Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/283

 ii s. XL APRIL io. MIS.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

273

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1915.

CONTENTS.-No. 276.

NOTES : The "Bargain" Family of Words, 273 Statues and Memorials in the British Isles, 275 Blake and the " Swedenborgians," 276 A Russian Easter Pronuncia- tion of Leominster 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments ' School Folk-Lore, 277-The Height of St. Paul's-The Last of the Lucknow Dinners "John Inglesant," 278.

QUERIES : Serjeants' Feasts "Statesman," 278 Pro- fessors at Debitzen Tolomeo, Cardinal Galli : "The Cardinal of Como," 279 Sir Charles Ashburnham, Bishop of Chiehester St. Helena Roses as Cause of Colds and Sneezing Cannon's Regimental Histories Author Wanted Arms of Lyne-Stephens Charles Manning- Heraldic Queries Origin of 'OmneBene' 'The Mirage of Life,' 280- William Harding of Baraset Dr. Sheb- beare Perambulations of the Hampshire Forests Biographical Information Wanted Isolda Newman, Nurse of John of Gaunt Edward Tyrrel Smith, Actor Sheridan and Stella Germania : Tedesco, 281.

REPLIES : Mary Elizabeth Braddon : Bibliography, 282 Early Lords of Alengon, 284 " Poisson de Jonas," 285 The Rev. J. B. Blakeway : Bibliography Amalafiida in Procopius, 286 Mortimer's Market, Tottenham Court Road Pronunciation : its Changes Acton - Burnell, Shropshire: Garbett Family 'Agnes': Hazlitt and Scott 'The Fruit Girl,' 287 Da Costa: Brydges Willyams Anstruther, Fife: Scott of Balcomie, 288 "The red, white, and blue" Old Tree in Park Lane- John Trusler English Chaplains at Aleppo : John Udall Julius Caesar and Old Ford, 289 Counties of South Carolina" Route-march," 290.

NOTES ON BOOKS :' German Culture '' The Fort- nightly Review ' ' The Nineteenth Century ' The Cornhill.'

Booksellers' Catalogues. OBITUARY : Edward Peacock. Notices to Correspondents.

THE " BAKGAIN " FAMILY OF WORDS.

SOME years ago I observed on a shop-front the name Baragwenath ; it seemed Bengali, it proved to be Cornish. This has led, by devious ways, to my investigating a lamily of Provencal words derived apparently from the Breton and Welsh bara gwyn, white bread, some of which words have passed into English and other languages. The first-born of the family came to us as " bargain." The history of this word is acknowledged to be unsatisfactory 4 its presumed derivation, both in Littre and in the ' N.E.D.,' from barca,a, barge, is quite untenable. There may be a connexion, but, if so, it is in the contrary direction. Littre assumed, hesitatingly, that barguigner meant originally to carry to and fro, as in

a barge, but failed to see that it was only a variant of baragouiner, the verb of laragouin, gibberish, while he accepted the derivation of this word from " bara, bread, and gwin, wine, words which the French often heard in the mouth of Bretons, and which were used to designate their unintelligible speech." But whether the words meant " white bread " or " bread and wine," they were the source of the name given to the speech of the porridge -eating Breton soldiery, pro- bably in the wars of mediaeval France, when clamouring for bara gwyn.

In Cotgrave's French Dictionary (1650), under "il parle baragouin," this word is given as "white bread."

While baragouin was the Limousin form of the word, it became bargouin in Provence ; and in the verb -forms baragouina, berguigna, bargdgna, bargoun&ja, it came into use throughout Southern France in the double sense of (1) to jabber, stammer, hesitate, (2) to bargain ; the one being almost in- separable from the other in the market- place. When the shipmaster said to Dinde- nault, " Bren,bren, c'est trop icy barguigne". Vends luy si tu veulx: si tu ne veulx, ne 1' amuse plus," the bargain was not com- pleted ; he reproved the sheep-dealer's long and impudent baragouin to Panurge. From fie verb came the noun bargagno, bargain, and bargagnolo, bregagnolo, the refreshment necessary after long bargaining.

The verb passed not only into French, but also into Italian as bargagnare, into mediaeval Latin as barcaniare, w r hence pro- bably the false scent towards barca.

It is probable that bargouneja, when applied to the Grego of Marseilles, would become jarjounefa,the verb of jargoun, our

jargon."

Can this derivation of our " bargain " from the Breton words be corroborated ? It can. Alongside of baragouin (pronounced " baragwing " ), and its large family of derivatives, is another group of words pointing to a common Breton source. The main word in this group is bretouneja, to jabber like a Breton, to splutter, to stammer. Apart from mediaeval traditions, Bretons are met on board ship or in port. To the Proven9al seaman their language between themselves is an unintelligible bargouin, and they return the compliment by calling his language moco, from e"m'acd, "and with that " = " then," a constantly recurring conjunction in Southern talk, especially at Marseilles. So we find bre- touneja, to speak like a Breton, as equivalent to bargounfya ; a splutterer or stammerer