Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh

The Ibis Chrestomathy

Words! Neel was of the view that words, no less than people, are endowed with lives and destinies of their own. Why then were there no astrologers to calculate their kismat and pronounce upon their fate? The thought that he might be the one to take on this task probably came to him at about the time when he was first beginning to earn his livelihood as a linkister – that is to say during his years in southern China. From then on, for years afterwards, he made it his regular practice to jot down his divinations of the fate of certain words. The Chrestomathy then, is not so much a key to language as an astrological chart, crafted by a man who was obsessed with the destiny of words. Not all words were of equal interest of course and the Chrestomathy, let it be noted, deals only with a favoured few: it is devoted to a select number among the many migrants who have sailed from eastern waters towards the chilly shores of the English language. It is, in other words, a chart of the fortunes of a shipload of girmitiyas: this perhaps is why Neel named it after the Ibis. But let there be no mistake: the Chrestomathy deals solely with words that have a claim to naturalization within the English language. Indeed the epiphany out of which it was born was Neel’s discovery, in the late 1880s, that a complete and authoritative lexicon of the English language was under preparation: this was of course, the Oxford English Dictionary (or the Oracle, as it is invariably referred to in the Chrestomathy). Neel saw at once that the Oracle would provide him with an authoritative almanac against which to judge the accuracy of his predictions. Although he was already then an elderly man, his excitement was such that he immediately began to gather his papers together in preparation for the Oracle’s publication. He was to be disappointed for decades would pass before the Oxford English Dictionary finally made its appearance: all he ever saw of it was a few fascicules. But the years of waiting were by no means wasted; Neel spent them in collating his notes with other glossaries, lexicons and word-lists. The story goes that in the last years of his life his reading consisted of nothing but dictionaries. When his eyesight began to fail, his grand- and great-grandchildren were made to perform this service for him (thus the family coinage ‘to read the dicky’, defined by Neel, as ‘a gubbrowing of last resort’). On his deathbed, or so family legend has it, Neel told his children and grand- children that so long as the knowledge of his words was kept alive within the family, it

1 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh would tie them to their past and thus to each other. Inevitably, his warnings were ignored and his papers were locked away and forgotten; they were not to be retrieved till some twenty years later. The family was then in turmoil, with its many branches at odds with each other, and its collective affairs headed towards ruin. It was then that one of Neel’s grand-daughters (the grand-mother of the present writer) remembered his words and dug out the old band-box that contained Neel’s jottings. Coincidentally, that was the very year the Oracle was finally published – 1928 – and she was able to raise the money, by joint family subscription, to acquire the entire set. Thus began the process of disinterring Neel’s horoscopes and checking them against the Oracle’s pronouncements – and miraculously, no sooner did the work start than things began to turn around, so that the family was able to come through the worldwide Depression of the 1930s with its fortunes almost undiminished. After that never again was the Chrestomathy allowed to suffer prolonged neglect. By some strange miracle of heredity there was always, in every decade, at least one member of the family who had the time and the interest to serve as wordy-wallah, thus keeping alive this life-giving conversation with the founder of the line. The Chrestomathy is a work that cannot, in principle, ever be considered finished. One reason for this is that new and previously unknown word-chits in Neel’s hand have continued to turn up in places where he once resided – these unearthings have been regular enough, and frequent enough, to confound the idea of ever bringing the work to completion. But the Chrestomathy is also, in its very nature, a continuing dialogue, and the idea of bringing it to an end is one that evokes superstitious horror in all of Neel’s descendants. Be it then clearly understood that it was not with any such intention that this compilation was assembled: it was rather the gradual decay of Neel’s papers which gave birth to the proposal that the Chrestomathy (or what there was of it) be put into a form that might admit of wider circulation. It remains only to explain that since the Chrestomathy deals exclusively with the English language, Neel included, with very few exceptions, only such words as had already found a place in an English dictionary, lexicon or word-list. This is why its entries are almost always preceded either by the symbol of the Oracle (a +) or by the names of other glossaries, dictionaries or lexicons: these are, as it were, their credentials for admittance to the vessel of migration that was the Chrestomathy. However the power to grant full citizenship rested, in Neel’s view, solely with the Oracle (thus his eagerness to scrutinize its rolls). Once a word had been admitted into the Oracle’s cavern, it lost the names of its sponsors and was marked forever with its certificate of residence: the +. “After the Oracle has spoken the name of a word, the matter is settled: from then on the expression in question is no longer (or no longer

2 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh only) Bengali, Arabic, Chinese, Hind.1, Laskari or anything else – in its English incarnation, it is to be considered a new coinage, with a new persona and a renewed destiny.” These then are the simple conventions that Neel’s descendants have adhered to, marking a + upon every girmitya that has found a place within the Oracle’s tablets. Who exactly made these marks, and at what date, is now impossible to ascertain, so dense is the accretion of markings and jottings upon the margins of Neel’s notes. Previous attempts to untangle these notations caused so much confusion that the present writer was instructed merely to bring the markings up to date, and in such a fashion that any interested party would be able to verify the findings in the most recent edition of the Oracle. This he has attempted to do to the best of his ability, although many errors have, no doubt, evaded his scrutiny. When the mantle of wordy-major was placed upon the shoulders of the present writer, it came with a warning from his elders: his task, they said, was not to attempt to recreate the Chrestomathy as Neel might have written it in his own lifetime; he was merely to provide a summary of a continuing exchange of words between generations. It was with these instructions in mind, that he has laboured to preserve the timbre of Neel’s etymological reflections: in the pages that follow whenever quotation marks are used without attribution, Neel must be presumed to be the author of the passage in question.

1 Whether this abbreviation refers to a specific language (Hindi/Urdu/Hindusthani?) or merely to all things Indian, has long been a subject of controversy within the family. Suffice it to say that the matter can never be satisfactorily resolved since Neel only ever used this contracted form.

3 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh abihowa/abhowa (* The Glossary β) “A agil (*Roebuck χ): “Many will raise their finer word for ‘climate’ was never eyebrows when they learn that that this coined,” writes Neel, “joining as it does was the lascar’s equivalent of the the wind and the water, in Persian, English sailor’s ‘fore’ or ‘for’ard’, just as Arabic and Bengali. Were there to be, in peechil was his equivalent for ‘aft’. Why matters of language, such a thing as a not, one might ask, agey and peechhey papal indulgence then I would surely as would seem natural for most expend mine in ensuring a place for this speakers of Hind.? Could it be that fine coinage.” these essential nautical terms were borrowed from the languages of Cutch abrawan(* The Glossary): “the name of or Sind? Often have I asked but never this finest of muslins comes, as Sir been satisfactorily answered. But to this Henry notes, from the Persian for I can testify, in corroboration of the ‘flowing water’.” good Lieutenant’s definition, that it is indisputably true that the Laskari terms + achar: “There are those who would are always agil and peechil, never gloss this as ‘pickle’,” writes Neel, agey-peechhey.” “although that word is better applied to the definition than the thing defined.” alliballie muslin (* The Glossary): “there are those, including Sir Henry, who would consider this a muslin of fine quality, but in the Raskhali

 The name ‘Roebuck’ when it occurs in the Chrestomathy, is a reference always to Lt. Thomas Roebuck’s pioneering work of lexicography: An English And Hindostanee Naval Dictionary Of Technical Terms And Sea Phrases And Also The Various Words Of Command Given In Working A Ship, &C. with Many Sentences Of Great Use At Sea; To Which Is Prefixed A Short Grammar Of The Hindostanee Language. First printed in  It needs here to be explained that the word Calcutta, this lexicon was reprinted in London in Glossary, whenever it occurs in the 1813 by the booksellers to the Hon. East India Chrestomathy is a reference to an authority that Company: Black, Parry & Co. of Leadenhall Street. was, for Neel’s purposes, one of the few to be Neel once described it as the most important empowered with the right to award certificates of glossary of the 19th century – because as he put it, migration into English: to wit, Sir Henry Yule and “in its lack, the age of sail would have been A.C.Burnell’s Glossary Of Colloquial Anglo- becalmed in a kalmariya, with sahibs and lascars Indian Words And Phrases, And Of Kindred mouthing incomprehensible nothings at each Terms, Etymological, Historical, other.” It is certainly true that this modest word- Geographical And Discursive. Neel appears to list was to have an influence that probably far have acquired a copy of this famous dictionary exceeded Lt. Roebuck’s expectations. Seven when it first began to circulate among a privileged decades after its publication it was revised by the few, in the 1880s, a good while before it came to Revd. George Small, and reissued by W.H.Allen & be known by the name Hobson-Jobson. Co. under the title: A Laskari Dictionary Or Although his personal copy has never been found, Anglo-Indian Vocabulary Of Nautical Terms there can be no doubt that the frequent references And Phrases In English And Hindustani (in to ‘Sir Henry’ in the Chrestomathy, are directed 1882): this latter edition was available well into the always towards Sir Henry Yule - just as ‘the 20th century. The Laskari Dictionary was Neel’s Glossary’, in his usage, stands always for the favourite lexicon and his use of it was so frequent dictionary for which that great lexicographer was that he appears to have developed a sense of chiefly responsible. personal familiarity with the author.

4 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh wardrobe it was always relegated to one pundit who was trying to persuade an of the lower shelves.” unusually gullible audience that the phrase ‘kneading the otter’ was once an + almadia: an Arab river-boat of a sort euphemism of the same sort as ‘flaying that was rarely seen in India: Neel the ferret’ and ‘skinning the eel’. would have found it hard to account for its presence in the Oracle. awari (*Roebuck): “this, says Lt. Roebuck, is the Laskari word for alzbel (*Roebuck): “thus does the ever- ship’s wake. But as so often with musical Laskari tongue render the the usages of the lascars, it also watchman’s cry of All’s well: how well I has the oddly poetical connotation remember it…” of being cast adrift upon the waves.” Legend has it that some arkati (* The Barney-Bookδ): this word, members of the family went to the widely used by seamen to mean ‘ship’s movie Awara expecting a tale of pilot’, is said to be derived from the shipwreck. erstwhile princely state of Arcot, near Madras, the Nawab of which was + ayah; Neel was contemptuous of reputed to have in his employ all the those who identified this word with pilots in the Bay of Bengal. Scholars will Indian nursemaids and nurseries. In his no doubt, cavil at Neel’s unquestioning home he insisted on using its acceptance of Barrère and Leland’s progenitors, the French ‘aide’ and the derivation, but this entry is a good Portuguese ‘aia’. example of how, when forced to choose between a colourful and a reliable bachaw/bachao: this word should by etymology, Neel always picked the rights have meant ‘help!’ being a direct former. borrowing of the common Hind. term. But Neel insisted that in English the + atta/otta/otter : Such are the many word was only ever used ironically, as English spellings for the common Indian an expression of disbelief. For example: word for ‘wheat flour’. The first of these “Puckrowed a six-foot cockup? Oh variants is the one anointed by the bachaw!” Oracle. But the last, which had the blessing of Barrère & Leland, was the backsee (*Roebuck): this was the one most favoured by Neel, and under Laskari substitute for the English, his own roof, he would not allow the use ‘aback’: “another of the many words in of any other. The memory of this was the Indian shipboard lexicon, where a passed along in the family even unto my Portuguese term was preferred over the own generation. Thus was I able English.” recently, to confound a pretentious + budmash/badmash: “like budzat &  hurremzad a term which causes more The phrase ‘Barney-Book’ when it occurs in grief to lexicographers than to anyone to the Chrestomathy, is always in reference to whom it was ever addressed as a term Albert Barrère and Charles Leland’s Dictionary of of abuse. What purpose is served by Slang, Jargon & Cant, which was yet another of breaking it into its constituent Arabic Neel’s girmit-granting authorities. He possessed a and Persian elements, when the whole well-worn copy of the edition published by the Ballantyne Press in 1889. His choice of shorthand forms a neat equivalent of the English for this work appears to be a reference to Barrère ‘rascal’?” Neel was undoubtedly right to and Leland’s tracing of barney to the gypsy word choose budmash over the now defunct for ‘mob’ or ‘crowd’. This in turn, they adduced to budzat as fortune’s favourite. be, in one of those wild leaps of speculation for which they were justly famous, a derivation from + baksheesh/buckshish/buxees etc: the Hind. bharna, - ‘to fill’ or ‘increase’. “curious indeed that for this token of generosity Sir Henry was unable to find

