The English Gipsies and Their Language | Page 9

England a race which has given its impress to a vast
proportion of our vagabond population, and which is more curious and
more radically distinct in all its characteristics, than our writers, with
one or two exceptions, have ever understood. One extraordinary

difference still remains to be pointed out--as it has, in fact, already been,
with great acumen, by Mr George Borrow, in his "Gipsies in Spain,"
and by Dr Alexander Paspati, in his "Etudes sur les Tchinghianes ou
Bohemiens de l'Empire Ottoman" (Constantinople, 1870); also by Mr
Bright, in his "Hungary," and by Mr Simson. It is this, that in every part
of the world it is extremely difficult to get Rommany words, even from
intelligent gipsies, although they may be willing with all their heart to
communicate them. It may seem simple enough to the reader to ask a
man "How do you call 'to carry' in your language?" But can the reader
understand that a man, who is possibly very much shrewder than
himself in reading at a glance many phases of character, and in
countless trickeries, should be literally unable to answer such a
question? And yet I have met with many such. The truth is, that there
are people in this world who never had such a thing as an abstract idea,
let us say even of an apple, plumped suddenly at them--not once in all
their lives--and, when it came, the unphilosophical mind could no more
grasp it, than the gentleman mentioned by G. H. Lewes (History of
Philosophy), could grasp the idea of substance without attribute as
presented by Berkeley. The real Gipsy could talk about apples all day,
but the sudden demand for the unconnected word, staggers him--at least,
until he has had some practice in this, to him, new process. And it is so
with other races. Professor Max Muller once told me in conversation,
as nearly as I can recollect, that the Mohawk Indian language is
extremely rich in declension, every noun having some sixteen or
seventeen inflexions of case, but no nominative. One can express one's
relations to a father to a most extraordinary extent, among the
dilapidated descendants of that once powerful tribe. But such a thing as
the abstract idea of a father, or of 'father' pur et simple, never entered
the Mohawk mind, and this is very like the Gipsies.
When a rather wild Gipsy once gives you a word, it must be promptly
recorded, for a demand for its repetition at once confuses him. On doit
saisir le mot echappe au Nomade, et ne pas l'obliger a le repeter, car il
le changera selon so, facon, says Paspati. Unused to abstract efforts of
memory, all that he can retain is the sense of his last remark, and very
often this is changed with the fleeting second by some associated
thought, which materially modifies it. It is always difficult, in

consequence, to take down a story in the exact terms which a
philologist desires. There are two words for "bad" in English Gipsy,
wafro and vessavo; and I think it must have taken me ten minutes one
day to learn, from a by no means dull gipsy, whether the latter word
was known to him, or if it were used at all. He got himself into a
hopeless tangle in trying to explain the difference between wafro and
naflo, or ill, until his mind finally refused to act on vessavo at all, and
spasmodically rejected it. With all the patience of Job, and the
meekness of Moses, I awaited my time, and finally obtained my
information.
The impatience of such minds in narrative is amusing. Let us suppose
that I am asking some kushto Rommany chal for a version of AEsop's
fable of the youth and the cat. He is sitting comfortably by the fire, and
good ale has put him into a story-telling humour. I begin--
"Now then, tell me this adree Rommanis, in Gipsy--Once upon a time
there was a young man who had a cat."
Gipsy.--"Yeckorus--'pre yeck cheirus--a raklo lelled a matchka"--
While I am writing this down, and long before it is half done, the
professor of Rommany, becoming interested in the subject, continues
volubly--
--"an' the matchka yeck sala dicked a chillico apre a rukk--(and the cat
one morning saw a bird in a tree"--)
I.--"Stop, stop! Hatch a wongish! That is not it! Now go on. The young
man loved this cat so much"--
Gipsy (fluently, in Rommany), "that he thought her skin would make a
nice pair of gloves"--
"Confound your gloves! Now do begin again"--
Gipsy, with an air of grief and injury: "I'm sure I was telling the story
for you the best way I knew how!"

Yet this man was far from being a fool. What was it, then?