Godina izdanja: Ostalo
ISBN: Ostalo
Tip: Dvojezični
Jezik: Engleski
Vrsta: Opšti
Autor: Strani

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In 1872 two men began work on a lexicon of words of Asian origin used by the British in India. Since its publication the 1,000-page dictionary has never been out of print and a new edition is due out next year. What accounts for its enduring appeal?

Hobson-Jobson is the dictionary’s short and mysterious title.

The subtitle reveals more: “A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms etymological, historical, geographical and discursive. By Colonel Henry Yule and AC Burnell.”

“It’s a madly unruly and idiosyncratic work,” says poet Daljit Nagra.

“Not so much an orderly dictionary as a passionate memoir of colonial India. Rather like an eccentric Englishman in glossary form.”

Take the entry for the Indian word dam. The dictionary defines it as: “Originally an actual copper coin. Damri is a common enough expression for the infinitesimal in coin, and one has often heard a Briton in India say: ‘No, I won’t give a dumree!’ with but a vague notion what a damri meant.”

That is the etymology of dam. But Yule and Burnell have more to say.

“And this leads to the suggestion that a like expression, often heard from coarse talkers in England as well as in India, originated in the latter country, and that whatever profanity there may be in the animus, there is none in the etymology, when such an one blurts out ‘I don’t care a dam!’ in other words, ‘I don’t care a brass farthing!`”

There is a huge delight in language that’s evident throughout the dictionary, says Dr Kate Teltscher, reader in English Literature at Roehampton University, who is preparing the new Oxford World Classics edition.

“It’s a hugely ambitious attempt to trace linguistic influence… it’s all about the distance that words travel,” she says. “It’s also about looking at words in their context, and seeing how they describe a lost way of life.”

When the book was published, it was already a source of nostalgia for the passing of the East India Company era as India came under British rule.

“There was a market for it in India, amongst the British serving in India. One review recommended it as an ideal ‘after-dinner reading in camp’,” says Teltscher.

“It does include a lot of administrative terms – things that the British needed to know. But it was also clearly meant for diversion and entertainment, both for the British serving in India and the British when they had returned home.”

Anglo-Indian food features prominently. For example, it defines kedgeree (or kitchery) thus:

“A mess of rice, cooked with butter and dal and flavoured with a little spice, shred onion, and the like. It’s a common dish all over India, and often served at Anglo-Indian breakfast tables. In England we find the word is often applied to a mess of re-cooked fish, served for breakfast, but this is inaccurate. Fish is frequently eaten with kedgeree, but is no part of it.”

Chilly, we learn, is “the popular Anglo-Indian name of the pod of red pepper”.

“There is little doubt that the name was taken from Chile in South America,” the compilers Yule and Burnell say, “whence the plant was carried to the Indian archipelago and thence to India.”

“Who doesn’t know what chilli means now?” asks Daljit Nagra.

“But here it’s been recorded probably for first time in a Western dictionary and I love the idea of witnessing the birth of that word.”

For writers such as Nagra, Hobson-Jobson has often been a source of inspiration.

Here is how Hobson-Jobson defines naukar-chaukar. It means “the servants” but the authors continue....




tags: englesko-indijski indijsko-engleski indijski rečnik indija hinduizam kolonijalizam