+silahdar/silladar: 'This word, lit. "arms-bearer", was one of many applied to mercenaries and soldiers of fortune'. See burkandaz.
silboot (*The Glossary): 'Like sirdrar, which is but the Hind. corruption of the undergarment known as a "short drawer", this word for "slipper" has reentered English usage in an altered form.'
silmagoor: From the Jack-Chits: 'Could this be a lascar's way of saying "sail-maker"?' A marginal note, written long afterwards, confirms his guess with a triumphant'!': 'Roebuck leaves no doubt of it.'
sirdrar (*The Glossary): See silboot.
soor (*The Barney-Book): 'Pig, hence soor-ka-butcha, son of a pig'.
tabar (*Roebuck): 'Royal' as applied to a ship's rigging; see dol.
+tael: 'Another name for a Chinese liang or ounce,' but a note in the margins specifies: 'According to the Oracle, this weight equals
oz. avoirdupois.'
+talipot: Neel was mistaken in thinking this to be the English word for 'toddy-palm'. The Oracle pronounces it to be a 'South Indian fan palm, Corypha umbraculifera.'
taliyamar (*Roebuck): Neel mistook this word to mean 'bow-wave' but was glad to be corrected: 'Roebuck explains that this is the Laskari for "cut-water", derived from the Portuguese talhamar. I remember having always heard the word spoken by lascars who were looking down from the bowsprit. Hence my error: I mistook the effect for the object.'
tamancha: 'Roebuck confirms that this was, as I remember, the common Laskari word for a lesser firearm.'
tapori: From the Jack-Chits: 'This was the lascar's word for the wooden bowl out of which he ate – the equivalent of the English seaman's "kid". These were made of the plainest hollowed wood, and were bought in great numbers from bumboats. Apart from this there was also the metal khwancha – a large tray on which they ate together.'
+tatty (*The Glossary): 'Such was the term for a screen made of khus-khus grass. Although the word is perfectly respectable, being derived from the tamil vettiveru (from which vetiver), its resemblance to a common Hind. word for a certain bodily product tended to create misunderstandings. A story is told of a formidable BeeBee who issued a peremptory hookum to a timid chuckeroo: "Boy! Drop a tatty! Jildee!" The unfortunate lad was gubbrowed half out of his wits and complied with such celerity that the BeeBee was put utterly to rout.
'To further complicate matters, those who were responsible for the maintenance of these screens were known, in certain households, as tattygars. Unfortunate indeed was the kismet of the khidmatgars who were thus designated, and it was no easy matter to fill these positions. It was because of such misunderstandings, perhaps, that this word is gradually yielding to its Hind. synonym khus-khus.'
+teapoy: See charpoy.
teek (*The Barney-Book): 'According to the Barneymen, the Hind. thik became in its English avatar "exact, close, precise."'
+tical: A silver coin equal to a rupee.
tickytaw boys/tickytock boys (*The Glossary): 'These ghastly attempts at onomatopoeia were once the terms of reference for players of the tabla.'
+tiff, to: 'Ironic indeed that India should be the last refuge of this fine North Country English word, meaning to take refreshments (from which tiffin, lunch etc)'.
tiffin: See above.
+tindal: See lascar.
+topas/topass: Neel would have been astonished by the Oracle's gloss of this word: 'A person of mixed Black and Portuguese descent; often applied to a soldier, or a ship's scavenger or bath-attendant, who is of this class.' See lascar.
trikat (*Roebuck): See dol.
tuckiah / tuckier (*The Glossary): 'Sir Henry claims that this common Hind. word for "pillow" or "bolster" is often used in the same sense as ashram. I am baffled by this, I must confess.'
+ tumasher / tamasha / tomashaw / tomascia: Being a contrarian, Neel had a particular fondness for the seventeenth-century English usage of this word, in which it was spelled tomashaw or even tomascia, and had the sense of 'spectacle' or 'show', being sometimes thus applied also to rituals. He deplored the gradual debasement of the word, whereby it 'can now scarcely be told apart from a petty goll-maul.'
tumlet (*The Glossary): 'Is it possible that this Hind. corruption of "tumbler" will reenter the English language and, like the notorious cuckoo, eject its parent from its nest? Would that it could be so!'
tuncaw (*The Glossary): 'The mystery of English turned this Hind. for "salary", tankha, into an almost derogatory term, used mainly for servant's wages.'
+turban: See seersucker.
turnee (*Roebuck): 'This (as also tarni and tanni), were the lascars' abbreviations of the word "attorney", and it was applied always to English supercargoes. Phaltu-tanni, however, was their word for the Flemish horse, a very curious element of a ship's tackle.'
udlee-budlee: See shoke.
upper-roger (*The Glossary, *The Barney-Book): 'A corruption of Skt. yuva-raja, "young king", says Sir Henry, to which the Barneymen add, apropos nothing, that the Nawab Siraj-uddowlah was similarly known to British wordy-wallahs as Sir Roger Dowler.'
+vakeel: Lawyer, pleader. 'One of the oldest mysteries of the courtroom, reputed to be a denizen of the English language since the early seventeenth century.'
+vetiver: See tatty.
+wanderoo: See bandar. In the margins of this a nameless relative has written: 'In the jungles of English, only a little less antique than vakeel, dating back to the 1680s, according to Oracle.'
woolock (*The Glossary): 'Boats of this name were often to be seen on the Hooghly, but I recall neither size nor any details of their construction.'
wordy-wallah (*The Glossary): This phrase, from Hind. vardi-wala, was used in English to mean 'wearer of a uniform'. Those especially gifted in this regard were known as wordy-majors (or woordy-majors). Neel's usage of these terms bore no resemblance to their proper definition.
zubben/zubán: 'Of this word,' writes Neel, 'I can find no evidence in any of my dictionaries. But I know I have heard it often used, and if it does not exist, it should, for no other expression could so accurately describe the subject of the Chrestomathy.'
Amitav Ghosh
