Hobson-Jobson

The project began through correspondence between Sir Henry Yule, who was then living in Palermo, and Arthur Coke Burnell, who was a member of the Madras Civil Service, and was holding posts in several places in South India, and particularly, in Thanjavur. In 1872, Burnell wrote to Yule that he had been collecting instances of Anglo-Indian usages of English, as Yule had also been working on a similar list of his own. At Yule's suggestion, they combined their projects, working together until Burnell's death in 1882.^[5] Yule and Burnell compiled the text by using a variety of sources, including accounts of Anglo-Indian language and usages by other authors of the time, as well as government documents such as glossaries of revenue administrative and legislative terms, and contemporary dictionaries.^[5]

In Indian English, the term Hobson-Jobson referred to any festival or entertainment, but especially ceremonies of the Mourning of Muharram. In origin, the term is a corruption by British soldiers of "Yā Ḥasan! Yā Ḥosain!" which is repeatedly chanted by Shia Muslims throughout the procession of the Muharram; this was then converted to Hosseen Gosseen, Hossy Gossy, Hossein Jossen and, ultimately, Hobson-Jobson.^[6] Yule and Burnell wrote that they considered the title a "typical and delightful example" of the type of highly domesticated words in the dictionary that also implied their own dual authorship.^[7]

The scholar Traci Nagle, however, also finds a note of condescension in the choice. Rhyming reduplication (as in "Hobson-Jobson" or "puli kili") is highly productive in South Asian languages, where it is known popularly as an echo word. In English, however, rhyming reduplication is generally either juvenile (as in Humpty Dumpty or hokey-pokey) or pejorative (as in namby-pamby or mumbo-jumbo); further, Hobson and Jobson were stock characters in Victorian times, used to indicate a pair of yokels, clowns, or idiots.^[8][9] The title thus produced negative associations – being at best self-deprecatory on the part of the authors, suggesting themselves a pair of idiots – and reviewers reacted negatively to the title, generally praising the book but finding the title inappropriate. Indeed, anticipating this reaction, the title was kept secret – even from the publisher – until shortly before publication.^[10]

The volume received praise on its initial publication from, among others, Rudyard Kipling.^[11] Paul Pelliot, the French Sinologist, welcomed the 1903 version, though including a list of corrections and questions.^[12]

More recently, however, the scholar Vijay Mishra objected that neither Yule nor Burnell had sound training in the languages required. He further objected that "it may be said that built into these hobson-jobsons is a contemptuous attitude, an ironic belittling of the values contained in the original vernacular words." That is, the British colonialists represented in the volume did not know or care to know the original meanings of the words. He gives as an example the word "babu” (babú) which in the original is “an educated or distinguished person" and a term of respect. But as a hobson-jobson “baboo" is degrading as it "attempts to reduce educated Indians (especially Bengalis) to mimics and harlequins."^[13]

James A. Murray made extensive use of Hobson-Jobson in writing entries on South Asian words for the Oxford English Dictionary.^[14]

The term "law of Hobson-Jobson" is sometimes used in linguistics to refer to the process of phonological change by which loanwords are adapted to the phonology of the new language, as in the archetypal example of "Hobson-Jobson" itself.^[15] Webster's Third International Dictionary gives as examples of the law of Hobson-Jobson: Spanish cucaracha becoming English cockroach, and English riding coat becoming French redingote.^[16]

• Anglo-Indian cuisine
• Folk etymology
• Hanklyn-Janklin
• List of English words of Sanskrit origin
• List of English words of Hindi origin
• Phono-semantic matching

• Yule, Henry; Burnell, A.C. (1903). Hobson-Jobson: A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive. William Crooke ed. London: J. Murray. (Searchable database)
• Mishra, Vijay (2009). "Rushdie-Wushdie: Salman Rushdie's Hobson-Jobson". New Literary History. 40 (2): 385–410. doi:10.1353/nlh.0.0087. JSTOR 27760263. S2CID 162138441.
• Nagle, Traci (2010). "'There is much, very much, in the name of a book' or, the Famous Title of Hobson-Jobson and How it Got That Way", in Michael Adams, ed., 'Cunning passages, contrived corridors': Unexpected Essays in the History of Lexicography, pp. 111–127.
• ———— (2014). "The Visible and Invisible Influence of Yule's Hobson-Jobson on Murray's Oxford English Dictionary". International Journal of Lexicography. 27 (3): 280–308. doi:10.1093/ijl/ecu013.
• Pelliot, Paul (1903). "(Review)". Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient. 3 (3): 477–479. JSTOR 43729736.
• Purcell, Susan (2009). "The Law of Hobson-Jobson". English Today. 25 (1): 60–64. doi:10.1017/S0266078409000108. S2CID 145468193. Retrieved 2011-05-12.
• Rushdie, Salman, "Hobson-Jobson", in Imaginary Homelands: Essays & Criticisms, 1981–1991, also collected in Travelers' Tales India by James O'Reilly and Larry Habegger, pp. 97–100.
• Shapiro, Michael C. (1989). "(Review)". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 109 (3): 474. doi:10.2307/604171. hdl:2027/hvd.32044010693141. JSTOR 604171.

• Teltscher, Kate (2017). "Hobson‐Jobson: The East India Company Lexicon". World Englishes. 36 (4): 509–521. doi:10.1111/weng.12285.

• BBC article on Hobson-Jobson

 

Look up Hobson-Jobson in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

 

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Hobson-Jobson

• Yule, Henry, Sir. "Hobson-Jobson: A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive". New ed. edited by William Crooke, B.A. London: J. Murray, 1903. A part of the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia.
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