Argots and jargons are attested in Western Europe from later mediaeval times onwards. Both terms stem from the French linguistic region. Within the Arab Islamic world, they are known from the time of al-Jāḥiẓ (third/ninth century) onwards but are best attested in the following century in the shape of the qaṣīda sāsāniyya of Abū Dulaf al-Khazrajī (fl. middle decades of the fourth/tenth century), a lengthy poem written for the Būyid wazīr , the Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād, placed in the mouths of a group of wandering tricksters and