5 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh any English equivalent (‘tip’ being ever eaten in Hind.. Yet it was not dismissed as slang) and could only without savour and I could not forbear provide, French, German and Italian to ask where they had learnt to make it. synonyms.” Neel’s optimism about the They explained that it was Portuguese future of this word was based on the shipboard fare, commonly spoken of as fact of its having few competitors in the galinha balde, which they proceeded to English language. He would have been translate as ‘balti chicken’. This did surprised to find that both baksheesh much, I must admit, to raise in my and its South China synonym cumshaw estimation, the cuisine of Portugal.” had been smiled upon by the Oracle. History has vindicated Neel’s optimistic evaluation of this word’s + balty/balti: on this commonest of future, but it remains true that he had Indian household objects – the bucket – in no way foreseen that the word’s Neel penned several lengthy chits. citizenship in the English language Already, in his time, the use of these would be based on its culinary prowess; containers had become so widespread nor would he have imagined that on that the memory of their foreign finding entrance into the Oracle this provenance (the word being a direct humblest of Portuguese objects would borrowing of the Portuguese ‘balde’) had come to be defined as ‘a style of cooking been lost. “This much is certain, that influenced by the cuisine of northern the balde, like so much else, was Pakistan’. introduced into our lives by lascars. Yet the object for which they used the term balwar (*Roebuck): “too close in sound was a ‘ship’s bucket’, a leather to its synonym, ‘barber’, to have any container bearing no resemblance to the realistic chance of survival.” metal vessels that are now spoken of by that name. But the balde could not bamba: (*Roebuck): “Why would have become ubiquitous if it were not anyone continue to use this Portuguese- replacing some older object that was derived term for an object which already already in common use. What then was has a simple and economical name in the name of the container that people English: ‘pump’? used for their daily bath, before the lascars gave them their baldes? What banchoot/barnshoot/bahenchod/b’he did they use for the cleaning of floors, nchod etc (*The Glossary): In his for drawing water from wells, for treatment of this expression, Neel watering their gardens? What was the decisively parts company with his guru, object, now forgotten, that once Sir Henry, who gives this cluster of discharged these functions?” Later, on words short shrift, defining them merely his first trip to London, Neel went to as “terms of abuse which we should visit a lascar boarding house in the East hesitate to print if their odious meaning End. He wrote afterwards: “living twenty were not obscure ‘to the general.’ If it to a room, in the vilest conditions, the were known to the Englishmen who poor budmashes have no other sometimes use the words, we believe expedient but to cook their food in there are few who would not shrink enormous baldes. Being, like so many from such brutality”. lascars, good-hearted, hospitable But rare indeed was the fellows they invited me to partake of European who shrank from mouthing their simple supper and I did not this word: such was its popularity that hesitate to accept. The meal consisted of Neel came to be convinced that “it is nothing more than rooties served with one of the many delightful composite a stew that had long been bubbling in terms that have been formed by the the balde: this was a gruel concocted pairing of Hind. and English elements. from chicken-bones and tomatoes, and To prove this we need only break the was served in a single giant tapori. It word into its constituent parts: the first bore no resemblance to anything I had syllable ban/barn etc, is clearly a

6 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh contraction of Hind., bahin or sister. docks on the Thames frequented by The second, variously spelled, is, in my Lascar crews. I have heard a London opinion, a cognate of the English lighter-man, in the Victoria Docks, ‘chute’, with which it shares at least one throw a rope ashore to another aspect of its variegated meaning: like Londoner, calling out, ‘Bando!’ – [M.- many such words it derives, no doubt, Gen. Keatinge]).” from some ancient Indo-European root. Neel’s faith in bando/bundo was It is curious to note that the word chute no doubt influenced by the root’s no longer figures as a verb in English, uncommon fecundity, for he foresaw as its cognates do in many Indian that it would give birth to a large brood languages. But there is some evidence of + annointed derivatives: bund to suggest that it was once so used in (‘embankment or dyke’ the best known English too: an example of this is the example of which is now in Shanghai, word chowder, clearly derived from the widely considered to be the single most Hind. chodo/chodna etc.. The word is valuable piece of land in the world; said to be still widely in use in America cummerbund (the fate of which Neel being employed chiefly as a noun, to also failed to properly predict, for it refer to a kind of soup or pottage. never did replace ‘belt’ as he had Although I have not had the good thought it would); and finally fortune to partake of this dish, I am told bundobast (lit. ‘tying up’ in the sense of that it is produced by a great deal of ‘putting into order’ or ‘making grinding and pounding, which would arrangements’). The passing away of certainly be consonant with some this last into the limbo of the almost- aspects of the ancient meaning that is dead, Neel could never have foreseen still preserved in the usage of this root and would have mourned more, in Hind..” perhaps, than any other entry in the Chrestomathy (of this too his + bandanna: The coolin status of this anonymous descendant might well have word would have amazed Neel, who written: “Why? Why? Why this gave it little chance of survival. That meaningless slaughter, this egregious ‘bandanna’ has a place in the Oracle is waste, this endless logocide. Who will not, of course, a matter that admits of put an end to it? To whom can we any doubt - but it is true nonetheless appeal? Does it not call upon every that this was not the fate that Neel had conscience to rise in protest?”) For it is foretold for it. His prediction was that true certainly that this is a word, an the Hind. word bandhna would find its idea, of which English is sadly in need. way into the English language in its Nor did the contributions of archaic 17th century form, bandannoe. bando/bandh end there. Neel was Yet it is true also that Neel never persuaded that band in the sense of doubted this word’s destiny, a belief ‘head-band’ or ‘rubber-band’ was also a that was founded in part in the child of the Hind. term. This would resilience and persistence of the ancient mean that bando/bundo did indeed Indo-European root from which it is achieve the distinction of being raised to derived - a word that had already, in the Peerage of the Verb, through such his lifetime, been Anglicized into: usages as ‘to band together’. bando/bundo (‘to tie or fasten’). This But to return to bandanna, beautiful and useful word is, alas, now Neel’s own use of this term never came only used as it pertains to into conformity with its dictionary embankments, although it was once definition, for he continued, in his widely employed by speakers of English, lifetime, to apply it to kerchiefs, especially in its imperative form: bando! handkerchiefs, gamchhas, and (Neel even made a copy of the quote especially to the cummerbunds and that Sir Henry used in his note on this head-cloths that lascars and other term: “’This and probably other Indian working people commonly wore in order words have been naturalized in the to restrain their hair and their

7 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh kameezes. His descendants, as was might result from compounds like shah- their custom, were even more bandar. As for the animal, there was conservative, and would vie among another word that would serve it just as themselves to find uses for the originary well, he felt, and this was wanderoo forms. Well do I remember the response (from ‘wanderu’, the Sinhala cognate of of an elderly uncle, who, when invited to Hind. ‘bandar’) which was also in wide join a family expedition to a well- circulation at the time, although it was reputed cowboy movie, cried out: “Arre! generally used to mean langur. It was You think I’d spend good money to on wanderoo that Neel pinned his watch a band of budmashes running hopes while predicting doom for its around in dungris and bandhnas?” synonym bandar. Little did he know that both bandar and its collective +log bando/bundo (* The Glossary): See would be given indefinite prolongations above. of life by a children’s book, while the beautiful wanderoo would soon + bandar: Neel was totally mistakenly in disappear into a pauper’s grave. [See his forecast of how the common Hind. also gadda/gadha]. word for monkey would fare in English. One of his pet theories was that migrant + bankshall: Neel would have been words must always be careful to stand saddened by the demise of this apart from each other, in sound and beautiful word, once much in use: “How appearance: uprooted homonyms and well I remember the great Bankshall of synonyms, he felt, had little chance of Calcutta, which served as the jetty for surviving in pairs – in every couple, one the disembarkation of ship’s would perish. In this instance the passengers, and where we would go of beastly sense of bandar was, in his an evening to gawk at all the griffins view, uncomfortably close in sound to and new arrivals. It never occurred to an unrelated nautical term of Persian us that this edifice ought to have been, derivation: bander/bunder (‘harbour’ or by its oracular definition, merely a ‘port’). He was persuaded that of the two ‘warehouse’ or ‘shed’. Yet I do not doubt it was this latter form that would that Sir Henry is right to derive it from survive in English – partly because the the Bengali ‘bãkashala’”. He would have use of bunder in the nautical sense has been surprised to learn that a humbler a very long pedigree in the language, kind of warehouse, the godown, would going back to the 17th century; and survive in general usage, at the expense partly because the root was of the now rare bankshall. uncommonly fecund in English derivatives. It was these derivatives, he + banian/banyan: “this is no mere felt, that were most vulnerable to the word, but a clan, a sect, a caste – one possibilities of confusion posed by the that has long been settled in the zoological sense of bandar. True enough English language. The clue to its that the frequently used term understanding lies in the gloss provided bander-/bunder-boat, (‘harbour-boat’) by the Admiralδ: ‘The term is derived was in little danger of being mistaken from a religious sect in the East, who, for a simian conveyance, but there believing in metempsychosis, eat of no remained another word that might well be the cause of misunderstandings and  The reference here is to Admiral W.H. Smyth’s, confusion. This was the venerable Sailor’s Word-Book. Neel possessed several sabander/shabander, (‘master of the copies of the edition that was printed in London in harbour’ or ‘harbour-master’), a term 1876 by Blackie. He held this work in a respect which had so long a history in England that verged on reverence and when the words ‘the as almost to be considered Middle Admiral’ appears in the Chrestomathy the English. In Neel’s eyes it was thus reference is always to Admiral Smyth and his possessed of a powerful claim to famous lexicon. protection from the sort of abuse that

8 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh creature endowed with life’. It derives in noteworthy specimens are on other words, from the caste-name permanent display in the Victoria and ‘Bania’ or properly, ‘Vania’ the last Albert Museum in London]. “Even in my syllable of which is sometimes own childhood the word banyan nasalized. This caste, long associated referred always to these sumptuous with banking, commerce, money- robes. But at that time of course, none lending and so on, was of course but the most Anglicized Indians used famously vegetarian and this was why the word in this sense, the potential for the word served for centuries as an harm being very great. Well do I essential part of the English nautical remember the fate of the unfortunate vocabulary, being applied to the one day Raja of Mukhpora, who had a habit of of the week when sailors were not peppering his Bengali with English served meat: banyan-day.” words. On a garment-buying expedition But all this being accepted how to the bazaar, he was heard to boast in did this word come to assume its the hearing of all, that he intended to present avatar, in which it represents have his banyans beaten and washed the humble and ubiquitous before they were locked away for the undergarment worn by the men of the summer. This greatly alarmed the Indian subcontinent? Neel was of moneylenders who lost no time in course in an exceptionally good position calling in their debts: the results were to observe this mutation, which ruinous for the poor Raja, who had to happened largely within his lifetime. His live out his days in an ashram in tracing of the genealogy of this series of Brindavan, with nothing but a pair of incarnations counts among his most saffron chogas in his wardrobe. Thus important contributions to the did he learn why it’s best not to get into etymologist’s art and deserves to be a banyan-fight. quoted in full. “The word banyan’s “From that pinnacle of journey to the wardrobe began no doubt magnificence, this article of clothing has with the establishing of its original unfailingly kept pace with India’s sense in English, in which it served fortunes: as the land’s inhabitants grew merely to evoke an association with ever poorer and weaker, under the India (it was thus I imagine, that it British yoke, the garment to which the came also to be attached to a tree that word was applied grew ever meaner and became symbolic of the land – our more humble. In its next incarnation revered ficus religiosa, now reincarnated therefore the banyan was reborn as the as the banyan-tree). It was because of standard article of wear for the lowliest this general association that it came of workmen: thus does the Admiral also to be applied to a certain kind of describe it as ‘a sailor’s coloured tunic’. Indian garment. It serves no purpose In this form too, the garment was still a perhaps to ask what that garment stranger to India: it was the lascar, originally was. To anyone who has lived undoubtedly, who was responsible for as long as I have, it is evident that the introducing it into his native land. It garment in question is not so much an was he too who was responsible for article of clothing as an index of Hind.’s snipping off the arms it possessed in its standing in the world. Thus, in the 17th European avatar. In clothing, as in and 18th centuries, when ours was still language and food, the lascar is thus a land of fabled riches and opulence, revealed to be the pioneer in all things the word banyan/banian referred to a ‘Indian’. No morning passes when I do richly-embroidered dressing gown that not think of this as I slip my hands fell almost to the floor: it was modelled through those familiar armholes; nor perhaps on the choga or the does the notion fail to bring to my caftan/qaftan.” [Here the present nostrils a faint tang of the sea.” writer cannot refrain from interjecting that although this species of robe is + banyan-/banian-day. See above. extinct in India today, several

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+ banyan-fight (*The Glossary): “‘A Curiously, no taint of the derisive tongue-tempest’” as recorded by Sir attached to this term where it would Henry, ‘that “never rises to blows or have been most apt – that is, in its bloodshed’ (Ocington, 1690)’”. application to the East India Company, which was known in Hind. as Comp’ny + banyan-tree: see banyan. Bawhawder.”

