'Shelta' MSS; notes, vocabulary and transcripts; letters from Leland to Sampson, 1892-99; Sampson's draft scheme for a book; letters from Macalister to Dora Yates, 1932-36; reprint of an article by David MacRitchie on Shelta, four nos of The Gaelic Journal, 1898-99 and a cutting; corrected page proofs from Macalister's book The secret languages of Old Ireland(16p), with a 3p early draft (c.1910) of material on Shelta, and various other notes and fragments on Shelta.

• GLS C/2/5 1-19: Letters from Charles Godfrey Leland, May 1892-1899
• GLS C/2/5 20-21: Letters from R.A. Stewart Macalister to Dora Yates, 1932-36
• GLS C/2/5 22-27: Journal articles, 1898-1901 and undated
• GLS C/2/5 28-51: Notes on Shelta, with vocabulary lists, pre-1937
• GLS C/2/5 52-68: Notes on Shelta, with vocabulary lists and short stories, pre-1937
• GLS C/2/5 69-78: Notes on Shelta vocabulary by Crofton and Greene, undated
• GLS C/2/5 79: Typescript, c.1910. A note by Dora Yates reads "Early draft of material published in a revised and corrected form in "The Secret Language of Ireland" by Professor R.A.S. MacAlister (1937)" (formerly SMGC MS.1.6). The gift of Glyn Davies
• GLS C/2/5 80: R.A. MacAlister, Shelta vocabulary on manuscript index cards
• GLS C/2/5 81: Romani or Shelta vocabulary on index cards and slips

Correspondents:

• McCormick, Andrew
• Crofton, H T
• Norwood, T G
• Meyer, Kuno
• Scarre, A M
• Greene, Patrick J

Sampson's publications on Shelta include:

• R A Stewart MACALISTER and John Sampson, The secret languages of Old Ireland, with special reference to the origin and nature of the Shelta language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press1937). See SPEC SCOTT MACFIE E.1.25
• John Sampson, Two Shelta stories (Liverpool: Gypsy Lore Society, 1891). See SPEC SCOTT MACFIE E.1.101
• and John Sampson, A hundred Shelta sayings (Liverpool: Gypsy Lore Society, 1908). See SPEC SCOTT MACFIE A.6.45.

Both the German Celtic scholar Kuno Meyer and Dr John Sampson believed Shelta to be a language that was centuries old, perhaps originating from as far back as before A.D. 1200. Meyer believed that Shelta was 'once possessed by Irish poets and scholars, who, probably were its original framers'. Meyer maintained that there were elements in the language which only scholars could have introduced. These include the insertion of names of letters from the Ogham, ancient words and forms and borrowings from Greek and Hebrew. Structurally Shelta is more similar to English than it is to Irish Gaelic although a huge core of i's vocabulary is derived from Gaelic. It also includes elements derived from various varieties of British cant as well as varying proportions of English and Anglo-Romany.