Secret Coded Boontling Language Of Northern California

Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - The Boontling language was invented sometime in the 1800s, but it’s unclear by whom. Some think parents made the language so they could talk to each other without their children understanding what they were saying.

On the other hand, maybe children invented the language to hide secrets from their parents.

Boonville, California. Credit: Missvain - CC BY 4.0

This language was born as a spoken language of people living in the area of Bell Valley and Boonville in Northern California. The history of the Boontling language is unknown but rest assured, once you hear someone talk to you using the Boontling language, you’ll have absolutely no idea what the person said. Boontling is impossible to understand and doesn’t sound like English.

The trouble is that the Boontling language is dying out and may soon be lost forever. There are now only 12 people who keep it alive, and it’s a fight against time to save the endangered language from dying if it’s possible at all.

To hear the Boontling language, you must visit the tiny town of Boonville in Anderson Valley, North California. About 700 people live in Boonville, and just a few of them have mastered the Boontling language, which is a mix of English, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic, and Pomoan Indian.

Boontling is an extremely esoteric dialect with over a thousand unique words and phrases.

In the mid-1970s, Bobby (Chipmunk) Glover, a Boontling speaker, was a regular guest on the well-known Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on the NBC television network. His appearance made the language famous for a short time.

One problem with keeping Boontling alive is that elders mostly speak the language. To prevent Boontling from extinction, local schools have taught children the language.

It’s not very difficult to learn, and it’ grammar is similar to English, but the words are entirely different and sometimes even funny. For example, Joe is not a name as you think. It means telephone and it’s named after the first man in Boonville who had one. Tuddies means crazy, boo is a potato and applehead is a young girl, girlfriend, or wife.

Charles C. Adams, an English Professor at Chico State University, managed to convince some Boontling speakers to reveal a little more about their secret coded language. Professor Adams gathered and studied all material, then published the book Boontling: An American Lingo, which provides readers with a good understanding of this endangered language.

Learning more about a new and very different language can be fun. The book offers a history of the local slang and a complete dictionary of the Boontling language.

Updated on November 26, 2023

Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer

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