+ barbican: “’A sewer- or water-pipe,’ as beparee (*The Glossary): Neel believed Sir Henry correctly notes, ‘that leads that this Hind. word for ‘trader’, like back to the Bab-Khana of Kanpur.” seth, had found its way into English because the extraordinary proliferation bargeer (* The Glossary): “it is my of the meanings of banyan had conviction that this derivative of the rendered the word unusable in its Marathi word for ‘soldier’ made its way originary sense. into the Glossary not through the battlefield but the nursery, being + BeeBee/bibi: “why this word employed, as it was in Bengali, to strike prevailed over its twin, begum, in being terror into the hearts of budzat applied to the more eminent white wives butchas.” of Calcutta, remains unexplained. In recent times, it has fallen out of favour, bas! (*Roebuck); the Lieutenant glosses and is now applied ironically to this as the Laskari equivalent of the European women of low rank: this English ‘avast’, but Neel believed it to be happened because there came a time a sibling rather than a synonym, both when the great BeeBees began to insist being derived in his view, from the on being called ma’am-sahibs. Their Arabic bass, ‘enough’. employees shortened the prefix to mem- (and occasionally, in the case of the + bayadère: “Those who believe that most bawhawder of the tribe, to man-).” Portuguese was a language of the decks and had little to contribute to the + begum: see above bedroom, would do well to note that bayadère is not of French but of begaree (*Roebuck): “so, according to Portuguese derivation (from bailadera – Lt. Roebuck, were the lascars ‘dancing girl’).” This was the euphemism accustomed to speak of those of their that BeeBees used to speak of the number who had been shanghaiied or women their husbands referred to as impressed into service. Could it be that ‘buy-em-dears’ – a motley collection of the word is a curious crossing of the cunchunees, debbies, dashies, English ‘beggar’ and the Bengali pootlies, rawnees, Rum-johnnies and ‘bhikari’ (of the same meaning) and the nautch-girls. Curiously the word Hind. ‘bekar’, ‘unemployed’?” ‘mistress’ which has a close Hind. cognate (by way of the Portuguese beteechoot: (* The Glossary); for the mestre) was never used in its English import of this expression see sense, it being considered quite banchoot/barnshoot, but bearing in unusual for a man to share his bed with mind that it substitutes betee, his mistri.” daughter, for bahin, sister. “Sir Henry illustrates his definition of this term + bawhawder/bahaudur/bahadur: with some extremly apt quotations, “This once sought-after Mughal title, among them the following: ‘1638: L’on meaning ‘brave’ took on a derisive nous monstra à une demy lieue de la undertone in English. Sir Henry is right ville un sepulchre, qu’ils apellent Bety- in noting that it came to ‘denote a chuit, c’est à dire la vergogne de la fille haughty or pompous personage, decouverte’ [Mandelsle, Paris, 1659]. exercising his brief authority with a strong sense of his own importance’.

10 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh bhandari (*Roebuck): ‘this is the name water, raised by a whirlwind. Evidently that lascars use for cooks or this phenomenon, known in English as storekeepers. I imagine that it may well a ‘water-spout’, has in their eyes, the be their word for ‘quartermaster’ as appearance of an elephant’s trunk . Nor well.’ [This sentence is taken from the was this the only time that day that I most unusual of Neel’s notes – a set of was to be deceived by the fancifulness jottings scribbled on the verso side of a of their usages. Later, while taking the few playing-cards. From the tiny air near the stern, I heard a lascar handwriting, no less than the liberal imploring another to puckrow his nar. I splashes of sea-water, it would appear confess I was startled: for although it is that these notes were compiled in the no uncommon thing to hear a lascar course of a voyage on which paper was speaking casually of the appendage of not easily obtained. Within the family masculinity, it is unusual nonetheless these notes are known as the Jack- to hear them referring to that organ in Chits, after the first of the cards to be such high Sanskritic language. My found (a knave of clubs). Generally surprise must have caused me to betray speaking the chits are Neel’s earliest my presence for they looked at me and attempt to make sense of the shipboard began to laugh. Do you know what we dialect of the lascars: at the time of are speaking of? one of them said to me. their writing he does not appear to have Placed on my mettle, I replied in a known of the existence of the Laskari fashion that I thought would amply Dictionary, but on acquiring a copy of demonstrate my ship-learning. Why Roebuck’s lexicon, he immediately indeed I do know what you are speaking acknowledged the superiority of that of, I said: it is the thing that is known great lexicographer’s work, and as a ‘jewel-block’ in English. At this discontinued his own attempts to they laughed even harder and said, no, decode this dialect, which were a jewel-block was a ‘dastur-hanja’ in undeniably, of an unscientific and Laskari, while the thing they had been anecdotal nature. The chits are not speaking of was a rudder-bolt known to wholly without interest however, as for the Angrez as a ‘pintle’. I was tempted to example, this excerpt from the 8 and 9 inform them that the great William of spades: “To set sail is to find oneself Shakespeare himself had used that foundering not just in a new element, word – pintle – in exactly the same but also in an unknown ocean of words. sense as our Hind. nar. On When one listens to the speech of consideration however, I thought it best sailors, no matter whether they be to refrain from divulging this piece of speaking English or Hind. one is always information. My shoke for the words of at sea: not for nothing is the English the greatest of dramatists had already argot of sail known as a ‘sea-language’, gained for me the reputation of being an for it has long slipped its moorings from incorrigible ‘Spout-Billy’ and offensive the English one learns in books. The as this sobriquet was, I could not help same could be said of the ties that bind reflecting that to be known as a ‘Billy- the tongues of Hind. to the jargon of the Soond’ would be worse still.” lascars: why, just the other day, we heard the tindals of our ship racing + bheesty/bheestie/beasty/bhishti: about on deck, shouting in the greatest “the mysteries of water-carrying, the agitation – hathi-soond! hathi-soond! instrument of which trade was the That an ‘elephant’s trunk’ had been mussuck. In the south, according to Sir sighted at sea seemed miraculous to all Henry , the terms are tunny-catcher or present and we went hurrying up to tunnyketchi.” bear witness to this extraordinary visitation – but only to be disappointed bichawna/bichana: (* The Glossary); for the excitement of our lascar friends “bedding or bed, from which was occasioned by nothing more bichawnadar, or ‘bed-maker’, an miraculous than a distant column of expression that must be used with

11 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh some care because of the possibility of b’longi/blongi (* The Linkisterγ): innuendo.” “frequently mistaken as a contraction of the English ‘belong’, this word is bichawnadar: see above actually an elegant and economical copula, doing duty for the verb ‘to be’ in bilayut (* The Glossary); “strange that all its many forms. Imagine then the we should have become accustomed to embarrassment of the griffin who using a version of the Turkish /Arabic pointed to his wife’s dog and said: wilayat, to refer to ‘England’; even “doggie blongi wife-o massa.” stranger that the English should adapt it to their own use as blatty. In its + bobachee: “As a barkentine is to a bilayutee form it was often attached, as country boat, a Kaptan to a Nacoda, a Sir Henry correctly notes, to foreign and vinthaleux to a dumbpoke, so in the exotic things (hence bilayati-baingan for kitchen, is a bobachee to a ‘tomato’). Sir Henry was however gravely consummer. Each a potentate in his in error on another such compound, own way, they rule over a vast lashkar, namely bilayutee-pawnee. Although he consisting of spice grinding masalchies, correctly glosses this as ‘soda-water’, he cabob-grilling caleefas, and others is wrong in his contention that the whose titles have mercifully lapsed from people of Hind. believed bilayutee- use. The bobachee however is the only pawnee could confer great strength to culinary mystery to lend his name to the human body, by reason of its the kitchen: bobachee- gaseous bubbles. As I remember the connah/bawarchee-khana: (* The matter, our wonder was occasioned not Glossary). On this latter term I am at by the power of the bubbles as they odds with every authority who has given were imbibed, but rather by the the matter any thought: whereas they explosive detonations with which they derive it from Hind. khana ‘place’ or were expelled.” ‘room’, it is my intuition that it actually comes from the Bengali element biscobra (* The Glossary): Neel took kona/cona, meaning corner. This seems issue with Sir Henry’s suggestion that self-evident to me, for if the meaning of this was the name of some kind of bobachee-connah were indeed ‘cook- venomous lizard. “Here is another room’, then surely the proper locution example of a beautiful marriage of the would be ‘bobbachy-camra’. That this eastern and western lexicons. The word variant does sometimes occur, is to me ‘cobra’ comes of course from a the exception that proves the rule. Portuguese contraction of a Latin root Similarly goozle-coonuh/ goozul- meaning ‘serpent’. ‘Bis’ on the other khana appears to me to be often hand, is certainly a derivative of the wrongly rendered as ‘bathing-room’: Bengali word for poison, which has when applied to a place where a been absorbed into English as bish, bathtub is kept, it must surely mean although with the sense of a ‘blunder’ or ‘bathing-corner’. But so far as other ‘mistake’. It is impossible that such a connah/khana compounds are term could be applied to a lizard, no  matter how vengeful: in my opinion, it is ‘The Linkister’, when it appears in the none other than an English Chrestomathy, is always in reference to Charles Leland and his Pidgin English Sing-Song: Or colloquialism for the hamadryad or King Songs and Stories in the China-English Cobra.” Dialect; with a vocabulary. Charles Leland was, of course, one of the most prodigious + bish: see above. lexicographers of the 19th century and he was another Neel’s girmit-granting authorities. But being himself a master of the South China Pidgin, Neel appears to have disapproved, or disagreed, with it in some respects: hence the somewhat disparaging name.

12 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh concerned, I will concede that it is often Hind. bakwás – ‘prattle’, ‘idle talk’ or used in the sense of room: e.g. ‘nonsense’) has a sense similar to the karkhana, jel-khana, bab-khana and cant expression ‘hogwash’.” the like.” budgrook: (* The Glossary); “a + bobbery/bobbery-bob: “this word for Portuguese coin of low denomination, ‘commotion’, so much used in Southern the circulation of which is said to be China, was nothing but an adaptation restricted to Goa.” of our common baap-ré-baap.” The Oracle’s translation of this as ‘oh my budzat/badzat: (* The Glossary), see father!’ is surely a rendition rather of budmash. the equally common baap-ré, for the full expression would be rather: ‘father oh + buggalow/bagala: “a species of Arab father!’ An alternative derivation, from dhow that was once a common sight on the Cantonese pa-pi, a noise, is, as the the Hooghly.” Barney-Book rightly observes, extremely doubtful. bulkat: (* The Glossary); “as I recall, the name for a certain kind of large boat bolia/bauleah/baulia: (* The from the Telegu country.” Glossary); “one of Bengal’s lighter river- craft, usually equipped with a small bullumteer: (* The Glossary); “an cabin.” adaptation of the English ‘volunteer’, used generally for sepoys who served bora: (* The Glossary); “a large many- overseas.” oared boat, commonly used in Bengal for the transportation of cargo.” buncus: (* The Glossary), “Malay cheroots that were greatly prized by bowla: (* The Glossary); “these were, as some.” I recall, portmanteaux or trunks, which were made to order by a few of our most + bunder/ bandar: see +bandar. skilled moochies.” + bunder-boat: see + bandar. bowry/bowly: (* The Barney-Book); “in Hind. this generally referred to step- + bundook/bunduk: this common wells known as baolis. But after its Arabic-derived word was much passage into English it often came to be dictionarized even in Neel’s day, usually applied to pavilions that stood upon the being glossed as ‘musket’ or ‘rifle’ and it banks of waterways large and small. is in this form that it takes its place in Every nullah and nuddee could boast the Oracle. This belies Neel’s of a few. It was sometimes used predictions, for this was another interchangeably with instance in which he accepted a chabutra/chabutter.” questionable derivation from Barrère & Leland, who trace the Arabic original boya: (*Roebuck); “laskari for ‘buoy’”. back to the the Geman name for Venice - ‘Venedig’. The implication is that + buck: “a good example of the subtle bundook was introduced into Arabic by shifts of meaning that occur when German mercenaries of the Venetian words leap between languages. For in Republic, and was first used in the Hind. this expression conveys more a sense of ‘crossbow’. Neel was mistaken sense of idle chatter than of the in his belief that the word would revert boastfulness that attaches to it in to its original sense, and would come to English (no doubt because of the be applied to the fine chandeliers and purported demeanour of that animal for other articles of Venetian manufacture the name of which it is a homonym). that were then much in vogue among The extended form buckwash (from wealthy Bengalis.

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English derivative on the other hand, bungal: (*Roebuck): “This word refers was used to mean ‘Black Town’ or to the nautical ‘speaking-trumpet’ – the ‘native area’, being applied only to the instrument of amplification with which areas where Bengalis lived. Strange to permits ships at sea to communicate. think that it was in this derogatory Curiously, the usual Laskari guise that it was passed back to Hind. pronunciation of it is byugal – which & Bengali, and is now commonly used would seem to suggest that they discern in the sense of ‘slum’.” in this object some mysterious kinship with the ‘bugle’.” buzz: see shoke bunow/bunnow/banao: (* The buy-em-dear: see bayadère Glossary); “this is, as Sir Henry rightly observes, one of the rare Hind. verbs to caksen/coxen: (*Roebuck); “It is be adapted into English. But even after puzzling that Roebuck lists this as the it had made the crossing it retained Laskari word for ‘coxswain’, since the something of its original sense, which pronunciation of it is indistinguishable was more ‘to build’ than ‘to make’ – for from the English.” one could certainly never say as above, ‘bunow the crossing’. + caftan/qaftan: see choga

+ burkundauze/barkandaz: “a term caleefa/khalifa: (* The Glossary); see that was useful mainly for its bobbachy. imprecision, for it could, when necessary, be applied to any of that + calico: “some dictionaries award this great paltan of paiks, piyadas, word a Malayali lineage, since this kind latheeals, kassidars, silahdars and of cotton cloth was said to be a product other armed guards, retainers and of the Malabar coast. This is utter sentries who once thronged our streets. buckwash for the word calico self- The gatekeepers and watchmen whose evidently comes from ‘Calicut’, which is duties kept them stationary formed a a place name introduced by Europeans: slightly different kind of paltan, were the word derived from the town’s composed of chowkidars, durwauns Malayalam name the cloth would be and the like.” known, surely, as ‘Kozhikodo’?”

