A previously unreported Amharic argot, that of a clique of unattached young women in a bar district of Addis Ababa, is described and traced to its source in a schoolboy argot of some dozen years earlier. The argot rules are simple, ingenious, and effective. A brief comparison is made of this argot and others in terms of social setting and uses. (Amharic, argots, Ethiopia, expressive language, language in context, language play, sociolinguistics)
THE SOCIAL SETTINGSeveral Ethiopian argots or "secret languages" have been described by Wolf Leslau (1964). Among the groups using argots are merchants, azmaris (minstrels), and persons "possessed by zar spirits." These argots are Amharic-based: They are composed of deliberately transformed Amharic words and sentence structures, and are used for confidential in-group communication.This present paper is a report on another such argot, one now used by a clique of unattached young women in a hotel and bar section of Addis Ababa.' It is difficult to arrive at a simple characterization of these women; it would be inaccurate to refer to them as prostitutes, street girls, or call-girls. They fall into the category of the marginal or liminal: runaways from husbands, families, or schools. Although many are school dropouts, some continue to attend day or night schools. They are found more in the bars than on the streets, some being employed by bars, but more commonly serving as attractions ("come-ons, shills") by bars on a basis of informal agreement. In short, they are young (typically in the range of 17-21 years old), more educated than the typical bar prostitutes (who are often girls who have drifted in from the countryside), and eking out a living as bar "pickups." The best simple characterization may be "freelance prostitutes."