Chin-kalan (*The Glossary): 'Strange as it seems today, this was indeed the name by which lascars were accustomed to speak of the port of Canton.'
chints/chinti (*The Glossary, *The Barney-Book): 'This word for ants and insects was doomed by its resemblance to the more common chintz (painted kozhikodoes)'.
+chit/chitty: 'A most curious word, for despite the fact that it comes from the Hind. chitthi, 'letter,' it was never applied to any missive entrusted to the dawk. It had always to be delivered by hand, never by post, and preferably by a chuprassy, never by a dawk-wallah or hurkaru.'
chitchky (*The Glossary): Neel was convinced that this descendant of the Bengali word chhechki had a brilliant future as a migrant, predicting that it would even be ennobled as a verb, since English had no equivalent term for this technique of cooking. Searching vainly for a palatable meal in the East End, he once wrote: 'Why do none of these lascars ever think of setting up inns and hostelries where they can serve chitckied cabbage with slivered whiting to Londoners? Would they not profit from the great goll-maul that would thus be created?' He would have been greatly saddened to see this elegant word replaced by the clumsy locution 'stir-fried'.
+chittack: A measure of weight, equivalent to one ounce, seventeen penny-weights, twelve grains troy.
+chobdar: 'To have one was a great sign of prestige, since a mace-bearer was a rare luxury. I still remember how the poor Raja of Mukhpora, even when facing ruin, could not bear to let his chobdar go.'
+choga (see banyan): Neel was pessimistic about the future of this word, which he believed would be over-whelmed by its Turkish rival, caftan.
+ chokey / choker / choakee / choky / chowki: 'If an exchange of words be-tokens a joining of experience, then it would appear that prisons are the principal hinge between the people of Hind. and Blatty. For if the English gave us their "jail" in its now ubiquitous forms, jel, jel-khana, jel-bot and the like, we for our part have been by no means miserly in our own gifts. Thus as early as the sixteenth century the Hind. chowki was already on its way across the sea, eventually to effect its entry into English as those very old words chokey, choker, choky, and even sometimes chowki. The parent of these words is of course the Hind. chowk, which refers to a square or open place in the centre of a village or town: this was where cells and other places of confinement were customarily located, being presided over by a kotwal and policed by a paltan of darogas and chowkidars. But chokey appears to have gained in grimness as it traveled, for its Hind. avatar is not the equal of its English equivalent in the conjuring of dread: a function that devolves rather to qaid and qaidi – two words which started their travels at almost the same time as chokey, and went on to gain admittance under such guises as quod, quoddie, and quodded, the last having the sense of "jailed".'
+chokra/chuckeroo: 'Another instance in which Hind. and English usages subtly diverge, for a chhokra in former refers to a youth, a lad, a stripling, while chokra/chuckeroo points rather to a rung in the ladder of employment, which, no matter whether in a household, a military encampment, or a ship's crew, was usually the lowest, and thus commonly (but by no means always) held by the young. In the Raskhali Rajbari it would have been considered strange indeed to speak of a middle-aged khidmatgar as a chhokra. But such an usage would not appear unusual in English. It is interesting in this regard to compare chokra/chuckeroo with its synonyms launder/launda, which were never used in mixed company, for reason perhaps, of baring a little too much of their manhood.' See also lascar.
+choola/chula: 'Another of those words in which the experience of migration has wrought a subtle shift of personality. In sahiby bobachee connahs the word usually referred to an oven, whereas in Hind. it was used for a stove with an open fire (from which, the Laskari chuldan for "galley"). Often these stoves were portable, the combustibles being loaded into a clay or metal balde. It is this perhaps that has misled some pundits into thinking that the Laskari dish, "galinha balde," or "balti chicken", was named after a certain kind of stove. One does not need to have observed the preparation of this dish to know that this is pure buckwash, for if it were indeed thus named, then surely its name would have been "choola chicken".'
choomer (*The Barney-Book): 'In English the use of the Hind. loan word for "kiss", chumma, was used always in the sense of "peck on the cheek", and was never applied to deeper amatory explorations. The misleading term "kiss-miss" does not refer to the mystery of the choomer. As many a furtive classy has discovered, the whispering of this word in the city's disreputable gullies will lead not to a charterhouse, but to a handful of raisins.'
+chop: 'Another word of Hind. origin (from chhãp, "stamp" or "seal") that has passed fluently from the English argot of India into the patois of southern China. It is not, however, related to +chop-chop, "quick, quickly", which is of Cantonese derivation (from k'wái-k'wái); it is this latter form that yields the ugly vulgarism chopstick, none of the blame for which can be pinned on Hind.'
+chop-chop: See above.
+chopstick: See above.
+chota/chhota/choota/: Scrawled upon the back of the two of clubs in Neel's Jack-Chits are these words: 'Chhota is to burra as peg is to mast: hence the common Laskari locution chota-peg, often used synonymously with faltu-dol.'
+chota-hazri: See above. 'How Barrère & Leland have managed to come to the conclusion that a chota-hazri corresponds to the "auroral mint julep or pre-prandial cocktail of Virginia " I will never understand, for it usually consists of nothing more than toast and tea.'
chownee (*The Glossary):'A great pity that this fine Hind. word for "military encampment" came to be replaced by the dull Anglo-Saxon "cantonment".'
+chuddar/chadar: 'In no field of meaning has English relied more heavily on migrants than in referring to the clothing of womens' heads, shoulders and breasts. Yet, even having absorbed shawl, chuddar/chadar, and doo -putty/dupatta, it still has no word for that part of the sari that serves the same function, for both ghungta and ãchal remain strangers to the Oracle. The cumbly/kambal ("blanket") can scarcely be offered as an alternative.'
chuldan (*Roebuck): See choola/chula.