+ burra/bara: “I am convinced that this calputtee: (*Roebuck); “the Laskari for is another word that has entered ‘caulker’, this was a mystery who found English through a nautical route, little employment on Indian vessels, burra/bara being the common Laskari which were generally rabbeted rather term for the tallest of a ship’s masts – than caulked.” the main.” See also dol. carcanna/karcanna: (* The Glossary); Burrampooter: (* The Glossary), “This Already in Neel’s lifetime this long- is merely the anglice, blessedly short- pedigreed English word (from Hind. kar- lived, of ‘Brahmaputra’.” khana, ‘work-place’ or ‘work-shop’) was slowing yielding to the term ‘factory’ – a butcha/bacha (*The Barney Book): ‘A lexical scandal in Neel’s ears, which word for ‘child’ that will undoubtedly were still accustomed to hearing that migrate through the open windows of word used to designate the residence of the nursery.’ Neel was wrong about this. a ‘factor’ or ‘agent’. But it was not for nostalgic reasons alone that he + bustee/basti: “in my childhood we mourned the passing of used this word only to mean carcanna/karcanna: he foresaw that ‘neighbourhood’ or ‘settlement’, with no its wreckage would also carry into pejorative implication attached. The oblivion many of those who had once

14 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh worked in these places of manufacture – were clearly more comfortable than for example the factory-clerks known as ordinary hammocks, for they were soon carcoons. [It was in mourning the fate passed down to ships’ infirmaries, for of this word that the unknown wordy- the benefit of the sick and the wounded. wallah penned his comments on This, by extension, is the sense in logocide.] which the word was swept into the main current of the English language, being carcoon: (* The Glossary & * The adopted first as a name for the swinging Barney-Book), see above. cribs of the nursery. We see thus, that contrary to appearances, cot and chabee: (* The Glossary); “In an charpoy are no more synonyms than uncharacteristic display of restraint, are ‘cradle’ and ‘bedstead’. Nor indeed Neel refused to enter into the are they synonyms even in Hind. for I controversy over whether the am convinced that charpai was Portuguese word for ‘key’ had set sail originally applied to all four-legged piece for England from Portugal or Hind.” of furniture (in the precise sense of the Hind. char-pai ‘four-legged’) in order to + chabutra/chabutter: See distinguish them from such objects as bowly/bowry. had only three legs (tin-pai or tipai - from which, as Sir Henry rightly + chaprasi/chuprassy: see observes, descended those small tables dufter/daftar. known as teapoys in English). The confusing term sea-poy is merely a + charpoy: As noted earlier (see bandar) variant spelling of sepoy and has Neel was of the opinion that words, nothing whatsoever to do with legs or unlike human beings, are less likely to seasickness. The ghost of this peculiar survive the rigors of migration if they misconception is yet to be laid however, travel as couples: in any pair of as is evident from a story I was recently synonyms one was sure to perish. How told about a young Lieutenant who then was he to account for the journey came to be separated from his troops of those eminently successful while boarding a ship. It is said that synonyms, charpoy and cot (both of after crying out in alarm - ‘I’ve lost my which, unbeknownst to him, were to sea-poys!’ – he was taken further aback receive the Oracle’s imprimatur)? Neel at being handed a balty and some was clearly annoyed by this anomaly – smelling salts.” (“has Blatty no words for the comforts of the bed, that it must steal so wilfully charter: “although the Oracle makes from us?”) – but he did not fail to no mention of it, I am convinced that recognize the threat that was posed to this verb was often used in the same his pet theory by these paired words. sense as the Hind. verb ‘chatna’, from “English, no less than the languages of which English received the resplendant Hind., has many reasons to be grateful chutney, ‘lick-worthy’ (not to be to the lascars, and the gift of the word confused with chatty/chatta which cot (from Hind. khât) is not the least of lascars were accustomed to apply to them. There can be little doubt that this earthen vessels). The cant term word entered the English language charterhouse is frequently applied to through a nautical route: it is my houses of ill-repute.” conviction that khat was the first Laskari word for ‘hammock’ and that chatty/chatta (*the Admiral, jhula/jhoola only came into use when *Roebuck): see charter. the original was confiscated by their malums (vide the Admiral’s definition + chawbuck/chábuk: “this word, so of cot ‘a wooden bed-frame, suspended much more expressive than ‘whip’ was from the beams of a ship for the almost as much a weapon as the object officers, between decks’). These cots it designated. That it should be among

15 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh the few Hind. words that found a verbal for choolas had always to be lit with use in English is scarcely a matter of chingers (from Hind. chingare). I have surprise, considering how often it fell even heard it used in the sentence: the from the sahibs’ lips. When so used, the chingers flew.” proper form for the past participle is chawbuck’t. The derived form chints/chinti: (* The Glossary, * The chawbuckswar, ‘whip-rider’, was Barney-Book); “this word for ants and considered a great compliment among insects was doomed by its resemblance hard-driving horsemen.” to the more common chintz (painted kozhikodoes)”. chawbuckswar: (* The Glossary); see above + chit/ chitty: “A most curious word, for despite the fact that it comes from + cheese, Neel was no visionary in the Hind. chitthi, ‘letter’, it was never predicting the eventual incorporation of applied to any missive entrusted to the this derivative of Hind. chiz, ‘thing’, into dawk. It had always to be delivered by the Oracle, for the use of it in such hand, never by post, and preferably by sentences as ‘this cheroot is the real a chuprassy, never by a dawk-wallah cheese’ was common enough in his or hurkaru.” day. However its role in such locutions as ‘the Burra Cheese’ would chitchky: (* The Glossary); Neel was undoubtedly have come as a surprise. convinced that this descendant of the Bengali word chhechki had a brilliant chownee: (* The Glossary); “A great future as a migrant, predicting that it pity that this fine Hind. word for would even be ennobled as a verb, since ‘military encampment’ came to be English had no equivalent term for this replaced by the dull Anglo-Saxon technique of cooking. Searching vainly ‘cantonment’.” for a palatable meal in the East End, he once wrote: “Why do none of these chicken/chikan: (* The Barney-Book); lascars ever think of setting up inns “the closely-worked embroidery of and hostelries where they can serve Oudh; from which, the cant chitckied cabbage with slivered whiting expression, ‘chicken-worked’, to Londoners? Would they not profit frequently used to describe those from the great goll-maul that would who had perforce to live with a thus be created?” He would have been bawhawder ma’am-sahib.” greatly saddened to see this elegant word replaced by the clumsy locution + chin-chin (*The Barney-Book): ‘stir-fried’. “greetings (from which chin-chin-joss: ‘worship’).” + chittack: a measure of weight, equivalent to 1 oz., 17 pennyweights, 12 Chin-kalan: (* The Glossary); “Strange grains troy. as it seems today, this was indeed the name by which lascars were + chobdar, “to have one was a great accustomed to speak of the port of sign of prestige, since a mace-bearer Canton.” was a rare luxury. I still remember how the poor Raja of Mukhpora, even when chin-chin-joss: (* The Glossary); see facing ruin, could not bear to let his chin-chin. chobdar go.” chingers (*The Barney-Book): “Curious + choga, (see banyan): Neel was that Barrère & Leland imagine this word pessimistic about the future of this to have entered the English language word, which he believed would be through the gypsy dialect. It was quite overwhelmed by its Turkish rival, commonly used in bobachee-connahs, caftan.

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perhaps, of baring a little too much of +chokey/choker/ choakee/ their manhood.” See also lascar. choky/chowki: “If an exchange of words betokens a joining of experience, + choola/chula: “Another of those then it would appear that prisons are words in which the experience of the principal hinge between the people migration has wrought a subtle shift of of Hind. and Blatty. For if the English personality. In sahiby bobachee- gave us their ‘jail’ in its now ubiquitous connahs the word usually referred to forms, jel, jel-khana, jel-bot and the like, an oven, whereas in Hind. it was used we for our part have been by no means for a stove with an open fire (from miserly in our own gifts. Thus as early which, the Laskari chuldan for ‘galley’). as the 16th century the Hind. chowki Often these stoves were portable, the was already on its way across the sea, combustibles being loaded into a clay or eventually to effect its entry into English metal balde. It is this perhaps that has as those very old words chokey, misled some pundits into thinking that choker, choky, and even sometimes the Laskari dish, ‘galinha balde’ or balti chowki. The parent of these words is of chicken was named after a certain kind course the Hind. chowk which refers to of stove. One does not need to have a square or open place in the centre of a observed the preparation of this dish to village or town: this was where cells and know that this is pure buckwash, for if other places of confinement were it were indeed thus named, then surely customarily located, being presided over its name would have been choola by a kotwal and policed by a paltan of chiken.” darogas and chowkidars. But chokey appears to have gained in grimness as it choomer (* The Barney-Book); “In traveled, for its Hind. avatar is not the English the use of the Hind. loan word equal of its English equivalent in the for ‘kiss’, chumma, was used always in conjuring of dread: a function that the sense of ‘peck on the cheek’, and devolves rather to qaid and qaidi – two was never applied to deeper amatory words which started their travels at explorations. The misleading term kiss- almost the same time as chokey, and miss does not refer to the mystery of went on to gain admittance under such the choomer. As many a furtive classy guises as quod, quoddie, and quodded, has discovered, the whispering of this the last having the sense of ‘jailed’.” word in the city’s disreputable gullies will lead not to a charterhouse, but to a + chokra/chuckeroo: “Another handful of raisins.” instance in which Hind. and English usages subtly diverge, for a chhokra + chop: “Another word of Hind. origin refers to a youth, a lad, a stripling, (from chhãp, ‘stamp’ or ‘seal’) that has while chokra/chuckeroo points rather passed fluently from the English argot to a rung in the ladder of employment, of India into the patois of southern which, no matter whether in a China. It is not however related to + household, a military encampment, or a chop-chop, ‘quick, quickly’, which is of ship’s crew, usually the lowest, and Cantonese derivation (from k’wái-k’wái); thus commonly (but by no means it is this latter form that yields the ugly always) held by the young. In the vulgarism chopstick, none of the blame Raskhali Rajbari it would have been for which can be pinned on Hind.” considered strange indeed to speak of a middle-aged khidmatgar as a chhokra. + chop-chop: See above. But such an usage would not appear unusual in English. It is interesting in + chopstick: see above this regard to compare chokra/chuckeroo with its synonyms chup/choops (* The Barney-Book); launder/launda, which were never “Another word that has migrated used in mixed company, for reason through the nursery, being one of the

17 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh few exhortations to silence that can be considered polite.” chull: (* The Barney-Book); “Barrère & Leland reveal their ignorance by giving + chota/chhota/ choota/: Scrawled this the gloss of ‘make haste’, a upon back of the two of Clubs, in Neel’s meaning that belongs more to the Jack-Chits, are these words: “chhota is imperative jaw!. Chull has much more to burra as peg is to mast: hence the the sense of the French allez or the common Laskari locution chota-peg, Arabic yalla. One searches in vain for a often used synonymously with faltu- good English equivalent, ‘come on’ being dol.” far less expressive.”

+ chota-hazri: see above. “How Barrère chupow/chupao: (* The Glossary); & Leland have managed to come to the “Despite its present currency, this conclusion that a chota-hazri emigrant is unlikely to find a permanent corresponds to the ‘auroral mint julep seat in the House of Verbs since it or pre-prandial cocktail of Virginia’ I will serves no function that is not already never understand, for it usually discharged by the English ‘to hide’”. consists of nothing more than toast and tea.” cobbily-mash: (* The Glossary): “This was not a mash at all, but a preparation chute/choot: “This word’s popularity is of dried fish (being a corruption of the largely due to the one notable Bengali shutki-maach).” advantage that it possesses over other more specific anatomical terms: to wit, + cockup: This was of course one of that it can be applied to all human many words that perished in the beings, irrespective of gender, in the full abattoir of Victorian prudery. Being confidence that the subject will be in uncommonly fond of the fish to which it possession of a few such. This is referred Lates calcarifer possibly why it enjoys such widespread (bhetki/beckty), Neel refused to use, both in Hind. and English, the recognize that this term was greatly difference being that in English it is endangered: he certainly bears some of rarely used in the absence of some the responsibility for its extinction. other paired element (ban+/betee+ etc.). One exception is the cant term + compound/kampung: There was for chutier, which is used abusively to long a feeling within the family that this imply an excessive endowment in regard word ought not to be included in the to this aspect of the anatomy.” See also Chrestomathy, since the fact of its banchoot/barnshoot etc. having gained entry into the Oracle in both its forms would provide a + chuddar/chadar: “In no field of convincing refutation of Neel’s pet meaning has English relied more theory (according to which, words could heavily on migrants than in referring to never migrate in pairs - see bandar). the clothing of womens’ heads, These anxieties were set at rest when a shoulders and breasts. Yet, even having wordy-wallah pointed out that these absorbed shawl, chuddar/chadar, words are neither homonyms nor dooputty/dupatta, it still has no word synonyms: they are merely variant for that part of the sari that serves the spellings of the same word. same function, for both ghungta and ãchal remain strangers to the Oracle. + conker/kunkur: “this word has The cumbly/kambal (‘blanket’) can nothing whatever to do with water- or scarcely be offered as a credible horse- chestnuts. It is a corruption of alternative.” the Hind kankar ‘gravel’ and is used in the same sense.” chuldan: (*Roebuck); see choola/chula.

