Scottish Cant


Scottish Cant is a cant spoken in Scotland by Lowland Scottish Romani Travellers/Gypsies.

Classification

It is uncertain whether Scottish Cant is the result of Scottish Lowland Romani Travellers transitioning from speaking Romani to speaking a mixed language, or whether it is the result of Romani in Lowland Scotland merging with an indigenous Lowland Traveller group. The large number of Scots derived words and archaic Scots words within Scottish Cant vocabulary suggests that merging with another group, although it could just be that Lowland Scottish Travellers are fully Romani in their roots and they just picked up these words, similar to how Angloromani has picked up words such as ‘ken’ and ‘mort’ which are derived from English.
Up to 50% of Scottish Cant originates from Romani-derived lexicon. This is because it is spoken by the Scottish Lowland Travellers/Gypsies, a traditionally itinerant group of Romani heritage.
Lowland Scottish Travellers/Gypsies are not to be confused with indigenous Highland Travellers, who are an entirely indigenous group of travelling people. They have their own language, distinct From Scottish Cant.
Scottish Cant is considered para-Romani language, like Angloromani and Scandoromani for example.
The Scottish Gaelic element in the dialects of Scottish Cant is put anywhere between 0.8% and 20%.

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Scottish Cant uses numerous terms derived from Scots which are no longer current in Modern Scots as spoken by non-Travellers, such as mowdit "buried", mools "earth", both from muild, and gellie, from gailey, "a bothy".

Gaelic influences

Loans from Gaelic include words like:
The percentage of Romani lexical vocabulary is said to be up to 50% of the lexicon; some examples are: