THE Gypsies of England call their language, as the Gypsies of many other
countries call theirs, _Romany_ or _Romanes_, a word either derived from
the Indian _Ram_ or _Rama_, which signifies a husband, or from the town
Rome, which took its name either from the Indian _Ram_, or from the
Gaulic word, _Rom_, which is nearly tantamount to husband or man, for as
the Indian _Ram_ means a husband or man, so does the Gaulic _Pom_ signify
that which constitutes a man and enables him to become a husband.
Before entering on the subject of the English Gypsy, I may perhaps be
expected to say something about the original Gypsy tongue. It is,
however, very difficult to say with certainty anything on the subject.
There can be no doubt that a veritable Gypsy tongue at one time existed,
but that it at present exists there is great doubt indeed. The
probability is that the Gypsy at present exists only in dialects more or
less like the language originally spoken by the Gypsy or Zingaro race.
Several dialects of the Gypsy are to be found which still preserve along
with a considerable number of seemingly original words certain curious
grammatical forms, quite distinct from those of any other speech. Others
are little more than jargons, in which a certain number of Gypsy words
are accommodated to the grammatical forms of the languages of particular
countries. In the foremost class of the purer Gypsy dialects, I have no
hesitation in placing those of Russia, Wallachia, Bulgaria, and
Transylvania. They are so alike, that he who speaks one of them can make
himself very well understood by those who speak any of the rest; from
whence it may reasonably be inferred that none of them can differ much
from the original Gypsy speech; so that when speaking of Gypsy language,
any one of these may be taken as a standard. One of them—I shall not
mention which—I have selected for that purpose, more from fancy than any
particular reason.
The Gypsy language, then, or what with some qualification I may call
such, may consist of some three thousand words, the greater part of which
are decidedly of Indian origin, being connected with the Sanscrit or some
other Indian dialect; the rest consist of words picked up by the Gypsies
from various languages in their wanderings from the East. It has two
genders, masculine and feminine; _o_ represents the masculine and _i_ the
feminine: for example, _boro rye_, a great gentleman; _bori rani_, a
great lady. There is properly no indefinite article: _gajo_ or _gorgio_,
a man or gentile; _o gajo_, the man. The noun has two numbers, the
singular and the plural. It has various cases formed by postpositions,
but has, strictly speaking, no genitive. It has prepositions as well as
postpositions; sometimes the preposition is used with the noun and
sometimes the postposition: for example, _cad o gav_, from the town;
_chungale mannochendar_, evil men from, _i.e._ from evil men. The verb
has no infinitive; in lieu thereof, the conjunction ‘that’ is placed
before some person of some tense. ‘I wish to go’ is expressed in Gypsy
by _camov te jaw_, literally, I wish that I go; thou wishest to go,
_caumes te jas_, thou wishest that thou goest; _caumen te jallan_, they
wish that they go. Necessity is expressed by the impersonal verb and the
conjunction ‘that’: _hom te jay_, I must go; lit. I am that I go; _shan
te jallan_, they are that they go; and so on. There are words to denote
the numbers from one up to a thousand. For the number nine there are two
words, _nu_ and _ennyo_. Almost all the Gypsy numbers are decidedly
connected with the Sanscrit.
After these observations on what may be called the best preserved kind of
Gypsy, I proceed to a lower kind, that of England. The English Gypsy
speech is very scanty, amounting probably to not more than fourteen
hundred words, the greater part of which seem to be of Indian origin.
The rest form a strange medley taken by the Gypsies from various Eastern
and Western languages: some few are Arabic, many are Persian; some are
Sclavo-Wallachian, others genuine Sclavonian. Here and there a Modern
Greek or Hungarian word is discoverable; but in the whole English Gypsy
tongue I have never noted but one French word—namely, _tass_ or _dass_,
by which some of the very old Gypsies occasionally call a cup.
