Scottish Cant

This article is about the Scots-based cant. For the Gaelic-based cant, see Beurla Reagaird.
Scottish Cant
Traveller Scottish
Native to United Kingdom
Region Scotland
Native speakers
 unknown (undated figure of 4,000 in Scotland)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 trl
Glottolog trav1235[2]

Scottish Cant (often simply Cant) is a cant spoken in Scotland by Lowland Scottish Travellers/Gypsies.<ref name = Queen's>Kirk, J. & Ó Baoill, D. Travellers and their Language (2002) Queen's University Belfast ISBN 0-85389-832-4</ref>

Classification

A certain amount of Romani words have entered Lowland Scottish Cant through intermarriage with British Romani groups, between 25-35% of Scottish Cant originates in a Romani-derived lexicon.[3] Containing up to 50% or more Romani loan words in some groups of the central belt of Scotland, those who are Romanichal or Scottish border gypsies.[3] Which demonstrates the intermarriage and links between Scottish travellers and English Romani populations, historically and in recent times.[4] This is not to be confused with indigenous Highland Traveller populations who are an autochthonous group of travelling people and not to be confused with British New Age Travellers. Scottish Highland Cant essentially remains a Germanic language.<ref name = Queen's/> The Scottish Gaelic element in the dialects of Scottish Cant is put anywhere between 0.8% and 20%.<ref name = Queen's/>

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Scottish Cant uses numerous terms derived from Scots which are no longer current in Modern Scots as spoken by non-Travellers, such as mowdit "buried", mools "earth", both from muild(s), and gellie, from gailey (galley), "a bothy".<ref name = Queen's/>

Gaelic influences

Loans from Gaelic include words like:<ref name = Queen's/>

Romani influences

There are Romani loans such as and the percentage of Romani lexical borrowings is said to be up to 50% of the lexicon; some examples are:<ref name = Queen's/>

References

  1. ↑ Scottish Cant at Ethnologue (12th ed., 1992). Note: Undated data may come from an earlier edition.
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Traveller Scottish". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 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.
  4. ↑ Roma, Gypsies, Travellers. Jean-Pierre Liégeois. Published by Council of Europe

See also