Has anyone heard of 'tramps language' or 'tramps slang', I think

Question:

Has anyone heard of 'tramps language' or 'tramps slang', I think this is unique to Britain.?

Any help much appreciated.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I think pikeys (gypsies) speak it. I think it's called Gypo or Gypsy.

Tramps here are gypsies. Carriage drag= a week of horse&carting.

Chavies= gypo for kids.
Pikeys draw on fences, signs etc- I've seen one. That's partly where pikeys got their name- from loitering about turnpikes and signposts for crossroads (turnpike). There is Hobo or Gypsy language here in the US used by gutter snipes & rip off people called something like Shamba Doo. I lived in Britain for 34 years, and never heard that term before now. http://www.slackaction.com/signroll.htm...

Tramp language is not unique to Britain. Have a look at the link above for signs and symbols used by tramps.

Tramps' Signs
Tramps and other travellers are often said to make use of secret signs. Such signs, scratched outside houses along the route, are used to pass on information or warnings about the treatment to be expected at a particular house. Some of the signs reckoned to be most widely used ones are listed below.

(Tick) "Yes" or "all right"

(Cross in circle) "A Christian household"

(Coins) "Money may be given here"

(Table) "A sit-down meal may be on offer""

(Loaf of bread) "Food only"

(Interlocking squares) "Threats may produce something"

(Box) "Spin them a tale" or "Eloquence may get a response"

(part of X?) "No" or "Nothing doing".

(Bars) "Police may be informed or called"

(Dot in circle) "Police may be called"

(Dot in square) "Possibility of violence"

(Teeth) "Fierce dog!"

(Sickle) "Work may be offered"

(Triangle) "Too many have called recently"

Frank Gray, who became became well acquainted with tramps and their habits was rather sceptical about the supposed use of secret signs by tramps. In his view, tramps were much likely to keep their intelligence of a neighbourhood to themselves, particularly when it came to generous households.

Tramps' Slang
Beak: Magistrate
Bone: good, or good pickings
Boss: any stranger who seems likely to be sympathetic to a beggar
A Call: a house where tramp always can get something
Chavies: children
Chokey: jail
Chuck: food
Clem: starving
Clobber: clothes
Coins: thonicks = halfpenny; kenuck or saltee = penny; duce = tuppence; thrummer = threepence; groat = fourpence; sprat = sixpence; deaner or midget = shilling
Con: beg with a false story
Cooper: a casual ward to be avoide
Crib: house
Doss: place to sleep
Gad: to go about
Gag: begging-ploy or hard-luck story
Gammy: Bad, dubious, unfavourable (i.e. a 'gammy house' = not safe for a beggar to call at.)
Griddler: street singer
Grubbikens: workhouses where little workj is demanded of casuals.
Hardup: tobacco.
Kerbstone Twist: old chews of tobacco
Kidding: acting as a beggar's stooge by pretending to buy articles, to encourage others
Kife: a bed
Moniker: name or signature
Lurk: beggar's dodge or performance
Moucher: itinerant or wandering beggar
Needy Mizzler: dosser who bilks or decamps from a lodging-house without paying
On the Cross: anything stolen
Pack: house of a poor man
Pad: beggar's pitch
Peg: any place where a free meal can be obtained
Picking a poke: stealing a purse
Poll: prostitute
Prison sentences: carriage drag = 7 days; a moon = 1 month; a drag = 3 months; half stretch - 6 months; a stretch = 1 year.
Punting: begging
(In) Quod: in jail
Rasher wagon: frying pan
The Rats: delirium tremens
Scoff: food
Scran: casual ward bread
Screever: professional writer of begging letters
Shovels: spoons
Skilly: gruel
Snells: pedlar's wares
Spike: the casual ward
Stiff: phoney begging letter or a hawker's licence
Tail: prostitute
(Doing a) Tear-up: tearing-up of clothes by a tramp in a casual ward in order to get a fresh set
Toby: the highway
Toe-rags: cloth strips wound around the toes to stop them chafing against shoes
Toke: bread
Vial: provincial town
Weary Willies: those for whom anykind of work is too much
Wheeler: tramp who travels from casual ward to casual ward

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hobo...

Good info here too. Do you mean back slang? There are 2 different types. My sisters and I often use it, (very rude I know-but very useful) when we need to say something (usually in front of our children) which we don't want them to know about!
Our mother, used the older version, which was much easier for a non 'speaker' to understand.
I grew up in Wales, not sure if that makes a difference. Many of us spoke it regularly. I've never heard it in England. There's back slang, Cockney rhyming slang and tramps signs they chalk on gateposts and suchlike, then there's Romany language, but tramps slang is new to me, but then, I don't know all that many tramps anyway lol