‘Chav’ has become a very derogatory term as explained by the Oxford English Dictionary: “In the United Kingdom (originally the south of England): a young person of a type characterized by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of designer-style clothes (esp. sportswear); usually with connotations of a low social status.”

However, in Scotland, especially in the North East, Perthshire and South West of the country, chavie is merely a term of address or with specific reference to a ‘sweetheart’ as stated by the Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL)http://www.dsl.ac.uk. The following example is from an informant in Dumfriesshire in 1914: “Has she gotten a chavie?”. This use has survived in Scotland into the 21st century as shown by Jess Smith in her autobiography Jessie’s Journey, and is  used  by her to describe her family: “Along with Mammy and Daddy there were eight of us, all girls, not a chavi [boy] among us, a busload of dillies [girls]” (2002) and, in the same work, Jess also glosses ‘chavi’ to mean ‘friend’.

Jess is a member of Scotland’s Traveller community and has written widely about the language and culture of her people and this gives me a clue to the source of this word. It is originally Romany and in that community it was as follows:‘chavo’ a boy,‘chavi’ a girl and plural ‘chavlis’ children (Gipsy Jib [tongue] James Hayward 2003). It is ultimately from Sanskrit śāva the young of any animal. It was only when it was used by the wider Traveller communities that the meaning became that of a boy or sweetheart.

Although DSL dates the term from the early twentieth century and it is attested in A. McCormick’s Tinkler Gypsies (1907) as being used by the gypsies in Galloway, Perthshire and Argyleshire, Scottish Language Dictionaries research can pre-date it to 1865. It was collected from Scottish gypsies by Walter Simson and documented by his son James in A History of the Gipsies with specimens of the Gipsy language. 

Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel of Scottish Language Dictionaries