up in this mansion any longer! Back or not, I am going to leave this place!

Throughout the day I gather my belongings and pack them into a spare suitcase. I need to stop in Birmingham to get my trunk but it will be a quick trip. The few servants I come in contact with give me food for the road and a footman offers to drive me. That only leaves my coat, which is hung up in the hallway-

“Verena.”

“Jesus!” I gasp and nearly bash Thomas over the head with the Bible in my hand. “Thomas? I thought- I thought-”

“I’m back.” The gangster stands between me and the coat. “Not leaving yet, are you?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” I go to maneuver around him but he blocks me. “Mr. Shelby, please step aside.”

It’s a relief to see his face no longer shares the bottled anger from last time he spoke to me. Instead there is the pain of loss in his eyes. Good, he’s no longer screaming. But I’m not sticking around for when he screams again.

“I visited Madame Boswell, another Gypsy,” Thomas mutters, ignoring my request. “All religion is a foolish answer to a foolish question.”

I want to fight the desire to oblige his statement but it’s too strong. “You must have faith in His faith in you.”

He’s still looking at me. “Try to sell it to me all you like, Verena. If there is a God then Grace would still be alive. Don’t have an answer for that, eh?”

“No one does.” 

I move again but Thomas still blocks me. “Good news. We’re expanding.”

Done with death, onto politics?

I quirk an eyebrow. “To…?”

“Boston.”

Both my eyebrows go up. “In America? You’re going to go against Ford and sell cars in America?”

Thomas shakes his head. “Not cars. Lipstick and gloves. All legal products. Know anyone to talk to?”

“Brooklyn is my family’s turf. Unlike you lot we stick to it. But I can make a few calls and get some ideas. Or, I can ask Uncle Colon himself when I get to his house. Now please excuse me-”

Thomas sighs heavily and holds his face in both hands. Before I know what’s happening he grips my shoulders and steers me into his office, shutting the door. What in Heaven-?

“I need to talk,” Thomas says abruptly.

My words are measured carefully. “To me, or just talk?”

“I need to talk to someone who I can trust and will give me a good decision.” His grip on me tightens by a hair. “You.”

I don’t look away from his pained eyes. “Very well. I’m all ears.”

He nods repeatedly at my answer and lets me sit down on the sofa. He paces a few times, running a hand on his jaw, trying to find what to say.

“Have- Have you ever gone through grief?”

I nod. “A fraction of it, yes. No, scratch that. Yes I have.”

“Who?”

“First it was my Grandpa Steenstra. He died when I was six. I was still young enough to not completely understand death yet but knew enough to know he wasn’t coming back. Everyone around me was sad and in tears.”

“What about you?”

“I cried too. His passing made me learn that life should be celebrated. The other death in my family I’ve gone through was my Aunt Eleanor. During her funeral I kept looking at her casket thinking ‘That’s not her. That’s a shell of what she used to be.’ I thought about how young she was. Her death taught me that life is fragile.” I look up from the floor and slowly reach for Thomas’ hand, which he accepts. “Why are you asking me this?”

He keeps staring at the floor. “‘M not too sure how to feel grief.”

I keep my hand in his and put my other hand on his shoulder. “You’ve taken a good step to overcome it by talking about it. Grief isn’t something you avoid. Doing so only bottles things up worse.”

“That’s how you cope?” Thomas murmurs. “Talking?”

“Me? No. I need to be far away and alone. I talk to God and come to terms with what has passed. We all have our own method, Thomas.”

He mutters something under his breath and stands up. “Keep this confidential.”

I stand up as well. “Of course.”

“I’ll need to talk more later.”

“I’ll always listen.” Speaking as a friend, not an employee. “You’re never alone, Thomas. We’re here with you.”

Thomas shakes his head. “That’s why I’ll never stop worrying.”

I cross my arms. “I think I speak for all of us by saying we would rather go down fighting than give in to whatever bastards are terrorizing us.”

The hint of a smile flickers on his face. “You sound like Polly.”

“Good to know I’m learning something while I’m stuck here. Don’t shut us out, Thomas. I know you only mean to protect us and your heart is in the right place. But pushing us away doesn’t send a good message.”

He points at me. “That’s your problem. I can’t wear my heart over my sleeve for all to see.”

My jaw drops. “I do not-!”

“Yes, you do,” Thomas points out lightly. “Ask around. Your whole persona is ‘hello, nice to meet you, can I help?’”

I put my hands on my hips. “The world you see is much more cruel if that’s what you think of me. The real world doesn’t have to be cruel if you can help.” Grace knew it too. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Thomas waves it off but then gets serious again. “I mean it. Will you stay? For a little longer? Just in case? I promise I won’t ask anything extreme.”

Someone to talk to. If he’ll open up to me then maybe there’s a piece of him I can still save. Before all the happiness is gone from those eyes. Take care of him.