18 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh

+ consumah/consummer/khansama: word is not derived from the common See bobachee. Hind. word for ‘chair’ (kursi) as many suppose: it is, in my opinion, a + coolin/kulin: “In no way to be corruption of the English nautical term confused with ‘coolie’, this was the word ‘cross-trees’, for it too refers to the used to refer to the highest rung of perch that is formed by the junction of a certain castes. A contracted form has yard and a mast. But the resemblance recently gained some currency in classy is not accidental, for it is in this seat circles: cool.” that the lascar enjoys the few moments of leisure that fall to his lot.” + cot: see charpoy + cushy/khush/khushi: “In Laskari cotia: (* The Glossary); a vessel from this was the equivalent of the English the Kerala coast that was only rarely to nautical usage ‘cheerily’. To the lascar be sighted on the Hooghly. then goes the credit for inventing the English meaning of this word, which cow-chilo (*The Linkister): “often have was carried onshore by sailors.” I heard this item of the South China patois being used to disparage the dabusa: (*Roebuck); “Roebuck avers Chinese and their regard for women. Yet that any cabin may be so designated, the expression is merely a badly but it is a truism that every vessel is a matched pairing of words, the first world unto itself, with its own tongues being a corruption of the Cantonese and dialects – and on the Ibis this term kai.” was applied, always and exclusively, to the ‘tween-deck, which should properly cranny/karani: (* The Glossary); see have been the ‘beech-ka-tootuk’.” carcanna. + dacoit:, “this word” writes Neel, + cumbly/kambal: See chuddar. “although universally known, is frequently misused, for the term + cumra/kamra/camera: (* The applies, by law, only to miscreants who Glossary, *Roebuck); Neel gave the belong to a gang of at least five credit for the introduction of this item of persons.” Portuguese nautical usage (camara), into the languages of Hind., English dadu: (* The Barney-Book); “strange included. In its original nautical sense, that this English gypsy word for father, it was used of course to mean ‘cabin’, should be the same as the Bengali for but by virtue of conveniently expressing ‘grandfather’; no less strange that the the idea of partitioned space, it has Eng. gypsy for mother, dai/dye, should reverted to the sense of its Latin avatar, be the same as the common in which it meant ‘room’ or ‘chamber’. Hind./Urdu for midwife”. “The curious use of gol-kamra (lit. round-room) to mean ‘drawing-room’ is + daftar/dufter: This was another word unlikely to survive.” which had already, in Neel’s lifetime, yielded to an ungainly rival, ‘office’. This + cumbly/kambal: see chuddar too carried down with it, a lashkar of fine English words that were used for its + cumshaw: see baksheesh. staff: the clerks known as crannies, the mootsuddies who laboured over the cunchunee/kanchani: (* The accounts, the shroffs who were Glossary); see bayadère. responsible for money-changing, the khazana-dars who watched over their cursy/coorsy/kursi: (* The Barney- treasuries, the hurkarus and peons Book, *Roebuck, * The Glossary): who delivered messages, and of course, From the Jack-Chits: “This Laskari the innumerable moonshies, dubashes

19 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh and druggermen who laboured over the what you don’t give, you idiot – not a translation of every document. It was ‘damn’…” the passing of the last three, all concerned with the work of translation, + daroga: See chokey. that most troubled Neel: those were the words he would cite when Englishmen dashy: (* The Barney-Book); see boasted to him of the absorptive power bayadère. “This word is said to be of their language: “Beware, my friends: derived from devadasi (temple dancer), your tongues were flexible when you hence the frequent pairing debbies and were still supplicants at the world’s dashies.” khazanas: now that you have the whole world in a stranglehold, your + dastoor/ dastur: Because Neel tongues are hardening, growing stiffer. always gave precedence to nautical Do you ever count the words you lose usages he assumed that this word every year? Beware! Victory is but the would come into the Oracle harbinger of decay and decline.” because of the Laskari usage, in which it was the equivalent of dai/dye (* The Barney-Book); see ‘stu’nsail/studdingsail’ (see also above. dol). He allowed, as a long shot, that its homonym, which + dak/dawk: Neel believed that this designated a Parsi religious word would eventually yield to the functionary, might also stand a English ‘post’ even in India. But he was good chance of inclusion. He was convinced also that it would find its way wrong on both counts: The Oracle into the Oracle, not on its own steam, unaccountably has chosen to gloss but because of its innumerable it as ‘custom’ or ‘commission’, from compounds – dawk-bungalow, dawk- which usage it derives dastoori, dubber/ dubba (‘post-box’) etc. destoory etc. These last Neel ruled out, because their meaning was so + dam/daam: (* The Glossary); “Sad close to bucksheesh. indeed that India’s currency took its name from rupya (Skt. ‘silver’) rather + dawk: See chit. than the more accurate Hind. dam, ‘price’. I well remember a time when an + dekko, dikk, deck, dekho: Neel took adhelah was half, a paulah a quarter bitter exception to all attempts to and a damri an eighth of a dam. A attribute this word to English tragedy indeed that the word, like the Gypsy slang, insisting that it was a coin, was driven to beggary by a direct and recent borrowing of the counterfeit – in this instance, by the Hind. dekho ‘to see’. misinterpreting of the Duke of Wellington’s comment of dismissal (‘I + devi, debi, debbie: “In English usage, don’t give a dam’). What the Duke had the Hind. word for ‘goddess’ meant to say of course, was something acquired a wholly different in the order of ‘I don’t care a tu’penny’ connotation (for which see (dam), but instead he bears the guilt of bayadère). The Laskari devi on the having put into circulation the other hand, was a corruption of the damnable ‘damn’. At this remove we can English ‘davit’.” only speculate on how different the fate of the word would have been, had he + dhobi: “the mystery of laundering.” said, instead, ‘I don’t give a damri.’” On the margins of this note an anonymous digh: (*Roebuck): Neel was firmly of the descendant has scribbled: “At least opinion that this Laskari equivalent of Uncle Jeetu wouldn’t have ruined the the nautical sense of the word ‘point’, as last scene in Gone with the Wind by in ‘points of sailing’ or ‘headings in shouting at Rhett Butler: “A dam is

20 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh relation to the wind’ came from the jíb, might be similarly mistaken, by Bengali word for ‘direction’. those who did not know that it might also mean ‘anyone’s tongue’; but most + dinghy: From time to time, Neel curious of all is the word for the very tip would inscribe a question mark against of this spar, which is called the words which had been rewarded, in his shaitan-jíb. Could it be because to work view, beyond their just desserts. Neel’s there is indeed to feel the terror of interrogation of dinghy was scored with sitting upon the Devil’s tongue?” an especially heavy hand, for of all the Bengali words for river-craft this one seemed to him the least likely to be + doll/dal; Neel would have been glad, I raised to coolinhood, the dingi being think to learn that the Oracular form the meanest of boats. for this commonest of Indian foods is dal, rather than either doll (not to be doasta: “This is one spiritous liquor confused with pootly) or the mysterious about which the good Admiral Smyth is dhal, which is of course the right; he describes it as: ‘an inferior Hind./Bengali word for ‘shield’. In one spirit often drugged or doctored for of his jottings he speculates that it is unwary sailors in the pestiferous dens often thus spelled in English because it of filthy Calcutta and other sea-ports in refers to a popular battlefield dish india’”. ‘lentils cooked in a shield.’ dol (*Roebuck): Several of Neel’s Jack- + doolally/doolally-tap: “an illness Chits are devoted to the lascars’ words once greatly prevalent among sahibs for the architecture of a sailing vessel. and mems, being the English equivalent “Dol is what they call a mast, and for of the Malay ‘amok’. It derived its name sail they use a borrowing from the from Deolali, where there was a well- English serh (though I have sometimes known asylum. I believe it to have been heard them employ the good Bengali one of the side-effects of laudanum, word pâl). To these are attached many which would account for its present other terms, of greater specificity: thus desuetude.” trikat (often mispronounced ‘tirkat’) is ‘fore- when attached to either dol or + dosooti/dosootie: (* The Glossary); serh; bara is ‘main-’; kilmi is ‘mizzen-, lit. ‘two yarn’, coarse cotton cloth; “I was and sabar is t’gallant. A jury mast goes astonished to learn from Mr. Reid, that by the apt name phaltu-dol. As for the in America Dosootie is considered the other sails: a sawai is a staysail; a gavi highest quality of shirt fabric.” is a topsail; a tabar is a royal; a gabar is a sky-scraper; a dastur is a stu’nsail; drawal: (*Roebuck); spanker; see dol. and a spanker is a drawal. By combining these elements they are able druggerman: (*The Glossary) “like to point to the most insignificant scraps moonshies, dubashes and linkisters, a of canvas – in their speech, the fore- mystery of language – an interpreter t’gallant-stu’nsail is the trikat-sabar- whose title derives from the Arabic- dastur, and they have no need even to Persian tarjuman.” attach the word serh for their intention to be perfectly understood. The most + dubba/ dubbah/dubber; This word curious words are reserved however for owes its presence in the Chrestomathy the tangle of tackle that projects agil to lascars, who made the Hind. word for from the vessel’s head: the jib for ‘box’ or ‘container’ a common article of example, is a jíb, which malums nautical usage. Neel took exception to imagine merely to be a Laskari the Admiral’s definition of this term: ‘a mispronunciation of the English word, coarse leathern vessel for holding little knowing that it means ‘tongue’ in liquids in India.’ “Almost never in Hind. Hind.; their word for flying jib, fulana- is this common term for container

21 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh applied to a recaptacle that holds + dupatta/dooputty: see liquids. Such a usage is clearly chuddar/chadar. exceptional, even among those who occasionally apply it to certain objects + durzee: “the mystery of tailoring”. that are necessary for the proper conduct of stool-pijjin.” See also dawk. Faghfúr of Maha Chin; (* The Glossary) “Such was the Laskari phrase + duffadar/dafadar: one of those many for the ‘Emperor of China’, and if you ranks of lower officialdom that found an asked to whom it referred, they would after-life in the Oracle. “The magnitude tell you, almost always, that the of the part these men once played in personage in question was the Raja of our lives can be easily judged by looking Chin-kalan, which was but their name at any kalkatiya migrant’s certificate of for Canton.” emigration, on the back of which is almost always noted the name of the faltu- or phaltu-dol: (*Roebuck); “this duffadar who was responsible for the is, strictly speaking, the Laskari term recruitment (and usually in the for ‘jury-mast’, and it is in that sense scribbled Bengali script of some harried that it often finds employment in cranny).” shipboard girlery being understood to refer to a foreshortened, unreliable or dumbcow/dumcao: (* The Glossary); deficient organ of increase.” “The popularity of this word and its steady advance towards the Peerage of faltu/phaltu-tanni: (*Roebuck); see the Verb, is due no doubt to its turnee bilingual expressiveness, a dumbcowing being a harangue + fanqui: “the anglice of fan-kwei, which intended to cow – or better still gubbrow the *The Linkister defines incorrectly – its victim into dumbness.” as ‘foreign devil’. The term may easily, and less offensively, be translated as + dumbpoke; Kitchens which served ‘unfamiliar spirit’.” ‘casseroles’ never failed to ignite Neel’s ire, for he believed that word to be an + foozle/foozilow: “almost certainly insufferable piece of pretension, from the Hind. phuslana, ‘to make a fool especially when the dumbpoke was at of’, which is said to have been further hand and ready to use. The recent transformed in America, to foozle and resurrection of the Hind. original even comfoozle”] dumpukht would in no wise have consoled him, since it is now used in a + free/freedom: Neel was much in love strictly Hind. sense. with these words and would have been glad to know that the Oracle had + dungaree/dungri: “what dinghy was acknowledged them to be a derivation to boats, the Hind. dungri was to cloth – from the common Sanskrit and Hind. a coarse cotton fabric unworthy of root priya (‘dear’ or ‘beloved’). “As for the survival, far less coolin-dom.” truth of ‘freedom’ it will remain forever elusive until such time as it is wrested durwauza-bund: (* The Glossary): free of English; not till then will the “These were the words which fuller meaning of priya be restored to khidmutgars would use to turn away it.” unwanted visitors: in a BeeBee’s mind the use of the Hind. for ‘closed door’ fulana-jíb: (*Roebuck); flying-jib; see was more acceptable than an outright dol lie. The Oracle is sure to welcome it, for the sheer cunning of its reasoning.” fuleeta-pup: (* The Glossary); “a consummer’s mishearing of ‘fritter-

