Hobson - Jobson, originally published more than a hundred years ago, remains the indispensable lexicon for the innumerable words that entered into the language of the British expatriates during the Raj. These words came from the Indian languages of the provinces, and from Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Portuguese, Burmese and a host of other tongues, all subjected to the peculiar phonetic distortion that was the privilege of the sahibs. The word `Hobson - Jobson' perhaps illustrates this phonetic journey best, derived originally as it was from 'Ya Hasan. Ya Hosain. '