“I’ll always listen.”

@meadows5

[sugarmasonmearii]

[C] Shelta

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[ekebolou]

Been thinking about whether to back down on the explicitly-written dialect for updating the Harry and Ellis stories.

One the one hand, it's only so stringent in the old stories because it took a great deal of practice to try and drill something like Ellis' voice into my head. But it is - inevitably - a barrier to easy reading. I don't think I'll ever substitute a kind of RP 'pure' 'readable' English in for his dialogue (that would be gross). But it is a weird position to be in.

The minute I start thinking about 'okay, let's focus on limiting the 'accent' markers or sound markers that aren't key linguistic markers' I start to think about Scots and AAVE. As much I like and try to attend to language and linguistics, I am not linguist and have no training and am not particularly good at learning languages. I'm not sure I can tell what's there to try to convey a certain sound versus what's there as an essential part of the orthography.

Then again, this is a largely imagined way of speaking only very loosely based on what I've been able to learn about these actual ways of speaking/languages. Ellis isn't a Gaelic speaker, and isn't an English speaker, but somebody who would have grown up speaking Old Shelta. (Maybe even Old Old Shelta? If what's called Old Shelta now is the 19thC version, then he's an early 18th century version). Before the 19th century, it would have been much close to Gaelic, is my understanding, but still not mutually intelligible. Ellis would probably be aware of and fluent to a degree in Gaelic, as that was the first language of most folks born in Ireland in the period he was growing up, so being able to speak and understand it as a second language (after Shelta) would've been to his advantage (and he is only half Traveller, which puts him at odds with both of his birth communities).

That would make Hiberno-English his third dialect/language (if you're not counting Thieves' cant as a separate linguistic skill (and, of course, Thieves' cant may be a literary invention, so maybe you shouldn't - I, personally, would need to do more research to have a real opinion on the matter, but my feeling is as always that literary 'invention' and 'low culture' are often intertwined and self-reinforcing and also never take anyone speaking of historical phenomenon in the nineteenth century entirely at their word).

So he very much isn't speaking English much of time, and rather than have some kind of wild trip through italicization in every sentence (which I think would be more stigmatizing, in its way), the written-out dialect serves as a sort of capture, or at least an attempt to capture, the possible way that his particular pidgin would work. Which means it's not actually a good representation of any of the three (or four) languages he's dealing in. Maybe that makes it double annoying.

But it could serve to be simplified somehow, for comprehensibility, regardless. Though in the early stories, the reader is coming at it from Harry's perspective (Harry who also should have his own distinct accent), which means picking out whatever words you might think you're understanding from Ellis is a bit of forced perspective - you're very much where Harry is with it.

And while, at those early moments in the story, it doesn't seem very important, it is very important - it's the fuckin' eighteenth century, nothing is recorded, there is no widespread sense of 'voice', one's accent is very much a marker of class and origin and it is a concerted pursuit for Harry to learn how to sound different ways. So while I do go on about this dialect writing business probably too much (I Like Language!) it is, like, critical to the story.

I should have just picked an easier dialect.

[violencekat]

Concept: queercant. A cyrptolect for queer people that we could use to identify each other without outing them and to secretly shit talk ignorant straight people, like thieves cant or shelta.

[johnathancanines]

going deeper into naming these fucking kids since that's the hell i made for myself --

the name thing is actually a very serious consideration for them because hibernophobia/anti-irish prejudice (yes there is a fancy latin term for it) is a real issue to this day (mainly in the uk, natch) and was especially in the 1920s (they were even on lovecraft's laundry list of people he was a bigot about!) so having very ethnically irish names (and yes, irish is an ethnicity) can be extremely damning and open the kids up for a lot of bullying and other issues.

i think that's something they're naturally both very aware of and sensitive to -- anti-irish sentiment was a bit different in the us at the time but still there, niamh has an ethnically irish name and spent time in ireland during the war of independence so she's like... Not Unfamiliar with it. Tommy is sensitive to it as someone who's just a minority in general but also as someone who's part traveller and raised by his romani family. But her and tommy have very different ideas on how to handle these things, likely because she's from an american and he's still inside his culture and home country.

for her she's seen families who work to hide or stamp out a lot of the "irishness" in them to be able to like, get work. it's the classic immigrant assimilation tactic of like "we live in the us, in the us they speak english, so we won't teach you our native language" kind of thinking. for her family that wasn't a thing mainly because her mother's irish is better than her english (her mother's family is from county galway) so that mentality was simply not viable in their household. her mother was also one of the many who came to the us not bc she wanted to but because there wasn't a lot of other options so her homesickness was immense -- hence the super irish names. so niamh was raised in this immigrant community with some kids having no idea how to speak their ancestral language or really knowing much about where they all came from while some did and just seeing how that all interacted and how it effected people. she then went and lived in ireland for like 2ish years during the war and saw the tension there around the repression of irish culture and identity.

meanwhile tommy is not an immigrant, he is still right where his family has been for at least his whole lifetime and certainly in the same country they've been in for a while. he is however romani and traveller and while he doesn't try to hide that fact he also doesn't tend to be overt about it. He knows how people treat his group and how they see them and tries to avoid those rammifications. he's not ashamed per say, but he's aware of how things are and like those immigrant parents more inclined to do what they feel would set their family up for a better life in the future.

