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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:

  • "man" (Romani "a non-Romani person")
  • "water" (Romani )

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Scottish Cant uses numerous terms derived from Scots which are no longer current in Modern Scots as spoken by non-Travellers, such as "buried", "earth", both from , and , from (galley), "a bothy".

Gaelic influences

Loans from Gaelic include words like:

  • "ears" (Gaelic or , a dative form of "ear")
  • "bad" (Gaelic "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

References