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Scottish Cant

Variety of the Romani language From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Scottish Cant, Scots Romani, Scotch Romani or the Scottish Romani language is a cant and variety of the Romani language spoken by Lowland Romani (Lowland Gypsies), who primarily live in the Scottish Lowlands.[2]

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Classification

Up to 50% of Scottish Cant originates from Romani-derived lexicon.[3]

The Scottish Gaelic element in the dialects of Scottish Cant is put anywhere between 0.8% and 20%.[2]

Romani vocabulary

The percentage of traditional Romani lexical vocabulary is said to be up to 50% of the lexicon; some examples are:[2]

  • gadgie "man" (Romani gadžó "a non-Romani person")
  • pannie "water" (Romani paní)

Use of archaic Scots

Scottish Cant uses numerous terms derived from Scots which are no longer current in Modern Scots as spoken by non-Travellers, such as mowdit "buried", mools "earth", both from muild(s), and gellie, from gailey (galley), "a bothy".[2]

Gaelic influences

Loans from Gaelic include words like:[2]

  • cluishes "ears" (Gaelic cluasan or cluais, a dative form of cluas "ear")
  • shain "bad" (Gaelic sean "old")

Recordings

Hamish Henderson and other folklorists recorded various conversations about the Scottish Cant language, with speakers including Lizzie Higgins and Jeannie Robertson.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] He also recorded Belle Stewart singing a version of "Dance to Your Daddy" in both Cant and Scots.[11]

See also

References

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