In case anyone's remotely interested, here's the write up of what I was
messing about with when not distracted by arguing with Jamie. <g>
Robin
Can you rocker Romanie?
I can beat a bull or fight a cock,
I can a pigeon fly;
I'm up to all those knowing tricks
While I my hardware cry.
Can you rocker Romanie,
Can you patter flash,
Can you rocker Romanie,
Can you fake a bosh ?
Stow your gab and gauffery,
To every fakement I'm a fly;
I never takes no fluffery,
For I'm a regular axe-my-eye.
Charles Hindley (ed.), _The Life and Adventures a Cheapjack_ (1876),
pp.231-232.
The latest incarnation attributing this song (or at least one quatrain of
it) to a Romany origin is in Tim Coughlan, _Now Shoon the Romano Gillie:
Traditional Verse in the High and Low Speech of the Gypsies of Britain_
(University of Wales Press, 2001):
Can you rocker Romany
Can you kil the bosh?
Can you jall the sturraben
An' can you chin the kosh?
“The first verse of a song known to most Anglo-Romany speakers in Britain,
asks: ‘Can you speak Romany and play a fiddle, can you put up with jail and
can you carve a cosh?’ The other stanzas pose further random questions,
which Tim Coughlan dissects line by line to reveal a style - at first
glance, unfocused - that works as cultural reinforcement.”
Well, no.
The problem is that the very part of the poem that naturally enough
attracted Romany speakers to it is the very one which points to its
non-Romany origin. The hawker is demonstrating his command of more than one
variety of non-standard speech, not just that he can rocker Romany but that
he can patter flash – and no respectable Romany in nineteenth century
England would deign to patter flash, which was strictly a London urban
accomplishment. And the last line of this quatrain -- "Can you fake a
bosh?" meaning, “Can you play the violin?” – is again standard urban flash
patter, not Romany at all.
Even the second line of the poem contains a concealed joke at the expense of
the audience of the original poem that works in flash but not in Romany – “I
can a pigeon fly.” “Yeah, sure you can fly a pigeon, sunny jim – a blue
pigeon!” To fly a blue pigeon was nineteenth century London urban cant for
stealing lead from the roofs of churches.
What no doubt happened was some Romanies heard the song and, attracted by
the second stanza, decided to turn it to their own purposes. In the course
of time, this origin gets lost, and what persists even today in Romany
travelling communities are various rewritten transformations of it:
Can you rocker Romany?
Can you pook a kosh?
Can you mor a gavmush?
With a knobbly kosh?
Cultural interpenetration, sure, but in this case the influence is from
English cant into Romany rather than vice versa.
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