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How many Indian words do you use in everyday conversation? You may be surprised at how many Indian words were adopted by our Victorian ancestors during the days of the Raj and one of them is ‘bangle’. Which led us to the thought, what was a bangle called before we had the word bangle?
This insight into language comes courtesy of the Poet Daljit Nagra who a couple of years ago did a Radio 4 program in which he revelled in the extraordinary word horde of Hobson-Jobson.
And before you ask, ‘Hobson Jobson’ by Colonel Henry Yule and AC Burnell and subtitled ‘A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms etymological, historical, geographical and discursive,’ was a 1,000-page dictionary started in 1872 to index the lexicon of words of Asian origin used by the British in India.
B – bandana, bangle, bazaar, bungalow
C – catamaran, char, cheroot, chintz, chit, chokey, cummerbund, curry
D – dinghy, dungarees
G – gingham, guru, gymkhana
H – hullabaloo
J – jodhpur, juggernaut, junk, jute
K – khaki, kedgeree
L – loot
P – pariah, pundit, purdah, pyjamas
S – shampoo
T – thug
V – veranda
A concise version of the dictionary is available from Amazon and may suffice until the publication of the 1,000+ page version in the new year. You can find our collection of silver bangles by following the link.
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