Their vocabulary being so limited, the Gypsies have of course words of
their own only for the most common objects and ideas; as soon as they
wish to express something beyond these they must have recourse to
English, and even to express some very common objects, ideas, and
feelings, they are quite at a loss in their own tongue, and must either
employ English words or very vague terms indeed. They have words for the
sun and the moon, but they have no word for the stars, and when they wish
to name them in Gypsy, they use a word answering to ‘lights.’ They have
a word for a horse and for a mare, but they have no word for a colt,
which in some other dialects of the Gypsy is called _kuro_; and to
express a colt they make use of the words _tawno gry_, a little horse,
which after all may mean a pony. They have words for black, white, and
red, but none for the less positive colours—none for grey, green, and
yellow. They have no definite word either for hare or rabbit; _shoshoi_,
by which they generally designate a rabbit, signifies a hare as well, and
_kaun-engro_, a word invented to distinguish a hare, and which signifies
ear-fellow, is no more applicable to a hare than to a rabbit, as both
have long ears. They have no certain word either for to-morrow or
yesterday, _collico_ signifying both indifferently. A remarkable
coincidence must here be mentioned, as it serves to show how closely
related are Sanscrit and Gypsy. _Shoshoi_ and _collico_ are nearly of
the same sound as the Sanscrit _sasa_ and _kalya_, and exactly of the
same import; for as the Gypsy _shoshoi_ signifies both hare and rabbit,
and _collico_ to-morrow as well as yesterday, so does the Sanscrit _sasa_
signify both hare and rabbit, and _kalya_ to-morrow as well as yesterday.
The poverty of their language in nouns the Gypsies endeavour to remedy by
the frequent use of the word _engro_. This word affixed to a noun or
verb turns it into something figurative, by which they designate, seldom
very appropriately, some object for which they have no positive name.
_Engro_ properly means a fellow, and _engri_, which is the feminine or
neuter modification, a thing. When the noun or verb terminates in a
vowel, _engro_ is turned into _mengro_, and _engri_ into _mengri_. I
have already shown how, by affixing _engro_ to _kaun_, the Gypsies have
invented a word to express a hare. In like manner, by affixing _engro_
to _pov_, earth, they have coined a word for a potato, which they call
_pov-engro_ or _pov-engri_, earth-fellow or thing; and by adding _engro_
to _rukh_, or _mengro_ to _rooko_, they have really a very pretty
figurative name for a squirrel, which they call _rukh-engro_ or
_rooko-mengro_, literally a fellow of the tree. _Poggra-mengri_, a
breaking thing, and _pea-mengri_, a drinking thing, by which they
express, respectively, a mill and a teapot, will serve as examples of the
manner by which they turn verbs into substantives. This method of
finding names for objects, for which there are properly no terms in
Gypsy, might be carried to a great length—much farther, indeed, than the
Gypsies are in the habit of carrying it: a slack-rope dancer might be
termed _bittitardranoshellokellimengro_, or slightly-drawn-rope-dancing
fellow; a drum, _duicoshtcurenomengri_, or a thing beaten by two sticks;
a tambourine, _angustrecurenimengri_, or a thing beaten by the fingers;
and a fife, _muipudenimengri_, or thing blown by the mouth. All these
compound words, however, would be more or less indefinite, and far beyond
the comprehension of the Gypsies in general.
The verbs are very few, and with two or three exceptions expressive only
of that which springs from what is physical and bodily, totally
unconnected with the mind, for which, indeed, the English Gypsy has no
word; the term used for mind, _zi_—which is a modification of the
Hungarian _sziv_—meaning heart. There are such verbs in this dialect as
to eat, drink, walk, run, hear, see, live, die; but there are no such
verbs as to hope, mean, hinder, prove, forbid, teaze, soothe. There is
the verb _apasavello_, I believe; but that word, which is Wallachian,
properly means being trusted, and was incorporated in the Gypsy language
from the Gypsies obtaining goods on trust from the Wallachians, which
they never intended to pay for. There is the verb for love, _camova_;
but that word is expressive of physical desire, and is connected with the
Sanscrit _Cama_, or Cupid. Here, however, the English must not triumph
over the Gypsies, as their own verb ‘love’ is connected with a Sanscrit
word signifying ‘lust.’ One pure and abstract metaphysical verb the
English Gypsy must be allowed to possess—namely, _penchava_, I think, a
word of illustrious origin, being derived from the Persian _pendashtan_.
