Germanía

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Germanía or jerigonza is the Spanish term for the argot used by criminals or in jails. Its purpose is to keep outsiders out of the conversation. The origin of the word is the Latin Germanus -brotherhood.

Some documentation for it occurs in picaresque works as early as the Spanish Golden Century, such as in Quevedo's El Buscón.^[1] Some writers used it in poetry for comical effect.

After the arrival of the Roma people and their frequent imprisonment, germanía incorporated much vocabulary from Romany and its descendant, the caló jargon. As time passed, several words entered popular use and even standard Spanish, losing their value for secrecy. Germanía survives today in the cheli jargon.

1 War of the Germanías
2 Other jargons based on Spanish
3 References
4 External links

[edit] War of the Germanías

The term germanía ("brotherhood" in Catalan—compare with Galician irmandade and Spanish hermandad) originated from the name of certain communities in Valencia, Spain, which made themselves notorious by rebelling against the local nobility during the sixteenth century. Subsequently, the term referred to the argot used by these communities and, eventually, it referred to improper argot. The Linguistics Department at the University of Pennsylvania ties the history of jerigonza to a word game played by children all over the world. They connect this creation of a secret languages to word games in Brazil, the United States, and other countries.