argot

French argot appeared in the 1630s meaning 'the language of thieves and beggars.' Its etymology is unknown. Theories include a connection to the French verb ergoter ('to quibble'), a corruption of jargon, or a borrowing from an unknown source. The uncertainty is fitting: argot was designed to be opaque, to exclude outsiders, to create a linguistic barrier between the criminal world and the law.

The most famous argot in French history was that of the Cour des Miracles — the Parisian underworld districts where beggars, thieves, and con artists gathered. Victor Hugo described these communities in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Miserables (1862). Hugo devoted an entire chapter of Les Miserables to argot, arguing that it was a legitimate form of language, not mere corruption.

English borrowed argot in the 1860s, keeping the French pronunciation and the specific meaning: the specialized vocabulary of a closed social group, especially a criminal or marginal one. The word filled a gap — English had 'slang' (broad, informal) and 'jargon' (professional), but lacked a word for the deliberately secret language of the excluded.

Cockney rhyming slang — 'apples and pears' for stairs, 'dog and bone' for phone — is a form of argot. So is Polari, the coded language used by gay men in Britain before decriminalization in 1967. Both served the same function: allowing members of a persecuted or marginalized group to communicate openly in the presence of people who might harm them. Argot is language as survival tool.