Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c6.28

c6.28

It may from these remarks be easily understood how a large number of our Anglo-Indian colloquialisms, even if eventually traceable to native sources (and especially to Mahratti, or Dravidian originals) have come to us through a Portuguese medium, and often bear traces of having passed through that alembic. Not a few of these are familiar all over India, but the number current in the South is larger still. Some other Portuguese words also, though they can hardly be said to be recognized elements in the Anglo-Indian colloquial, have been introduced either into Hindustani generally, or into that shade of it which is in use among natives in habitual contact with Europeans. Of words which are essentially Portuguese, among Anglo-Indian colloquialisms, persistent or obsolete, we may quote goglet, gram, plantain, muster, caste, peon, padre, mistry or maistry, almyra, aya, cobra, mosquito, pomfret, cameez, palmyra, still in general use; picotta, rolong, pial, fogass, margosa, preserved in the South; batel, brab, foras, oart, vellard in Bombay; joss, compradore, linguist in the ports of China; and among more or less obsolete terms, Moor, for a Mahommedan, still surviving under the modified form Moorman, in Madras and Ceylon; Gentoo, still partially kept up, I believe, at Madras in application to the Telugu language, mustees, castees, bandeja (‘a tray’), Kittysol (‘an umbrella,’ and this survived ten years ago in the Calcutta customs tariff), cuspadore (‘a spittoon’), and covid (‘a cubit or ell’). Words of native origin which bear the mark of having come to us through the Portuguese may be illustrated by such as palanquin, mandarin, mangelin (a small weight for pearls, &c.) monsoon, typhoon, mango, mangosteen, jack-fruit, batta, curry, chop, congee, coir, cutch, catamaran, cassanar, nabob, aradavat, betel, areca, benzoin, corge, copra.* A few examples of Hindustani words borrowed from the Portuguese are chābi (‘a key’), bāola (‘a portmanteau’), bālti (‘a bucket’), martol (‘a hammer’), tauliya (‘a towel,’ Port. toalha), sābūn (‘soap’), bāsan (‘plate’ from Port. bacia), līlām and nīlām (‘an auction’), besides a number of terms used by Lascars on board ship.