22 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh puff’ that found its way into the lexicon gubbrows, he serves as a druggerman against all odds.” when needed. All that can be said of him with any certainty is that the title gabar: (*Roebuck); sky-scraper or could not come to him until he had skysail; see dol. gained the Burra Sahib’s ear.” gadda/gudda/gadha/gudder (* The goolmaul/gollmaul: (* The Glossary); Glossary): “Why is it that when the Neel took issue with Sir Henry’s sahib borrows a Hind. zoological term, definition of this word as ‘mix-up’: “it is it is only for the purposes of abuse? It is patently evident that this word was of course, impossible to deny that once merely Hind. slang for ‘zero’ gadha is often used in Hind. to mean (literally ‘circular thing’). In this sense it ‘fool’, but it is true also that the ass is referred originally to a conundrum or the familiar of the Lord of Mysteries, puzzle. It was only by extension that it Vishwakarma. Ooloo/ullu similarly, came to mean ‘mix-up’, but of late it may well sometimes be used to mean has been so overburdened by this ‘fool’, but who can forget that the owl is connotation that it is now generally also the familiar of the goddess used to signify an uproar, or a great Lakshmi? As for bandar, in Hind. it has fuss.” (See also tamasha). none of the abusive implications of its English usage, being employed rather goozle-coonuh/goozul-khana: (* The as term of affection or endearment, in Glossary); see bobachee. the sense of ‘mischievous’.” gordower; (* The Glossary); “a type of galee/girley/gali (* The Glossary) Bengal boat as ugly as its name”. “oaths, obscenities; from which girlery, the equivalent of the Bengali gali-gola – grag; (*Roebuck); grog, from which the pertaining to abuse’. term by which taverns were affectionately known: grag-ghars + ganta/ghanta: “bell, from which Hind. ‘hour’. “But to ‘ring your ganta’ is griblee: (*Roebuck); graplin, der. eng. considered girlery.” + griffin/griff, see pucka gavi: (*Roebuck); topsail; see dol. gubber: (* The Glossary); “that this ghungta: see dooputty/dupatta. bandooki coin bore a resemblance to the Hind. for ‘cow-dung’, gave it many girlery: see galee added uses in the dufter. For the cranny could not be dumbcowed for girmitiya: “the genius of the Bhojpuri saying to a Burra Sahib: ‘Sir, may your language,” writes Neel, “ derives this pockets be weighed down with memorable term from the root girmit, gubbers.” which is a corruption of Eng. ‘agreement’ [or indenture]”. gubbrow/ghabrao:(* The Glossary); see dumbcow + godown: see bankshall + gup: “talk, gossip; but never in gol-cumra (*The Glossary): see ‘cumra’ English, gup-shup, which is so much the better expression.” + gomusta/gomushta: “For this mystery of the daftar there can be no + halalcor/halalcore: “In English this, simple definition, for he is to be seen like harry-maid and muttranee, was discharging as many functions as can one of many titles for the mysteries of be said to exist in such a place: he toiletry.” writes accounts, he dumbcows, he

23 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh hathee-soond: (*Roebuck); see oakum, endlessly picking, picking, bhandari picking…” from the Portuguese estopa. hazree/hazri: (*Roebuck); muster + jadoo/jadu: magic, conjuring (‘from which’, adds Neel, ‘we have [“wherefrom the common usage, jadoo- chotee hazree, which wakes the sahib ghar for Freemason’s Lodge”]. in time for the daily mustering’). + jammah/jama: “The only reason why harry-maid: (* The Glossary); see this word may fail to achieve the same halalcore. eminence as the compound, pyjama (lit, ‘leg-clothing’) is that it is too general, hoga: (* The Barney-Book); “This word being applied to all clothing.” See also, is a fine illustration of the changes that kameeze. occur when an expression crosses from Hind. to English. The Hind. original ho- + jasoos: Neel was intrigued by the ga is usually employed to mean ‘will English spellings of words related to happen’ or ‘will do’. In English on the this common Hind. term for ‘spy’ – other hand, the word is almost always jasoosy (spying) and jasooses (spies). used in conjunction with a negative participle, to imply strong disapproval. jaw/jao: (* The Barney-Book); See Thus was a notoriously starchy BeeBee chull. heard to exclaim, on finding her husband in the arms of a Rum-johnny: jawaub: (* The Glossary, *The Barney “Not in my bichawna dear; just won’t Book); “this borrowing of the Hind. for hoga.” ‘answer’ was never a persuasive migrant, its function in English being + hong: “in southern China this word limited to a single sense, which Barrère was applied indifferently, in English, to & Leland describe thus: “If a gentleman a certain kind of trading proposes to a lady and is refused he is establishments, a company of said to have been juwaubed.” merchants, a set of buildings, and even to certain boats kept by merchants: jalebi/jellybee: see laddu hong-boat”. + jemadar: “In my youth, as I + hookum: “The Laskari word for remember, this word designated the ‘command’”. second highest rank for a sepoy, following upon subedar/soubadar. hubes!/habes!: (*Roebuck): this was But of late the usage has changed the Laskari equivalent of the English somewhat, and is often applied to nautical hookum ‘heave’, and Neel was bhistis, and also to some of the so struck by Roebuck’s notes on this mysteries of toiletry.” term that he copied them down verbatim: “[when issuing this command] + jildi/jeldy/jaldi; The Oracle’s sometimes a little abuse is necessary; recognition of this word appears to have as for instance ‘Habes sálá!’ ‘Bahin been a cause of much jubilation, for one chod habes!’ or ‘Habes harámzuda’!” of my predecessors has noted the definition in full: “Haste, as in phrases hurremzad/huramzuda/harámzáda on the jildi, in a hurry, and to do or etc.: (* The Glossary); see badmash. move a-jildi”.

+ hurkaru/harcara: see dufter/daftar jillmill: (* The Glossary); “bandooki & chit/chitty shutterwork”. istoop/istup: (*Roebuck); “I can still + joss: “It was in Macao that I learnt the feel it between my fingers, that vile correct etymology of this term, which

24 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh derives not from a Cantonese root, as I karibat: The discovery of this word in * had imagined, but from the Portuguese The Barney-Book gave Neel the Dios. Hence its use in all matters greatest pleasure for it had become, by pertaining to worship: joss-stick, joss- the last years of his life, so obscured house, joss-candle, and of course joss- with disuse as almost to be archaic. It is pijjin meaning ‘religion’ (from which clear from his notes that he derives the usage joss-pijjin-man to remembered a time when this word, mean ‘priest’.” which joins the Tamil kari with the Bengali bhat ‘rice’, was commonly used kalmariya: (*Roebuck); “a sail- in English, to mean ‘an Indian meal’. In emptying calm, the word being derived, that sense it stood, not just for ‘curry- or so Roebuck tells us, from the rice’ as some might think, but was Portuguese calmaria.” rather an English equivalent of such phrases as ‘have you had your rice?’ the +kameez/kameeze: This word’s entry meaning of which can best be expressed into the caverns of the Oracle would as ‘have you eaten?’ Although unable to have amazed Neel, who believed that it recall with absolute certainty, he had a was doomed to a pauper’s grave. “My vague memory of even having heard reasoning rests on two pillars, the first people say, in this sense: ‘have you of which is that the tunics that are karibatted?’ known by this name could just as well be designated by a near-synonym, + kassidar/khasadar see burkundaz kurta. There are those who will point out that a kameeze is a longer and ket: (*Roebuck); cat o’ nine tails (but more elaborate garment - but should it Neel notes, that he often heard this not then be described by the more most dreaded of chawbucks referred to euphonious term angarkha? The second as a koordum, which usage Roebuck reason why the word kameeze is corroborates, adding that it derives from unlikely to survive is because of the the Portuguese cordão). grave challenge posed by its near cognate, the English ‘chemise’.There are + khalasi/classy: Although usually those who will object, no doubt, that spelled as classy, this Bengali word for kameeze derives from the Arabic qamís, ‘boatman’ was generally used in a while the English ‘chemise’ (like the derogatory sense, to mean ‘a low kind of Portuguese camiz) is descended from person’. Neel would have been the Latin camisia. No credence can be astonished to learn of its entry into the accorded to this argument however, for chambers of the Oracle. the good reason that the Arabic qamís may itself be descended from the Latin. khwancha: (*Roebuck): see tapori In any event there can be no doubt that kameez and ‘chemise’ are close kin; nor + khidmutgar/ kitmutgar/ can it be doubted that the latter is so kistmutgar/kismatgar etc.; “The rapidly usurping the territory of the variety of English spellings for this word former that the phrase ‘pyjama-chemise’ is truly astonishing and has led to may soon come to replace the name of many misconceptions. Among the many the ensemble that is now known as the speculations about its origins the most sulwaur-kameeze. Such a change is febrile are those that attach to the wholly to be welcomed: might not the variant kismat+gar. Some have notoriously pugnacious Afghan, for suggested that the term originally instance, undergo a beneficial change of referred to astrologers, a great number temperament if he could be persuaded of whom were once employed by every to abandon his prickly kameez in household. It was even suggested to me favour of the cooler and more flattering once that proper meaning of the word is ‘chemise’?” ‘one who follows his master’s kismat’ (‘surely sir,’ I could not help retorting,

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‘such a person would be a 8000 Rupees to be paid into ‘ye King’s budkismatgar?’). In fact the term is the Cuzzana’. literal equivalent of the English ‘servant’ in the sense of ‘provider of service’.” + laddu; there has been much familial dissension over whether Neel’s kilmi: (*Roebuck); ‘mizzen-‘; see dol. expectations for this word were fulfilled. He imagined that it would find its way + kismet/kismat: “Great reams of into the Oracle in its Laskari sense, in buckwash have been written about the which it referred to the top (or cap) of superstitious implications of this word. the mast. But instead, this word, like In fact it derives from the Arabic root q- jalebi/jellybee has been anointed only s-m, ‘to divide’ or ‘apportion’, so it in its incarnation as a sweetmeat. Yet it means nothing more than ‘portion’ or is a fact that the sweetmeat, like the ‘lot’.” cap of the mast, took its name from the roundedness of its shape, hence Neel’s + kotwal: See chokey. intuition was not wholly at fault. khubber/kubber/khabar (* The larkin: “what a mademoiselle is to a Glossary),: “Only the naïve would take madame, so was a larkin to a BeeBee, this word to mean ‘news’ in the sense being nothing other than the corruption signified by that term in English. For if of Hind. larki, ‘girl’.” that were so then its its derivate, kubberdaur/khabardar, would mean lall-shraub/loll-shrub/lál-sharáb: (* ‘bearer of news’ instead of ‘beware!’” The Glossary, * The Barney-Book); “this phrase was so commonly used kubberdaur/khabardar: see above that to say ‘red wine’ was considered pretentious”. See also sharab/xarave + khud: “Once, in an argument, a self- etc. styled pundit cited this as an instance of a loanword that remained unchanged + langooty/langoot/langot: “Well was in meaning after traveling between it said of this most abbreviated version languages. ‘But if that were so,’ I said, of the dhoti that it substituted a ‘then surely khud in Hind. would ‘pocket-handkerchief for a fig-leaf.’” possess the same connotations as the English ‘chasm’ or ‘gap’, would it not?’ lantea:(* The Glossary); “Curious that ‘Why so it does,’ he said. ‘So then tell the Oracle overlooked this common me sir,’ I asked, ‘how often have you Chinese boat while anointing the rarer heard anyone say in Hind. that there Malay lanchara.” lay a great khud between them and their fellow men?” larn-pijjin: see pijjin

+ khus-khus, see tatty. lás/purwan-ka-lás: (*Roebuck); “a lazy shortening”, Neel notes, “for the + kurta: see kameez. Portuguese word for yardarm: laiz.” kussab: (*Roebuck); see lascar. + lascar: “Almost to a man the lascars will say that their name comes from the kuzzana/cuzzaner: (* The Glossary); Persian lashkar, meaning ‘militia’ or Neel felt that the administrative use of ‘member of a militia’, and thus by this word to refer to district treasuries, extension ‘mercenary’ or ‘hired hand’. was unduly restrictive. “Why, as Sir That there is some connection between Henry has shown, English travelers these words is beyond question, but I were using this word as early as 1683, am convinced that the strictly nautical hence that famous passage of Hedges usage of the term is a purely European Diary, in which he reports a demand for introduction, dating back perhaps to

