Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/251

 12S.X.MAB.18.1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 201 LONDON. MARCH 18, 1922. CONTENTS. No. 205. NOTES .-English Army Slang as used in the Great War, 201 Principal London Coffee-houses and Taverns in the Eigh- teenth Century. 202 The Montfort Families, 204 Fever in the West Indies : Early Nineteenth Century, 206 The Steam Packet' Hotel, Lower Thames Street The Social Eighteenth Centaiy, 207 Cumulative Stories, 208. QUERIES : Order of St. Michael and St. George Eighteenth- century Etonians A Portrait of Mme. Cornelys A Gun- powder Plot in 1615, 208 Herebertus de Middlesex " Dowle "Barrel Organs in Churches Thomas Scot, Mayor of Dover 1690' Historia Oppidi Hatfleldiensis ' Brighton : " The Chalybeate," Mrs Bushman's School Graham of Mackinston Williams : Shaw, 209 A Lady in Waiting to Queen Adelaide Pirated Barrie Heraldry : Yatton Church, Somerset Portrait of Stephen Theodore Janssen Early Victorian Literature Heraldic : Arms of Mill Hill School George Graham Blackwell Authors wanted Song wanted, 210. REPLIES : General Clement Edwards, 211 Tercentenary Handlist of Newspapers, 213 Oxfordshire Masons Col. Montr6sor of Belmont Josuah Sylvester and Southampton, 214 Refusal to kotow Portraits by Van Dyck Office of Mayor : Place of Worship, 215 The " Hand and Pen " " Sowmoys " Pseudo-titles for " Dummy " Books Pilate's Wife. 216 Pictures in the Hermitage at Petrograd Nigger Minstrelsy. 217 Ewen : Coat of Arms. 218 Cadby American Humorists : Capt. G. H. Derby Colonel Gordon, R.E., in the Crimea English Writers Savery Family Book- plates" Time with a gift of tears," 219. NOTES ON BOOKS : ' An Introduction to Ecclesiastical Latin' Archaeologia AelianaThe Print-Collector's Quar- terly. Notices to Correspondents. ENGLISH ARMY SLANG AS USED IN THE GREAT WAR. (See 12 S. ix. 341, 378, 383, 415, 423, 455, 465,499,502,538; 12S. x. 7.) EFFECT OF THE WAR ON INDIAN LANGUAGES. THE war is going to affect the languages of India to an extent that is not at present recognized, through the return to their homes, often in very remote regions, of soldiers used by the British Government in many parts of the West. Corruptions of English, French and other European languages are likely to find their way into the speech of many remote peoples in forms that will puzzle philologists of the future unless brought to notice now. As an old Gurkha (should be Gorkha) officer, I have been especially interested in specimens of the Nepali language now being published by Mr. R. L. Turner in The Indian Antiquary, as he gives story after story and song after song, arising out of the war, in the actual language of the tellers. Such stories and songs have a long life in the tenacious memories of the Indian folk everywhere, and no doubt long after the present generation of soldiers who have served in the Great War has passed away, they will still be told and sung literatim et verbatim in many a secluded Indian village. And no villages can be more remote and secluded than those of the Himalayan high- lands whence the Gurkhas come, and whither they return on the conclusion of their military service. In the forthcoming April issue of The Indian Antiquary will appear an instalment of Mr. Turner's researches, and it Will include a * Song of France, 1914-1915,' sung by a soldier of the Third Gurkha Regiment, of which the First-Third and the Second- Third Battalions served in France and Egypt. This song is filled with English words occurring in most of the lines. From it I have picked out the following specimens of English in Nepali (Gorkhali) form, some of them of course used in the inflexions of the language. ANGBEJI. English. This is an old corruption. ATEK. Attack. ATEKAI. Attacks. BILJAM. ^Belgium. BIBAI. Beer. The singer says that the beers of France (Phransi ka birai) cooled their bodies ! Bisi. V.C. (Kulbir Thapa le payoni bisi ghaile liaunda man : Kulbir Thapa won the V.C. by bringing in wounded.) DISHAMBAB. December. DISHAMBAB MAINA. Month of December. JARMAN, JABMANI. German, Germany. LESTABI (THE). Leicester (Regiment). LESTABI GOBA. White man of the Leicesters. MABCHA. March. MABCHA KA MAINA. The month of March. MABSAL. Marseilles. MASINGAN. Machine gun. NYUSEPAL. Neuve-Chapelle. PAI/TAN. Battalion (pre-war). PATBOLAI. Patrols. PHAIBA. (Gun)fire. TOPAI KO PHAIBA. Fire of the guns. PHABST TABD. First-Third, i.e., First Battalion of the Third Gurkhas (pre-war). PHBANSI. France, French. This is new : the time-honoured corruption is Farangi, Fer- inghee. SEKSIN. Section of a company (pre-war). SIKIN TABD. Second-Third Gurkhas (pre-war). The safest rule to follow in pronouncin * the romanized Nepali words is to pronounce the vowels as in Italian : ai being pronounced as in aisle. R. C. TEMPLE. So far, among the lists of Army slang used in the Great War, the words for which the