Scottish Cant

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.

Classification

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

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Scottish Cant uses numerous terms derived from Scots which are no longer current in Modern Scots as spoken by non-Travellers, such as mowdit "buried", mools "earth", both from muild(s), and gellie, from gailey (galley), "a bothy".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

See also

• Angloromani language
• Beurla Reagaird
• Shelta

References