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.[Kirk, J. & Ó Baoill, D. Travellers and their Language (2002) Queen's University Belfast ]
Classification
Up to 50% of Scottish Cant originates from Romani-derived lexicon.
[Wilde 1889, cited in Not just lucky white heather and clothes pegs: putting European Gypsies and Traveller economic niches in context. In: Ethnicity and Economy:Race and class revisited. C. Clark (2002). Strathclyde University.]
The Scottish Gaelic element in the dialects of Scottish Cant is put anywhere between 0.8% and 20%.
Romani vocabulary
The percentage of traditional Romani lexical vocabulary is said to be up to 50% of the
lexicon; some examples are:
-
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Scottish Cant uses numerous terms derived from Scots which are no longer current in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".
Gaelic influences
Loans from Gaelic include words like:
-
cluishes "ears" (Gaelic cluasan or cluais, a dative case 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.
He also recorded
Belle Stewart singing a version of "Dance to Your Daddy" in both Cant and
Scots language.
See also
