The English Gipsies and Their Language | Page 2

in their language and in

English their own remarks (noted down by me) on certain curious
customs; among others, on one which indicates that many of them
profess among themselves a certain regard for our Saviour, because His
birth and life appear to them to be like that of the Rommany. There is a
collection of a number of words now current in vulgar English which
were probably derived from Gipsy, such as row, shindy, pal, trash, bosh,
and niggling, and finally a number of Gudli or short stories. These
Gudli have been regarded by my literary friends as interesting and
curious, since they are nearly all specimens of a form of original
narrative occupying a middle ground between the anecdote and fable,
and abounding in Gipsy traits. Some of them are given word for word
as they are current among Gipsies, and others owe their existence
almost entirely either to the vivid imagination and childlike fancies of
an old Gipsy assistant, or were developed from some hint or imperfect
saying or story. But all are thoroughly and truly Rommany; for every
one, after being brought into shape, passed through a purely
"unsophisticated" Gipsy mind, and was finally declared to be tacho, or
sound, by real Rommanis. The truth is, that it is a difficult matter to
hear a story among English Gipsies which is not mangled or marred in
the telling; so that to print it, restitution and invention become
inevitable. But with a man who lived in a tent among the gorse and fern,
and who intermitted his earnest conversation with a little wooden bear
to point out to me the gentleman on horseback riding over the two
beautiful little girls in the flowers on the carpet, such fables as I have
given sprang up of themselves, owing nothing to books, though they
often required the influence of a better disciplined mind to guide them
to a consistent termination.
The Rommany English Vocabulary which I propose shall follow this
work is many times over more extensive than any ever before published,
and it will also be found interesting to all philologists by its
establishing the very curious fact that this last wave of the primitive
Aryan-Indian ocean which spread over Europe, though it has lost the
original form in its subsidence and degradation, consists of the same
substance--or, in other words, that although the grammar has wellnigh
disappeared, the words are almost without exception the same as those
used in India, Germany, Hungary, or Turkey. It is generally believed

that English Gipsy is a mere jargon of the cant and slang of all nations,
that of England predominating; but a very slight examination of the
Vocabulary will show that during more than three hundred years in
England the Rommany have not admitted a single English word to
what they correctly call their language. I mean, of course, so far as my
own knowledge of Rommany extends. To this at least I can testify, that
the Gipsy to whom I was principally indebted for words, though he
often used "slang," invariably discriminated correctly between it and
Rommany; and I have often admired the extraordinary pride in their
language which has induced the Gipsies for so many generations to
teach their children this difference. {0a} Almost every word which my
assistant declared to be Gipsy I have found either in Hindustani or in
the works of Pott, Liebich, or Paspati. On this subject I would remark
by the way, that many words which appear to have been taken by the
Gipsies from modern languages are in reality Indian.
And as I have honestly done what I could to give the English reader
fresh material on the Gipsies, and not a rewarming of that which was
gathered by others, I sincerely trust that I may not be held to sharp
account (as the authors of such books very often are) for not having
given more or done more or done it better than was really in my power.
Gipsies in England are passing away as rapidly as Indians in North
America. They keep among themselves the most singular fragments of
their Oriental origin; they abound in quaint characteristics, and yet
almost nothing is done to preserve what another generation will deeply
regret the loss of. There are complete dictionaries of the Dacotah and
many other American Indian languages, and every detail of the rude
life of those savages has been carefully recorded; while the
autobiographic romances of Mr Borrow and Mr Simson's History
contain nearly all the information of any value extant relative to the
English Gipsies. Yet of these two writers, Mr Borrow is the only one
who had, so to speak, an inside view of his subject, or was a
philologist.
In conclusion I would remark, that if I have not,