The English Gypsies can count up to six, and have the numerals for ten
and twenty, but with those for seven, eight, and nine, perhaps not three
Gypsies in England are acquainted. When they wish to express those
numerals in their own language, they have recourse to very uncouth and
roundabout methods, saying for seven, _dui trins ta yeck_, two threes and
one; for eight, _dui stors_, or two fours; and for nine, _desh sore but
yeck_, or ten all but one. Yet at one time the English Gypsies possessed
all the numerals as their Transylvanian, Wallachian, and Russian brethren
still do; even within the last fifty years there were Gypsies who could
count up to a hundred. These were _tatchey Romany_, real Gypsies, of the
old sacred black race, who never slept in a house, never entered a
church, and who, on their death-beds, used to threaten their children
with a curse, provided they buried them in a churchyard. The two last of
them rest, it is believed, some six feet deep beneath the moss of a wild,
hilly heath,—called in Gypsy the _Heviskey Tan_, or place of holes; in
English, Mousehold,—near an ancient city, which the Gentiles call
Norwich, and the Romans the _Chong Gav_, or the town of the hill.
With respect to Grammar, the English Gypsy is perhaps in a worse
condition than with respect to words. Attention is seldom paid to
gender; _boro rye_ and _boro rawnie_ being said, though as _rawnie_ is
feminine, _bori_ and not _boro_ should be employed. The proper Gypsy
plural terminations are retained in nouns, but in declension prepositions
are generally substituted for postpositions, and those prepositions
English. The proper way of conjugating verbs is seldom or never
observed, and the English method is followed. They say, I _dick_, I see,
instead of _dico_; I _dick’d_, I saw, instead of _dikiom_; if I had
_dick’d_, instead of _dikiomis_. Some of the peculiar features of Gypsy
grammar yet retained by the English Gypsies will be found noted in the
Dictionary.
I have dwelt at some length on the deficiencies and shattered condition
of the English Gypsy tongue; justice, however, compels me to say that it
is far purer and less deficient than several of the continental Gypsy
dialects. It preserves far more of original Gypsy peculiarities than the
French, Italian, and Spanish dialects, and its words retain more of the
original Gypsy form than the words of those three; moreover, however
scanty it may be, it is far more copious than the French or the Italian
Gypsy, though it must be owned that in respect to copiousness it is
inferior to the Spanish Gypsy, which is probably the richest in words of
all the Gypsy dialects in the world, having names for very many of the
various beasts, birds, and creeping things, for most of the plants and
fruits, for all the days of the week, and all the months in the year;
whereas most other Gypsy dialects, the English amongst them, have names
for only a few common animals and insects, for a few common fruits and
natural productions, none for the months, and only a name for a single
day—the Sabbath—which name is a modification of the Modern Greek
_κυριακηὴ_.
Though the English Gypsy is generally spoken with a considerable alloy of
English words and English grammatical forms, enough of its proper words
and features remain to form genuine Gypsy sentences, which shall be
understood not only by the Gypsies of England, but by those of Russia,
Hungary, Wallachia, and even of Turkey; for example:—
Kek man camov te jib bolli-mengreskoenæs,
Man camov te jib weshenjugalogonæs.
I do not wish to live like a baptized person. {11a}
I wish to live like a dog of the wood. {11b}
It is clear-sounding and melodious, and well adapted to the purposes of
poetry. Let him who doubts peruse attentively the following lines:—
Coin si deya, coin se dado?
Pukker mande drey Romanes,
Ta mande pukkeravava tute.
Rossar-mescri minri deya!
Wardo-mescro minro dado!
Coin se dado, coin si deya?
Mande’s pukker’d tute drey Romanes;
Knau pukker tute mande.
Petulengro minro dado,
Purana minri deya!
Tatchey Romany si men—
Mande’s pukker’d tute drey Romanes,
Ta tute’s pukker’d mande.
The first three lines of the above ballad are perhaps the oldest specimen
of English Gypsy at present extant, and perhaps the purest. They are at
least as old as the time of Elizabeth, and can pass among the Zigany in
the heart of Russia for Ziganskie. The other lines are not so ancient.
The piece is composed in a metre something like that of the ancient
Sclavonian songs, and contains the questions which two strange Gypsies,
who suddenly meet, put to each other, and the answers which they return.