Sea Of Poppies Part 38

kurta: See kameez.

kussab (*Roebuck): See lascar.

kuzzana/cuzzaner (*The Glossary): Neel felt that the administrative use of this word, to refer to district treasuries, was unduly restrictive. 'Why, as Sir Henry has shown, English travelers were using this word as early as 1683, hence that famous pa.s.sage of Hedges Diary, in which he reports a demand for eight thousand Rupees to be paid into "ye King's Cuzzana".'

laddu: There has been much familial dissension over whether Neels' expectations for this word were fulfilled. He imagined that it would find its way into the Oracle in its Laskari sense, in which it referred to the top (or cap) of the mast. But instead, this word, like jalebi/jellybee, has been anointed only in its incarnation as a sweetmeat. Yet it is a fact that the sweetmeat, like the cap of the mast, took its name from the roundedness of its shape, hence Neel's intuition was not wholly at fault.

lall-shraub loll-shrub lal-sharab (*The Glossary, The Barney-Book): 'This phrase was so commonly used that to say 'red wine' was considered pretentious'. See also sharab/xarave etc.

langooty/langoot/langot: 'Well was it said of this most abbreviated version of the dhoti that it subst.i.tuted a "pocket-handkerchief for a fig-leaf".'

lantea (The Glossary): 'Curious that the Oracle overlooked this common Chinese boat while anointing the rarer Malay lanchara.'

larkin: 'What a mademoiselle is to a madame, so was a larkin to a BeeBee, being nothing other than the corruption of Hind. larki, "girl".'

larn-pijjin: See pijjin.

las/purwan-ka-las (*Roebuck): 'A lazy shortening', Neel notes, 'for the Portuguese word for yardarm: laiz.'

lascar: 'Almost to a man the lascars will say that their name comes from the Persian lashkar, meaning "militia" or "member of a militia", and thus be extension "mercenary" or "hired hand". That there is some connection between these words is beyond question, but I am convinced that the strictly nautical usage of the term is a purely European introduction, dating back perhaps to the Portuguese. In Hind., of course, the term is applied to foot-soldiers, not sailors, and almost always denotes a plurality (so that it would be absurd to say in Bengali, as one well might in English, "a lashkar of lascars"). Even today a lascar will rarely use this term to describe himself, preferring instead such words as jahazi or khalasi (the anglice of which is the curious cla.s.sy); or else he will use a t.i.tle of rank, whereby the seniormost is a serang, followed by tindal and seacunny. Nor does this exhaust all the gradations of lascar ranks, for there are others such as kussab and topas, whose functions are somewhat obscure (although the latter seem usually to serve as ship's sweeper). It is not perhaps surprising that there is no special Laskari word for the lowest in the ladder of rankings: as with the English "ship's boy", this unfortunate worthy is so often mocked, taunted and kicked that he is more b.u.t.t than boy, and to speak the name of his rank is almost offensive (and the terms by which he is generally known do indeed serve as something of an insult: launda and chhokra - the anglice of which are launder and chuckeroo). Thus it happens that a lascar's most frequent use of the term lascar corresponds more closely to its Hind. or Persian usage than to the English, for he generally employs it as a collective noun, to mean "crew" (lashkar). The strangest part of the curious odyssey of the word lascar is that it has now reentered some Hind. languages (notably Bengali), in which it is used in the European sense, to mean "sailor"! I am persuaded, however, that where this is the case, the word is a recent intruder, introduced through the nautical dialects of Portuguese or English.'

lashkar (*Roebuck): See above.

latteal/lathial (*The Glossary): See burkmundauze.

lattee/lathee: 'There are those who claim that this is merely a "stick". To them I say: Well, why do you not try the sound of fiddle-lattees and see how well it serves? The word is actually a part-synonym for "baton", since it is applied only to that incarnation of the stick in which it is both an instrument of chastis.e.m.e.nt and a symbol of imperial authority. By this token, it is the Englishman's version of Hind. danda, which derives of course from dand, meaning "rule" or "authority".' Elsewhere Neel notes that a lathi was never to be mistaken for the kind of walking stick that went by the name of penang-lawyer, 'with which', as the Admiral so aptly remarks, 'the administration of justice was wont to be settled at Pulo Penang'.

launder/launda: See lascar.

linkister: Neel would have taken issue with the Oracle's derivation of this word as a corruption of 'linguister'. He believed it to be, rather, a colloquial extension of the word 'link' - one that came to be applied to translators because it so perfectly fitted their function.

loocher (*The Glossary): 'The ease with which this derivative of the Hind. luchha has come into English has much to do with its resemblance to its synonym "lecher": but this too is the reason why it will, in all probability, soon lapse from use.'

loondboond/lundbund (*Roebuck): This cognate of launder was the curious Laskari word for 'dismasted'. Speculating on its origins, Roebuck writes, 'perhaps from nunga moonunga, stark naked,' which in turn prompted Neel to observe: 'How plain the English and how vivid the Laskari, which should be translated, surely, as "dismembered"? Could it be that Roebuck knew neither of lunds nor bunds, and nor, possibly, of their relation to each other?'

