Bloke

“Bloke is a term, when spoken in turn...”

spoke an intern who was open to learn...

This or some other introductory couplet might serve in some way to gently segue you, the reader, from whatever you may have been doing into an adventuresome etymological frolic which you might not otherwise have had occasion to attend. So sit tight and be prepared to have your noggin noodled.

The term bloke, meaning “fellow” or “man”, which replaced chap and is being replaced by dude and guy, though not necessarily in that order, is an English slang word commonly heard on television and at the movies, as well as in some parts of England and Australia (and, incidentally, in parts of Asia where the “r” sound in broke is difficult to pronounce, though we won't be concerned with those “blokes” there). While all else is well and fine with “the” bloke, it has proven to be a bit elusive in its origin. The Oxford Dictionary, venerable as it may be, can only admit of its uncertainty, asking the reader instead to consider the word buachaill meaning “boy” or “lad”, a word from the Shelta language of Ireland, which is a Celtic language spoken by the Travelers. These are people who move about the land much like the Roma (sometimes called “Gypsies”) of continental Europe.

But let's not leave the Roma off the hook. They come from northern India, originally, and It seems they may share a stake in the claim of bloke origin--at least according to one etymology, which tells us that loke, a Romani and Hindi term meaning “a man”, is the true root. Indeed, the word log is listed in an online Hindi dictionary, meaning “man”. So it just may be true.

One source states that bloke was first recorded in 1850, as London slang; another states that it was commonly used in speech as early as 1820 and appeared in a periodical in the 1830s.

It is possible that the Roma brought the word through Europe and sent it off to England as bloke. But where did the “b” come from?

The Farsi word boloogh means “puberty, maturity”. It is separated by only a small degree (or “Angle”--pardon the pun) in sound to the British English bloke, meaning “man, or fellow”, by a similar degree as the English and Farsi of brother and baradar.

Furthermore, the ancient Sanskrit word balaka meaning “childlike, not yet full-grown; a minor (of the law)” and bala meaning “not full-grown, minor” both seem to attest to a cognate relationship between the three terms: balaka, boloogh, bloke.

I found one etymology that ascribed bloke to unknown origins, though perhaps from the Celtic ploc meaning “large, stubborn person”. The same etymology suggested that in the Gypsy and Hindi loke meaning “a man”, lies the origin of bloke.

It seems that these may all be at least tangentially related, as cognates a few mutations removed perhaps; but the Sanskrit balaka seems to indicate a Proto-Indo-European origin. Or does it?

It may well be that bloke didn't become a part of the Londoners' lexicon until after the British Empire had spent some time in Persia and on the Indian subcontinent; or, likewise, until some Persian boloogh or perhaps Indian log or loke made his way to the western schools of higher education to disseminate his country's own lingual coinage.

What do you blokes think?