A renewed interested in Indian Ocean studies has underlined possibilities of the transnational. This study highlights lexical borrowing as an analytical tool to deepen our understanding of cultural exchanges between Indian Ocean ports during the long nineteenth century, comparing loanwords from several Asian and African languages and demonstrating how doing so can re-establish severed links between communities. In this comparative analysis, four research avenues come to the fore as specifically useful to explore the dynamics of non-elite contact in this part of the world: (1) nautical jargon, (2) textile terms, (3) culinary terms, and (4) slang associated with society’s lower strata. These domains give prominence to a spectrum of cultural brokers frequently overlooked in the wider literature. It is demonstrated through concrete examples that an analysis of lexical borrowing can add depth and substance to existing scholarship on interethnic contact in the Indian Ocean, providing methodological inspiration to examine lesser studied connections. This study reveals no unified linguistic landscape, but several key individual connections between the ports of the Indian Ocean frequented by Persian, Hindustani, and Malay-speaking communities.

中文翻译：

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水手、裁缝、厨师和骗子：论印度洋港口的外来词和被忽视的生活

对印度洋研究的新兴趣凸显了跨国研究的可能性。本研究强调词汇借用是一种分析工具，可加深我们对 19 世纪印度洋港口之间文化交流的理解，比较来自几种亚洲和非洲语言的借词，并证明这样做可以如何重新建立社区之间的联系。在这个比较分析中，有四种研究途径脱颖而出，特别适用于探索世界这一地区非精英接触的动态：(1) 航海术语，(2) 纺织术语，(3) 烹饪术语，以及(4) 与社会下层有关的俚语。这些领域突出了在更广泛的文献中经常被忽视的一系列文化经纪人。通过具体的例子证明，对词汇借用的分析可以为印度洋民族间接触的现有研究增加深度和内容，为研究较少研究的联系提供方法论灵感。这项研究没有揭示统一的语言景观，但揭示了波斯语、印度斯坦语和马来语社区经常光顾的印度洋港口之间的几个关键个体联系。