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.Kirk, J. & Ó Baoill, D. Travellers and their Language (2002) Queen's University Belfast
Classification Up to 50% of Scottish Cant originates from Romani-derived lexicon.Wilde 1889, cited in Not just lucky white heather and clothes pegs: putting European Gypsies and Traveller economic niches in context. In: Ethnicity and Economy:Race and class revisited. C. Clark (2002). Strathclyde University.
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Use of archaic Scots Scottish Cant uses numerous terms derived from Scots which are no longer current in Modern Scots as spoken by non-Travellers, such as "buried", "earth", both from , and , from (galley), "a bothy".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 Angloromani language Beurla Reagaird Shelta
References