loot: 'I am persuaded that this is another word that English owes to Laskari, for this derivative of the Hind. lut probably first found employment on the Company Bawhawder's ships when applied to captured French vessels (in the sense of "prize" or "plunder").'

lorcha: 'Whether this is a ship of Portuguese make or a Chinese copy of an European design is a vexed issue; suffice it to say that these vessels are often seen off the coast of southern China.'

luckerbaug (*The Glossary): 'Over this English word, speakers of Hind. and Bengali have been known to come to blows, the former contending that it derives from their lakkarbagga, "hyena", and the latter claiming it to be a corruption of nekrebagh, "wolf". The matter is impossible to decide for I have heard it being applied to both these creatures, and the jackal to boot.'

lugow/lagao (*The Glossary): 'A fine example of a humble word which, having "entered through the hawse-holes", as the saying goes, has now ascended to the Peerage of the Verb. In its correct Laskari usage, it is the exact nautical counterpart of "to bind" or "to fasten". Given the English lexicon's general enthusiasm for terms related to binding, tying, beating, pulling and so on, there would seem to be nothing remarkable about its steady rise through the ranks. Its pa.s.sage into civilian use might well have been occasioned by the phrase "lugowing a line" (i.e., "fastening hawse", "binding a rope" etc.). This expression has gained such widespread currency that it may well be the ancestor of the verb "to lug".'

maistry/mistri/mystery: Few words aroused Neel's pa.s.sions as much as these. A recent discovery among his notes is the draft of a letter to a well-known Calcutta newspaper.

'Dear Sir: As one of the foremost English journals in the Indian subcontinent, you are rightly regarded as something of an oracle on the subject of that language. It is therefore with the greatest regret that we have noted of late, a creeping misuse of the word mistri on your pages. More than once has it been suggested that this is a Hindusthanee word that refers indifferently to plumbers, fitters, masons and repairmen. Now the truth is, sir, that the word mistri along with its variants, maistry and mystery, are, after balti, the commonest Portuguese-derived words in the languages of India (by way of mestre). Like balti they may well have travelled by a nautical route, for the original meaning of maistry was similar to its English cognate "master" (both being derived from the Latin magister), and was probably first used in the sense of "ship's master". It is in a similar sense that the term maistry is still employed, being applied mainly to overseers, and preserving fully the connotations of authority that are implicit in its English cousin "master". It is interesting to note that in India as in Europe, the connotations of this fecund term have developed along parallel paths. Thus, just as the French maitre and Italian maestro imply also the mastery of a trade or craft, so similiarly is the word mistri applied in Hindusthanee to artisans and master-craftsmen: it is in this latter form that it is now applied to repairmen, workmen and the like. On this subject, sir, might it also be suggested that you would do well to adopt the variant spelling mystery, which possesses the great advantage of making evident the word's direct connubium with the Latin ministerium (from which we get such usages as "The Mystery Plays", so-called because they were produced by workmen who practised a mistery, or ministerium)? Would this not also deepen our sense of awe when we refer to the "Fashioner of All Things" as the "Divine Mystery"?'

This letter was never posted, but in keeping with his tenets, Neel always used the variant mystery.

mali/malley/mauly/molley/mallee: 'The mysteries of the garden.'

malum: 'Some dictionaries persist in misspelling this word as malem even though its correct form has been a part of the English language since the seventeenth century. This Laskari word for "ship's officer" or "mate" is, of course, derived from the Arabic mu'allim, "knowledgeable".'

mandir: See sammy-house.

masalchie (*The Glossary): See bobachee.

maski: 'In no way is this curious expression connected with "musk" or "masks". In the zubben of the South China Coast, it figures rather as something that would be described in Hind. as a takiya-kalam - that is to say, an expression that is used not for its meaning (of which it possesses none) but merely out of habit, so that it becomes, through constant repet.i.tion, as familiar and as unremarkable as a pillow or tuckier.'

mochi/moochy: 'The mystery of leather.'

mootsuddy/mutsaddi: See dufter.

munshi/moonshee: See dufter.

mura (*Roebuck): 'For a long time, I had no idea what the lascars meant when they spoke of the "jamna mura" and the "dawa mura". Only later was I to learn that this was their word for "tack", a rare borrowing from the Italian.'

mussuck: 'Strange indeed is this name for the leather water-bag carried by bhistis, for it is but the Arabic for puckrow.'

muttranee (*The Glossary): See halalcore.

nainsook/nayansukh: '"Pleasing to the eye" was the name of this fine cloth in Hind. The same cannot be said, however, of the English corruption of our word.'

nuddee (*the Admiral): 'This was as much a river as a nullah is a ditch, so why one should be universally used and the other not is beyond my reckoning.'

nullah: See above.

ooloo/ullu: See gadda/gadha/gudder.