Gulliver’s Travels author ‘used baby language in love letters’
By ANISaturday, January 29, 2011
LONDON - The language Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, used in a series of letters to two women reflects the way babies talk, suggests a new research.
Dr Abigail Williams - of St Peter’s, Oxford University - has studied the early 18th Century correspondence.
Williams claimed that the only way to understand Swift’s letters was to read them out loud, reports the BBC.
She has dubbed it “little language” - a form of juvenile wordplay in which consonants in familiar words were replaced.
In one letter, Swift wrote: “I expect a Rettle vely soon; and that MD is vely werr, and so Nite dee MD.”
According to Dr Williams, this translates as: “I expect a letter very soon, and that my dears are very well, and so night dear my dears.”
The letters were written to Esther Johnson (”Stella”) and her companion, Rebecca Dingley.
Some of the correspondence included sexual innuendo, while Swift also used derogatory terms - such as “saucy sluts” and “rogues” - to describe the women. (ANI)
