Dent’s Modern Tribes: The Secret Languages of Britain
Written by Susie Dent
Narrated by Susie Dent
Published by John Murray
2016
Rating: 5 stars
This was a book I just wasn’t sure about when I picked it up. I purchased it when I was on my last Audible buying spree because I’m familiar with the author’s television work (and dry sense of humour) and because the premise sounded right up my alley. One of my undergraduate degrees is in linguistic anthropology, so a book that combines both a study of words and the people who use them reminded me of my college days and interests.
But I still wasn’t sure. Would it be a dry, academic book? Would it be tedious list obscure words, used by limited segments of the population? Would it be inaccessible and irrelevant since the book looks at UK-based “tribes”, whilst I have lived the majority of my life in the US?
Happily, I’d like to report that whilst it did have some of the above elements, Dent’s Modern Tribes was more than balanced out by a witty, light, completely accessible tone. It wasn’t a series of ethnographies on a small group of social cliques, but rather an introduction to the varied groups that we see everyday and who use language and terminologies that sound baffling yet convey much.
In an anthropological sense, a “tribe” is just a group that shares part of their identity in common with others—be it social, professional, familial, or religious. When these groups come together, they need an efficient means of communicating amongst one another, and often a language forms around the words and ideas that they have in common. Sometimes this language takes the form of a shorthand or slang used to talk about things they have in common (think words for tools and technology the entire group uses, or shared events like religious ceremonies or sporting events); other times this language is used to exclude people outside the group (think codes or medical jargon). It all sounds like a high-faluting concept, but it’s something that is at work all around us everywhere we go. Long-distance walkers, football fans, emergency services personnel, and garbage men are amongst the groups Dent looks into. Just about any group that comes together, for whatever reason, can be described as a tribe and can develop their own way of speaking.
What made this book interesting was that Dent shone a light on some of these everyday groups and highlighted the languages they share and use. She took an academic topic and made it applicable to real life. The groups she spotlighted are the groups we see, interact with, and often belong to as we go about our daily lives. Even with an educational background in anthropology, I don’t think I ever really thought to apply those concepts to my normal life.
And yes, there were a lot of words and phrases—more than I’ll ever remember to be sure. But those words weren’t the point of the book and I don’t think it was ever the author’s intention was for us to remember them all. Rather, I think the point was to talk about those words as concepts and try to grasp what they represent to the groups who speak them. More than that, I think this book is a call to take a look around us and appreciate the rich, prolific tribal groups that we are surrounded by and participate in.