He doesn't seem to (at least from what i remember i'm still in the rewatch process) want to teach charlie and ruby about their family's culture or language, ruby saying anything in shelta or rokker (i forget which) is literally one of the little things that adds to the "supernatural or nah" vibes. which is something that niamh understands but can't really get behind, both in the context of her irish heritage and his traveller-romanichal heritage. which i think is where things can get sticky for them on a personal level.

tommy isn't big on his kids having intensely irish names because he worries about how that'll effect them, the majority of people have no clue how to pronounce anything irish and especially with the anglo-irish war having just happened it's not like people are less bigoted against the irish now. it also could cause issues for him as he tries to advance them and do things like run for mp since it could be seen as some kind of pro-irish or even worse a pro-ira statement given those dudes get more and more extreme and fascy as time goes on (then again that might help him w/ ppl like mosley lol).

meanwhile niamh is very dedicated to treating her kids irish, about their history and culture and all that. she has heard people who's parents didn't teach them lament not knowing their ancestral language (and not just irish people) and she doesn't want to do that to her kids. so she tries to encourage tommy to do the same. when it comes to names it's very emotional for her because irish names are very "homey" to her and she finds a lot of them more aesthetic and appealing as opposed to english names (dairmuid is nicer than reginald, fight me skdlfghsdfkjds).

i think in the end they compromise with names that have mass popularity in ireland as well as england or names that have a english-irish equivalent or an anglicization. especially since he won't let her name any of the boys thomas jr, which she would in a heartbeat. tho i also think that 2 name thing is a hard rule because i think at least one or 2 are just like... That's Just The Name Live With It, like the kid who gets named after mich.ael col.lins.

[caribbeanvibesblog]

Good pum pum need shelta

[nbblacksheep]

sometimes im tempted to just. learn irish and stop speaking english, cause while id love to learn comanche and nahuatl and do the same its not easy, and if im gonna inconvenience my colonial overlords im taking the fasttrack

could sprinkle in some shelta

anyways ya ever get that same mood?

Yeah, I can get the sentiment!

I've thought a lot about learning the particular dialect of Chinese spoken by my ancestors and fellows in Suriname myself, to be honest.

[dragynkeep]

while it has been a while, thank you for the links for shelta vocab. my great grandmother often spoke it around me when i was very little but stopped when i grew older. my grandma died before i was born and my mom refuses to talk about it at all and same with all her siblings and there is no one left on her side alive beyond them. while i don't call myself mincéir, it's nice to know more about my heritage, if that makes sense and its hard to find shelta resources, so ty so much. -ira

It's great that you're reconnecting with that side of your heritage, and I'm sorry about your nan passing like that. It's sad when people don't want to talk about it but I also understand the grief and pain that comes with it.

[croziers-compass]

For sleepover Saturday, tell us what you like most about yourself?

Oh hello! Thank you so very much for coming around! It is nice to see you.

I would say I am most fond of my capacity for language, linguistics, and the culture surrounding linguistics. I am also very fond of my capacity for religion and religious culture and the nuances that goes into them! I take a lot of pride in some of the more deceased or endangered languages, particularly dialects of the British Isles as well as dialects of languages from my own Romani culture and background - as there are a lot of them outside of Shelta. Thank you tenderly for asking!

And thank you for visiting!

[izabesworld]

I’m so confused as the PB wiki and the official stuff all say that the Shelbys are Romani x Irish Travelers but speak Romani and not Shelta (apparently there is a scene where Polly explains that)

Shelta is a type of dialect Irish Travellers used to use in the early 1900’s - now it is just words out into English sentences.

Tommy, Arthur, John, Finn and Ada are all 50/50 with Romani and something else, Polly is 100% Romani - she used to live in a settlement.

Maybe they are 50/50 Irish and Romani but it’s the first I’ve heard of them being Irish lol

[librastrai]

This question might be a little trivial, but what do you call the language spoken by minceiri? I've heard it called a few different names, which is the one you use?

it's not a trivial question at all!

it does have a few different names as you said; the native name is de gammon, it's also known as the cant (though there are various languages under "cant" as a language name) & to linguistics it's known as shelta.

i call it gammon or shelta for specificity's sake, however much the first name makes me think of the meat lmao.