The Tinkers and their Language
Naomi Mitchinson on the complex linguistic legacies of the travelling people.
We all have to have something to give us confidence and a decent pride. In fact, history is very largely that. We have a pride in even the less pleasant deeds of our forebears—so long as they are deeds! If people have not got this pride, this myth, this secret world, this under-pinning of the fabric of reason, they will find life much less worth living. But different people get their pride in different ways. It is sometimes difficult for settled folk to realize that a tinker’s life may be worth living. The joys of the open road in Scottish weather are not great. An encampment has little comfort as we know it. So, for the tinkers, pride and myth must be all the more potent.
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