26 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh the Portuguese. In Hind. of course, the stick in which it is both an instrument term is applied to foot-soldiers, not of chastisement and a symbol of sailors, and almost always denotes a imperial authority. By this token, it is plurality (so that it would be absurd to the Englishman’s version of Hind. say in Bengali, as one well might in danda, which derives of course from English, ‘a lashkar of lascars’). Even dand, meaning rule or authority.” today a lascar will rarely use this term Elsewhere Neel notes that a to describe himself, preferring instead lathee was never to be mistaken for the such words as jahazi or khalasi (the kind of walking stick that went by the anglice of which is the curious classy); name of penang-lawyer, “‘with which’, or else he will use a title of rank, as the Admiral so aptly remarks, “the whereby the seniormost is a serang, administration of justice was wont to be followed by tindal and seacunny. Nor settled at Pulo Penang”. does this exhaust all the gradations of lascar ranks, for there are others such latteal/lathial: (* The Glossary); see as kussab and topas, whose functions burkundaz. are somewhat obscure (although the latter seem usually to serve as a ship’s launder/launda: See lascar. sweeper). It is not perhaps surprising that there is no special Laskari word for + linkister: Neel would have taken the lowest in the ladder of rankings: as issue with the Oracle’s derivation of with the English ‘ship’s boy’, this this word as a corruption of ‘linguister’. unfortunate worthy is so often mocked, He believed it to be rather, a colloquial taunted and kicked that he is more butt extension of the word ‘link’ – one that than boy, and to speak the name of his came to be applied to translators rank is almost offensive (and the terms because it so perfectly fitted their by which he is generally known does function. indeed serve as something of an insult: launda and chhokra - the anglice of loocher: (* The Glossary): “The ease which are launder and chuckeroo). with which this derivative of the Hind. Thus it happens that a lascar’s most luchha has come into English has much frequent use of the term ‘lascar’ to do with its resemblance to its corresponds more closely to its Hind. or synonym ‘lecher’: but this too is the Persian usage than to the English, for reason why it will, in all likelihood, soon he generally employs it as a collective lapse from use.” noun, to mean ‘crew’ (lashkar). The strangest part of the curious odyssey of loondboond/lundbund: (*Roebuck); the word lascar is that it has now re- this cognate of launder was the curious entered some Hind. languages (notably Laskari word for ‘dismasted’. Bengali), in which it is used in the Speculating on its origins, Roebuck European sense, to mean ‘sailor’! I am writes, ‘perhaps from nunga moonunga persuaded however, that where this is stark naked,’ which in turn prompted the case, the word is a recent intruder, Neel to observe: “how plain the English introduced through the nautical and how vivid the Laskari, which dialects of Portuguese or English.” should be translated, surely, as ‘dismembered’? Could it be that + lashkar: (*Roebuck): see above Roebuck knew neither of lunds nor bunds, and nor possibly, of their + lattee/lathee/lathi; “There are those relation to each other?” who claim that this is merely a ‘stick’. To them I say: Well why do you not try + loot: “I am persuaded that this is the sound of fiddle-lattees and see how another word that English owes to well it serves? The word is actually a Laskari, for this derivative of the Hind. part-synonym for ‘baton’ since it is lút probably first found employment on applied only to that incarnation of the the Company Bawhawder’s Ships when

27 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh applied to captured French vessels (in “Dear Sir: As one of the foremost the sense of ‘prize’ or ‘plunder’). English journals in the Indian subcontinent, you are rightly regarded + lorcha: “whether this is a ship of as something of an oracle on the subject Portuguese make, or a Chinese copy of of that language. It is therefore with the an European design is a vexed issue: greatest regret that we have noted of suffice it to say that these vessels are late, a creeping misuse of the word often seen off the coast of southern mistri on your pages. More than once China.” has it been suggested that this is a Hindustanee word that refers luckerbaug: (* The Glossary); “over this indifferently to plumbers, fitters, English word, speakers of Hind. and masons and repairmen. Now the truth Bengali have been known to come to is sir, that the word mistri along with blows, the former contending that it its variants, maistry and mystery, are, derives from their lakkarbagga, ‘hyena’, after balti, the commonest Portuguese- and the latter claiming it to be a derived words in the languages of India corruption of nekrebagh, ‘wolf’. The (by way of mestre). Like balti they may matter is impossible to decide for I have well have travelled by a nautical route, heard it being applied to both these for the original meaning of maistry was creatures, and the jackal to boot.” similar to its English cognate ‘master’ (both being derived from the Latin lugow/lagao:(* The Glossary); “A fine magister), and was probably first used example of a humble word which, in the sense of ‘ship’s master’. It is in a having ‘entered through the hawse- similar sense that the term maistry is holes’, as the saying goes, has now still employed, being applied mainly to ascended to the Peerage of the Verb. In overseers, and preserving fully the its correct Laskari usage, it is the exact connotations of authority that are nautical counterpart of ‘to bind’ or ‘to implicit in its English cousin ‘master’. It fasten’. Given the English lexicon’s is interesting to note that in India as in general enthusiasm for terms related to the Europe, the connotations of this binding, tying, beating, pulling and so fecund term have developed along on, there would seem to be nothing parallel paths. Thus just as the French remarkable about its steady rise maître and Italian maestro imply also through the ranks. Its passage into the mastery of a trade or craft, so civilian use might well have been similarly is the word mistri applied in occasioned by the phrase ‘lugowing a Hindustanee to artisans and master- line’ (i.e. ‘fastening hawse’, ‘binding a craftsmen: it is in this latter form that it rope’ etc.). This expression has gained is now applied to repairmen, workmen such widespread currency that it may and the like. On this subject sir, might well be the ancestor of the verb ‘to lug’.” it also be suggested that you would do well to adopt the variant spelling, + maistry/mistri/mystery: Few words mystery, which possesses the great aroused Neel’s passions as much as advantage of making evident the word’s these. A recent discovery among his direct connubium with the Latin notes is the draft of a letter to a well- ministerium (from which we get such known Calcutta newspaper. usages as ‘The Mystery Plays’, so called because they were produced by workmen who practised a mistery, or ministerium)? Would this not also deepen our sense of awe when we refer to the ‘Fashioner of All Things’ as the ‘Divine Mystery’?” This letter was never posted, but in keeping with his tenets, Neel always used the variant mystery.

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+ mali/malley/mauly/molley/mallee + nainsook/nayansukh; “’pleasing to “the mysteries of the garden.” the eye’ was the name of this fine cloth in Hind. The same cannot be said, + malum: “Some dictionaries persist in however, of the English corruption of misspelling this word as malem our word.” even though its correct form has been a part of the English language nuddee (*The Admiral): “this was as since the 17th century. this Laskari much a river as a nullah is a ditch, so word for ‘ships’s officer’ or ‘mate’ is why one should be universally used and of course, derived from the Arabic the other not is beyond my reckoning.” mu’allim, ‘knowledgeable’.” + nullah: see above. + mandir: see sammyhouse ooloo/ullu: see gadda/gadha/gudder. masalchie; (* The Glossary); see bobachee. oolta-poolta/oolter-poolter: (* The Glossary), “While it is by no means maski: “In no way is this curious incorrect to gloss this expression as expression connected with ‘musk’ having the sense of ‘upside down’, it or ‘masks’. In the zubben of the ought to be noted that in Laskari it had South China Coast, it figures rather a strictly nautical usage, being applied as something that would be to vessels that had been tipped over on described in Hind. as a takiya- their beam ends.” kalám– that is to say an expression that is used not for its meaning (of poggle/porgly/poggly: (* The which it possesses none) but Glossary, * The Barney-Book): On this merely out of habit, so that it word Neel quotes with disapproval becomes, through constant Barrère and Leland’s borrowing of Sir repetition, as familiar and as Henry’s observations: “’a madman, an unremarkable as a pillow or idiot, a dolt. [from] Hindu págal… A tuckier.” friend used …to adduce a macaronic adage which we fear the non-Indian will + mochi/moochy: “the mystery of fail to appreciate ‘Pogal et pecunia jaldi leather.” separantur’, i.e. a fool and his money are soon parted’.” To this Neel adds: “If + mootsuddy/mutsaddi; see dufter such were indeed the case then none would be more deserving of pauperdom + munshi/moonshee: see dufter than these pundits, for a poggle may be out of his mind, but he is no fool.” mura: (*Roebuck); “for a long time, I had no idea what the lascars meant + pani/pawnee/parny : Neel hotly when they spoke of the jamna mura disputed the notion that the Hind. word and the dawa mura. Only later was I to for water had entered the English learn that this was their word for ‘tack’, language through its use in such a rare borrowing from the Italian.” compounds as brandy-pawnee and blatty-pawnee. This was another + mussuck: “strange indeed is this instance in which he gave full credence name for the leather water-bag carried to Barrère & Leland’s derivation of it by bhistis, for it is but the Arabic for from the gypsy word for water. (See also puckrow.” bilayuti). muttranee;(* The Glossary); see paik: (* The Glossary); see burkundaz. halalcore

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+ parcheesi/parcheezi: Neel was mean ‘grapple’. When used by pootlies outraged to find that the familiar and dashies in this sense its pastime of his childhood, pachcheesi, implications were by no means was being packaged and sold as ‘Ludo’, soldierly.” Parcheesi etc. “Would that we could copyright and patent all things of value + pucka/pucca: Neel believed that the in our patrimony, before they are English meaning of this word came not claimed and stolen by these greed- from the Hind. ‘ripe’, as was often said, mongers, who think nothing of making but rather the alternative denotation – our children pay for the innocent ‘cooked’, or ‘baked’ – in which sense it diversions that have been handed, even was applied to ‘baked-’ or ‘burnt-‘ to them poorest of them, as a free bricks. “A pucka sahib is thus the bequest from the past.” No shop-bought hardest and most brickish of his kind. version of this game was ever allowed to Curiously the locution ‘kutcha sahib’ is cross his threshold, and he made sure never used, the word griffin serving as that his children played it as he had, on its equivalent.” a square of embroidered cloth, with the brightest of Seychelles cowries. + pultan/paltan: “an interesting instance of a word which, after having + penang-lawyer, see lathi been borrowed by Hind. (for its military application ‘platoon’) is reabsorbed into + pijjin/pidgin: “Numerous indeed are English with the slightly altered sense the speculations on the origins of this of ‘multitude’.” much-used expression, for people are loathe to accept that it is merely a way peechil: (*Roebuck); See agil. of pronouncing that commonest of English words: ‘business’. But such + punch: “Strange indeed that the indeed is the case, which is why a beverage of this name has lost all novice or griffin is commonly spoken of memory of its parent: Hind. panj (‘five’). as a learn- or larn-pijjin. I have In my time we scorned this mixture as recently been informed of another an unpalatable economy.” interesting compound stool-pijjin, which is used, I believe, to describe the + pundit: Neel was not persuaded of the business of answering Nature’s call.” validity of the usual etymology of this word, whereby it is held to derive from a + pollock-saug/palong-shák: (* The common Hind. term for ‘learned man’ or Glossary); “Sir Henry has never been so ‘scholar’. “A hint as to its true origin is wrong as in his gloss of this most to be seen in the 18th century French glorious of greens: ‘A poor vegetable, spelling of it, pandect. Does this not called also ‘country spinach’’”. clearly indicate that the word is a compound of ‘pan’ + ‘edict’ – meaning pootly/putli (*The Glossary): “Sir ‘one who pronounces on all matters’? Henry, ever the innocent, glosses Surely this is a closer approximation of pootly-nautch as if it were mere Hind. its somewhat satirical English for ‘doll-‘ or ‘puppet-dance’! But one can connotations than our respectful Hind. scarcely doubt that he knew full well pundit?” what the words meant in English, (for which see bayadère).” + punkah-wallah/-wala: “The mystery of the fan.” puckrow/puckerow/pakrao (*The Glossary): “It is easy to be misled into purwan: (*Roebuck); yard (spar from thinking that this is merely the Hind. which sail is set); here Neel has for ‘hold’ or ‘grasp’ and was borrowed as underlined carefully Lt. Roebuck’s such by the English soldier. But the footnote: “Purwan, I think is word was quite commonly used also to compounded of Pur a wing, or feather,

30 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh and Wan, a ship, which last word is due to a grievous misconception: a much used by the lascars from Surat simple word of explanation would spare (properly Soorut) etc. so that Purwan, him his cries of bachaw! bachaw! This, the yards of the ship, might also be if anything, is a perfect illustration of translated the wings upon which the why etymology is essential to man’s ship flies”. survival.”

