NOTES AND QUERIES
147
come right out in favour of a Portuguese source. It is indeed very likely that this is a spelling etymology which might never have arisen if the modern Portuguese orthography lingua (with u = English w) had been used in Johnson's day. It is fairly certain that the o in the earlier spelling, lingoa, had the value of English w in eighteenth century Portuguese.
On the other hand, it may be that we should still look to a Portuguese etymology for lingo, but not an etymology drawn from the written standard language of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries but rather to the oversea Portuguese creole (and pidgin) dialects as recorded over the centuries. I have consulted the studies on the Indo-Portuguese dialects by Dalgado available in Hong Kong, including his valuable Glossário Luso-Asiático and find lingo as the form given for tongue, language, in the parts of India and Ceylon where varieties of Portuguese were and still are spoken. Elsewhere I find the form linga reported from the Cape Verde Islands.
In most cases this lingo should probably be pronounced lingu, more or less as in educated metropolitan Portuguese where the final may be voiced, unvoiced or even silent. The form used in Macao in the nineteenth century has been recorded as lingu and the pronunciation of this word by some of the older Portuguese people in Hong Kong at the present time could be so represented. Parallel development may be seen in the Cochinese, Javan, Malaccan, Cape Verdean and Macanese forms agoļagu vis à vis standard written água, and lego and tabu for légua and tábua respectively registered in several Luso-Asiatic dialects.
The earliest reference to lingo recorded in the OED is for 1660 in New Haven Col. Rec. (1858) II, 337: "To wch the plant [= plaintiff] answered that he was not acquainted with the Dutch lingo." Various dictionaries note later references in Congreve and Sheridan: “Well, well, I shall understand your lingo one of these days, cousin; in the mean time I must answer in plain English." (Congreve, Way of the World, A. IV, sc. I); "I have thoughts to learn something of your lingo before I cross the seas." (Congreve); "He is a gentleman of words; he understands your foreign lingo." (Sheridan, St. Patrick's Day, I).
WIRI
NOTES AND QUERIES
147
come right out in favour of a Portuguese source. It is indeed very likely that this is a spelling etymology which might never have arisen if the modern Portuguese orthography lingua (with u = English_w) had been used in Johnson's day. It is fairly certain that the o in the earlier spelling, lingoa, had the value of English w in eighteenth century Portuguese.
On the other hand, it may be that we should still look to a Portuguese etymology for lingo, but not an etymology drawn from the written standard language of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries but rather to the oversea Portuguese creole (and pidgin) dialects as recorded over the centuries. I have consulted the studies on the Indo-Portuguese dialects by Dalgado available in Hong Kong, including his valuable Glossário Luso-Asiático and find lingo as the form given for tongue, language, in the parts of India and Ceylon where varieties of Portuguese were and still are spoken. Elsewhere I find the form linga reported from the Cape Verde Islands.
In most cases this lingo should probably be pronounced lingu, more or less as in educated metropolitan Portuguese where the final may be voiced, unvoiced or even silent. The form used in Macao in the nineteenth century has been recorded as lingu and the pronunciation of this word by some of the older Portuguese people in Hong Kong at the present time could be so represented. Parallel development may be seen in the Cochinese, Javan, Malaccan, Cape Verdean and Macanese forms agoļagu vis à vis standard written água, and lego and tabu for légua and tábua respectively registered in several Luso-Asiatic dialects.
The earliest reference to lingo recorded in the OED is for 1660 in New Haven Col. Rec. (1858) II, 337: "To wch the plant [= plaintiff) answered that he was not acquainted with the Dutch lingo." Various dictionaries note later references in Congreve and Sheridan: “Well, well, I shall understand your lingo one of these days, cousin; in the mean time I must answer in plain English." (Congreve, Way of the World, A. IV, sc. I); "I have thoughts to learn something of your lingo before I cross the seas." (Congreve); "He is a gentleman of words; he understands your foreign lingo." (Sheridan, St. Patrick's Day, I).
WIRI
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