Part 34 (1/2)

burra/bara: 'I am convinced that this is another word that has entered English through a nautical route, burra/bara being the common Laskari term for the tallest of a s.h.i.+p's masts - the main.' See also dol.

Burrampooter (*The Glossary): 'This is merely the anglice, blessedly short-lived, of ”Brahmaputra”.'

bustee/basti: 'In my childhood we used this word only to mean ”neighbourhood” or ”settlement”, with no pejorative implication attached. The English derivative, on the other hand, was used to mean ”Black Town” or ”native area”, being applied only to the areas where Bengalis lived. Strange to think that it was in this derogatory guise that it was pa.s.sed back to Hind. and Bengali, and is now commonly used in the sense of ”slum”.'

butcha/bacha (*The Barney Book): 'A word for ”child” that will undoubtedly migrate through the open windows of the nursery.' Neel was wrong about this.

buy-em-dear: See bayadre.

buzz: See shoke.

caftan/qaftan: See choga.

caksen/c.o.xen (*Roebuck): 'It is puzzling that Roebuck lists this as the Laskari word for ”c.o.xswain”, since the p.r.o.nunciation of it is indistinguishable from the English.'

caleefa/khalifa (*The Glossary): See bobbachy.

calico: 'Some dictionaries award this word a Malayali lineage, since this kind of cotton cloth was said to be a product of the Malabar coast. This is utter buckwash, for the word calico self-evidently comes from ”Calicut”, which is a place name introduced by Europeans: were the word derived from the town's Malayalam name the cloth would be known, surely, as ”kozhikodo”.'

calputtee (*Roebuck): 'The Laskari for ”caulker”, this was a mystery who found little employment on Indian vessels, which were generally rabbeted rather than caulked.'

carcanna/karcanna (*The Glossary): Already in Neel's lifetime this long-pedigreed English word (from Hind. karkhana,'work-place' or 'work-shop') was slowly yielding to the term 'factory' - a lexical scandal in Neel's ears, which were still accustomed to hearing that word used to designate the residence of a 'factor' or 'agent'. But it was not for nostalgic reasons alone that he mourned the pa.s.sing of carcanna/karcanna: he foresaw that its wreckage would also carry into oblivion many of those who had once worked in these places of manufacture - for example the factory-clerks known as carc.o.o.ns. It was in mourning the fate of this word that the unknown wordy-wallah penned his comments on logocide.

carc.o.o.n (*The Glossary and The Barney-Book): See above.

chabee (The Glossary): In an uncharacteristic display of restraint, Neel refused to enter into the controversy over whether the Portuguese word for 'key' had set sail for England from Portugal or Hind.

chabutra chab.u.t.ter: See bowly bowry.

chaprasi chupra.s.sy: See dufter daftar.

charpoy: As noted earlier (see bandar), Neel was of the opinion that words, unlike human beings, are less likely to survive the rigors of migration if they travel as couples: in any pair of synonyms one is sure to perish. How, then, was he to account for the journey of those eminently successful synonyms, charpoy and cot (both of which, un -beknownst to him, were to receive the Oracle's imprimatur)? Neel was clearly annoyed by this anomaly - ('Has Blatty no words for the comforts of the bed, that it must steal so wilfully from us?') - but he did not fail to recognize the threat that was posed to his pet theory by these paired words. 'English, no less than the languages of Hind., has many reasons to be grateful to the lascars, and the gift of the word cot (from Hind. khat) is not the least of them. There can be little doubt that this word entered the English language through a nautical route: it is my conviction that khat was the first Laskari word for ”hammock” and that jhula/jhoola only came into use when the original was confiscated by their malums (vide the Admiral's definition of cot: ”a wooden bed-frame, suspended from the beams of a s.h.i.+p for the officers, between decks”). These cots were clearly more comfortable than ordinary hammocks, for they were soon pa.s.sed down to s.h.i.+ps' infirmaries, for the benefit of the sick and the wounded. This, by extension, is the sense in which the word was swept into the main current of the English language, being adopted first as a name for the swinging cribs of the nursery. We see thus that contrary to appearances, cot and charpoy are no more synonyms than are ”cradle” and ”bedstead”. Nor indeed are they synonyms even in Hind., for I am convinced that charpai was originally applied to all four-legged pieces of furniture (in the precise sense of the Hind. charpai, ”four-legged”) in order to distinguish them from such objects as had only three legs (tin-pai or tipai - from which, as Sir Henry rightly observes, descended those small tables known as teapoys in English). The confusing term sea-poy, however, is merely a variant spelling of sepoy and has nothing whatsoever to do with legs or seasickness. The ghost of this peculiar misconception is yet to be laid, however, as is evident from a story I was recently told about a young lieutenant who came to be separated from his troops while boarding a s.h.i.+p. It is said that after crying out in alarm - ”I've lost my seapoys!” - he was taken further aback at being handed a balty and some smelling salts.'

charter: 'Although the Oracle makes no mention of it, I am convinced that this verb was often used in the same sense as the Hind. verb chatna, from which English received the resplendent chutney, ”good to lick” (not to be confused with chatty/chatta, which lascars were accustomed to apply to earthen vessels). The cant term charterhouse is frequently applied to houses of ill-repute.'

chatty/chatta (*the Admiral, Roebuck): See charter.

chawbuck/chabuk: 'This word, so much more expressive than ”whip”, was almost as much a weapon as the object it designated. That it should be among the few Hind. words that found a verbal use in English is scarcely a matter of surprise, considering how often it fell from the sahibs' lips. When so used, the proper form for the past participle is chawbuck't. The derived form chawbuckswar, ”whip-rider”, was considered a great compliment among hard-driving hors.e.m.e.n.'

chawbuckswar (The Glossary): See above.