+ pyjama/pajama: “There must surely + ruffugar/ruffoogar/rafugar: (* The be some significance to the fact that the Glossary); “In philological circles a Hind. for ‘leg’ (pao) has received a much cautionary tale is told of a griffin who, warmer welcome into the English having been set upon by a scruffy language than the word for head (sir). budmash, berated his assailant with While variants of pao figure in many the cry: “Unhand me, vile ruffoogar!” compounds, including char+poy, The speaker was mistaken in believing tea+poy, and py+jama, sir has to its this to be Hind. for ‘ruffian’, for a credit only turban (sirbandh) and ruffoogar is merely a clothes-repairer.” seersucker (sirsukh).” Rum-Johnny: (* The Barney-Book); + quod/qaid: see chokey “Taken from Hind. Rámjani, this word had a wholly different connotation in + rawnee/rani: “although this Hind. English (for which see bayadère).” word did indeed mean queen, in English usage it had another connotation (for + rye/rai: Neel was right in predicting which see bayadère).” that this common Hind. word for ‘gentleman’ would appear in the Oracle + rankin/rinkin:(* The Barney-Book); in its English-gypsy variant rye, rather “A fine piece of English gypsy-slang, than in the usual Indian form. from our own rangin – colourful.” sabar: (*Roebuck); topgallant or + roti/rooty/rootie, “it is my suspicion t’gallant; see dol. that the Oracle will absorb this as the Hind. roti, but it could just as well, as + sahib: this word was a source of the Barneymen rightly observe, make bafflement to Neel: “How did it happen its travels in the latter two forms, which that the Arabic for ‘friend’ became, in are taken from the Bengali – these are Hind. and English, a word meaning after all, the words that English soldiers ‘master’?” The question was answered commonly use in describing the bread by a grandson who had visited the that is served in their chownees. It is Soviet Union; on the margins of Neel’s no mystery that English soldier does note he scribbled: ‘’Sahib’ was to the Raj not trouble to distinguish between what ‘comrade’ is to Communists – a leavened and unleavened bread since mask for mastery.’ [See also Beebee]. the latter is a quantity unknown to his tongue: thus what a rootie is to him, + salwar/shalwar/shulwaur: see would be to a sepoy, a pao-roti. I am kameez told that it is not merely the presence of yeast, but also of this prefix, pao, that + sammy: (* The Barney-Book); “the prevents many sepoys from eating anglice of Hind. swami, from which English bread: they believe that yeasted sammy-house to mean mandir: dough is kneaded with the feet (pao) whether this is preferable to ‘pagoda’ is and is therefore unclean. If only it were a matter of debate.” to be explained to them that the pao of pao-roti is merely a Hind. adaptation of sammy-house: see above pão, the Portuguese for bread! Imagine, if on some arduous march a starving sawai: (*Roebuck); staysail; see dol. soldier were to deny himself succour

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+ seacunny/seaconny: On this word, over the ages (see charpoy). One ill- meaning ‘helmsman’, Neel penned a informed wordy-pundit has even note that covers the verso of the 4 of espoused the theory that this term is a Hearts: “It is not uncommon to hear it mispronunciation of ‘sea-boy’ and was said that the term seacunny/seaconny thus originally a synonym for lascar. is derived from an old English word This is of course an elementary meaning ‘rabbit’ – to wit: ‘cony’ or misunderstanding and could be easily ‘coney’ (sea-cunny thus being corrected if the English spelling of interpreted to mean ‘sea-rabbit’). sepoy were to be altered to sepohy. Beware anyone who tells you this for he This would have the dual advantage of is having a quiet laugh at your expense: advertising this word’s descent from the he probably knows full well that ‘coney’ Persian/Turkish sipáhi, while also has a secret, but far more common, use making evident its kinship to the (as when a London buy-em-dear says to French spahi, which refers similarly, to a prospective customer ‘no money, no a certain kind of colonial mercenary.” coney’). This is why the more pucka ma’amsahibs will not allow the word + serang: see lascar. seacunny to pass their lips, preferring to use the absurd expression sea- serh: (*Roebuck); see dol. bunny. (‘Well then madam,’ I was once tempted to say, ‘if we are thus to + seth, see beparee. Neel was aware of describe a helmsman, should we not the raging controversy that surrounds also speak of the Great Sea-bunny in the question of whether the term seth is the Sky?”) If only one could find the related to such words chetty, chettiar words to explain to these ladies that no and shetty. But lacking any expertise in rabbit need fear the conning of the languages of southern India, he was seacunnies: the term is utterly unable to reach any conclusion on the harmless and derives merely from the subject. Arabic sukkán meaning rudder, from which we get sukkáni and thus + shabash/shahbash: “’Bravo!” to Sir seacunny.” See also lascar. Henry.”

+ seersucker; Neel objected vehemently + shampoo: “Is it not a commentary on to the notion that the name of this the relationship of England and India cotton material was derived (as the that most of the Hind. candidates for Oracle was later to contend) from the the Peerage of the English Verb pertain Persian shir-o-shakkar or ‘milk and to grappling, grasping, binding, tying sugar’. “By what stretch of the and whipping? Yet, of all the pretenders imagination could anyone imagine that who have had their start in this domain a sweet, milky syrup would be pleasant - puckrow, bundo, lagow, chawbuck to wear on the skin?” Instead, following etc. – only one has risen to the rank of a Sir Henry, he derived the word from sir- true grandee of the Upper House; only sukh ‘joy of/to the head’, on the analogy one has claimed a dukedom for itself. of turban (which he thought to be This is, strangely enough, that derived from Hind. sir-bandh – ‘head- humblest of terms chãpo/chãpna, in its band’). He took the view that the terms corrupted form, shampoo. The reason were aptly paired since the latter was for this, surely, is that the notion of sometimes made of the former. As chãpo-ing embodies some of the more supplemental evidence he cited a pleasureable aspects of grappling, maxim which he claimed to be common grasping and so on – that is to say, of among lascars: sirbandh me sirsukh – ‘a kneading, pressing, touching, turban is happiness for the head’. massaging. Those who would seek to reduce this word to the rank of noun, + sepoy/seapoy: “The variant spelling, would do well to note that it will not sea-poy, has caused much confusion meekly relinquish its active form,

32 Copyright 2008  Amitav Ghosh clinging to its animate energies even that he had got the matter completely when forced into the Lower House (a oolter-poolter: Buzz Bawhawder was a case to point being the French le medieval king of Malwa, famous for his shampooing). shoke for the beautiful Rawnee, Roopmuttee. As for the matter he was + shamshoo/samschoo: “The Admiral, speaking of, the correct zubben who seems never to have tasted any expression is of course udlee-budlee.” shrob not made in Europe, described this Chinese wine as ‘fiery, fetid and + shroff: “the mystery of money- very injurious to european health’. But changing”, from which shroffage, which this was true only of the varieties sold the Oracle defines as a commission on Hog Lane; elsewhere there were charged for shroffing, or the examining many very fine bottlings, no less of coin. precious than the finest French sharaabs.” + sicca rupee; “in my childhood, as I remember, this was already an antique shoe-goose: (* The Barney-Book); “Not kind of coinage.” The Oracle confirms being a bird at all, but rather a kind of this, adding that these coins were cat” [in fact a lynx] “this word is issued in 1793. unlikely to enter the annals of ornithology.” In the margins, a note: + silahdar/silladar: “this word, lit. ‘From Persian syagosh’. ‘arms-bearer’ was one of many that was applied to mercenaries and soldiers of +shrob/shrab/shrub/sorbet fortune”. See burkandaz /sorbetto/sherbert/syrup/sirop/ xarave/sharaab; Neel loved to collect silboot: (* The Glossary); “like sirdrar, derivatives of the Arabic root for ‘drink’ which is but the Hind. corruption of the sh-r-b. undergarment known as a ‘short drawer’, this word for ‘slipper’ has re- + shikar, see below entered English usage in an altered form.” + shikaree: “The mystery of the hunt (shikar)”. silmagoor: From the Jack-Chits: “Could this be a lascar’s way of shoke/shauq: (* The Glossary); “in its saying ‘sail-maker’?” A marginal English incarnation this Arabic word note, written long afterwards, means ‘whim’, ‘hobby’ or ‘penchant’. In confirms his guess with a Hind. the existence of a shoke is often triumphant ! : ‘Roebuck leaves no indicated by the addition of the suffix doubt of it.’ báz (sometimes Anglicized to buzz). The proper English translation of Hind. sirdrar: (* The Glossary); see silboot addá-báz is therefore buck-buzz. (The term launder- or laund’ry-buzz is a soor: (* The Barney-Book); “pig, hence cant exception and does not always soor-ka-butcha- son of a pig”. refer to the whims of dhobis). When misused, this particle can cause some tabar: (*Roebuck); ‘royal’ as applied to curious misunderstandings. Thus for a ship’s rigging; see dol. instance a self-styled pundit was once heard to speculate that buzz when + tael: “another name for a Chinese added to bawhawder was a reference to liang or ounce”, but a note in the a well-known shoke of Alexander the margins specifies: ‘According to the Great’s (sometimes described as his Oracle this weight equals 1 1/3 oz taste for youthful bawhawdery). So avoirdupois.’ wedded was the pundit to this view, that I was hard put to persuade him

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+ talipot: Neel was mistaken in matter to fill these positions. It was thinking this to be the English word for because of such misunderstandings ‘toddy-palm’. The Oracle pronounces it perhaps that this word is gradually to be a ‘South Indian fan palm Corypha yielding to its Hind. synonym khus- umbraculifera.” khus.” taliyamar (*Roebuck); Neel mistook + teapoy: See charpoy this word to mean ‘bow-wave’ but was glad to be corrected: “Roebuck teek: (* The Barney-Book); “According explains that this is the Laskari for to the Barneymen the Hind. thik, ‘cut-water’ derived from the became in its English avatar ‘exact, Portuguese talhamar. I remember close, precise.” having always heard the word spoken by lascars who were looking tickytaw boys/tickytock boys: (* The down from the bowsprit. Hence my Glossary); “These ghastly attempts at error: I mistook the effect for the onomatopoeia were once the terms of object.” reference for players of the tabla.” tamancha: “Roebuck confirms that this + tiff, to: “Ironic indeed that India was, as I remember, the common should be the last refuge of this fine Laskari word for a lesser firearm.” North Country English word, meaning to take refreshments (from which tiffin, tapori: From the Jack-Chits: “this was lunch etc)”. the lascar’s word for the wooden bowl out of which he ate – the equivalent of + tiffin: see above. the English seaman’s ‘kid’. These were made of the plainest hollowed wood, + tindal: see lascar. and were bought in great numbers from bumboats. Apart from this there was + topas/topass: Neel would have been also the metal khwancha – a large tray astonished by the Oracle’s gloss of this on which they ate together.” word: “A person of mixed Black and Portuguese descent; often applied to a + tatty: (* The Glossary) “Such was the soldier, or a ship's scavenger or bath- term for a screen made of khus-khus attendant, who is of this class.” See grass. Although the word is perfectly lascar. respectable, being derived from the tamil vettiveru (from which vetiver), its trikat (*Roebuck); see dol. resemblance to a common Hind. word for a certain bodily product tended to tuckiah/tuckier: (* The Glossary); “Sir create misunderstandings. A story is Henry claims that this common Hind. told, of a formidable BeeBee who issued word for ‘pillow’ or ‘bolster’ is often used a peremptory hookum to a timid in the same sense as ashram. I am chuckeroo: ‘Boy! Drop a tatty! Jildee!’ baffled by this, I must confess.” The unfortunate lad was gubbrowed half out of his wits and complied with +tumasher/tamasha/tomashaw/toma such celerity that the BeeBee was put scia: Being a contrarian, Neel had a th utterly to rout. particular fondness for the 17 century To further complicate matters, English usage of this word, in which it those who were responsible for the was spelled tomashaw or even maintenance of these screens were tomascia, and had the sense of known, in certain households, as ‘spectacle’ or ‘show’, being sometimes tattygars. Unfortunate indeed was the thus applied also to rituals. He deplored kismet of the khidmatgars who were the gradual debasement of the word, thus designated and it was no easy whereby it “can now scarcely be told apart from a petty goll-maul.”

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wordy-wallah: (* The Glossary) This tumlet: (* The Glossary); “Is it possible phrase, from Hind. vardi-wala, was that this Hind. corruption of ‘tumbler’ used in English to mean ‘wearer of a will re-enter the English language and, uniform’. Those especially elevated in like the notorious cuckoo, eject its this regard were known as wordy- parent from its nest? Would that it majors (or woordy-majors). Neel’s could be so!” usage of these terms bore no resemblance to their proper definition. tuncaw: (* The Glossary), “The mystery of English turned this Hind. for ‘salary’, zubben/zuban: “of this word,” writes tankha, into an almost derogatory term, Neel, “I can find no evidence in any of used mainly for servant’s wages.” my dictionaries. But I know I have heard it often used, and if it does not + turban, see seersucker. exist, it should, for no other expression could so accurately describe the subject turnee: (* Roebuck); “this (as also of the Chrestomathy.” tarni, and tanni), were the lascars abbreviations of the word ‘attorney’, and it was applied always to English supercargoes. Phaltu-tanni, however was their word for the Flemish horse, a very curious element of a ship’s tackle.”

+ tical: silver coin equal to a rupee. udlee-budlee: see shoke upper-roger: (* The Glossary, * The Barney-Book); “A corruption of Skt. yuva-raja, ‘young king’, says Sir Henry, to which the Barneymen add, apropos nothing that the Nawab Siraj-ud-dowlah was similarly known to British wordy- wallahs as Sir Roger Dowler.”

+ vakeel: lawyer, pleader. “One of the oldest mysteries of the courtroom, reputed to be a denizen of the English language since the early 17th century.”

+ vetiver: see tatty.

+ wanderoo, see bandar. In the margins of this a nameless relative has written: ‘In the jungles of English, only a little less antique than vakeel, dating back to the 1680s, according to Oracle.’ woolock: (* The Glossary); “boats of this name were often to be seen on the Hooghly, but I recall neither their size nor any details of their construction.”

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