TINY or TEENY has been derived from the Gipsy tāno, meaning “little.”
TOFFER, a woman who is well dressed in new clean clothes, probably gets the name from the Gipsy tove, to wash (German Gipsy Tovava). She is, so to speak, freshly washed. To this class belong Toff, a dandy; Tofficky, dressy or gay, and Toft, a dandy or swell.
TOOL as applied to stealing, picking pockets, and burglary, is, like tool, to drive with the reins; derived beyond doubt from the Gipsy word tool, to take or hold. In all the Continental Rommany dialects it is Tulliwawa.
PUNCH, it is generally thought, is Anglo-Indian, derived directly from the Hindustani Pantch or five, from the five ingredients which enter into its composition, but it may have partially got its name from some sporting Gipsy in whose language the word for five is the same as in Sanskrit. There have been thousands of “swell” Rommany chals who have moved in sporting circles of a higher class than they are to be found in at the present day.
“VARDO formerly was Old Cant for a waggon” (The Slang Dictionary). It may be added that it is pure Gipsy, and is still known at the present day to every Rom in England. In Turkish Gipsy, Vordon means a vehicle, in German Gipsy, Wortin.
“Can you VOKER Rommany?” is given by Mr Hotten as meaning “Can you speak Gipsy,”—but there is no such word in Rommany as voker. He probably meant “Can you rākker”—pronounced very often Roker. Continental Gipsy Rakkervava. Mr Hotten derives it from the Latin Vocare!
I do not know the origin of WELCHER, a betting cheat, but it is worthy of remark that in old Gipsy a Walshdo or Welsher meant a Frenchman (from the German Wälsch) or any foreigner of the Latin races.
YACK, a watch, probably received its name from the Gipsy Yak an eye, in the old times when watches were called bull’s eyes.
LUSHY, to be tipsy, and LUSH, are attributed for their origin to the name of Lushington, a once well-known London brewer, but when we find Losho and Loshano in a Gipsy dialect, meaning jolly, from such a Sanskrit root as Lush; as Paspati derives it, there seems to be some ground for supposing the words to be purely Rommany. Dr Johnson said of lush that it was “opposite to pale,” and this curiously enough shows its first source, whether as a “slang” word or as indicative of colour, since one of its early Sanskrit meanings is light or radiance. This identity of the so regarded vulgar and the refined, continually confronts us in studying Rommany.
“To make a MULL of anything,” meaning thereby to spoil or confuse it, if it be derived, as is said, from the Gipsy, must have come from Mullo meaning dead, and the Sanskrit Mara. There is, however, no such Gipsy word as mull, in the sense of entangling or spoiling.
PROSS is a theatrical slang word, meaning to instruct and train a tyro. As there are several stage words of manifest Gipsy origin, I am inclined to derive this from the old Gipsy Priss, to read. In English Gipsy Prasser or Pross means to ridicule or scorn. Something of this is implied in the slang word Pross, since it also means “to sponge upon a comrade,” &c., “for drink.”
TOSHERS are in English low language, “men who steal copper from ship’s bottoms.” I cannot form any direct connection between this word and any in English Gipsy, but it is curious that in Turkish Gipsy Tasi is a cup, and in Turkish Persian it means, according to Paspati, a copper basin used in the baths. It is as characteristic of English Gipsy as of any of its cognate dialects, that we often find lurking in it the most remarkable Oriental fragments, which cannot be directly traced through the regular line of transmission.
UP TO TRAP means, in common slang, intelligent. It is worth observing, that in Gipsy, drab or trap (which words were pronounced alike by the first Gipsies who came from Germany to England), is used for medicine or poison, and the employment of the latter is regarded, even at the present, as the greatest Rommany secret. Indeed, it is only a few days since a Gipsy said to me, “If you know drab, you’re up to everything; for there’s nothing goes above that.” With drab the Gipsy secures game, fish, pigs, and poultry; he quiets kicking horses until they can be sold; and last, not least, kills or catches rats and mice. As with the Indians of North America, medicine—whether to kill or cure—is to the Gipsy the art of arts, and those who affect a knowledge of it are always regarded as the most intelligent. It is, however, remarkable, that the Gipsy, though he lives in fields and woods, is, all the world over, far inferior to the American Indian as regards a knowledge of the properties of herbs or minerals. One may pick the first fifty plants which he sees in the woods, and show them to the first Indian whom he meets, with the absolute certainty that the latter will give him a name for every one, and describe in detail their qualities and their use as remedies. The Gipsy seldom has a name for anything of the kind. The country people in America, and even the farmers’ boys, have probably inherited by tradition much of this knowledge from the aborigines.
BARNEY, a mob or crowd, may be derived from the Gipsy baro, great or many, which sometimes takes the form of barno or barni, and which suggests the Hindustani Bahrna “to increase, proceed, to gain, to be promoted;” and Bharná, “to fill, to satisfy, to be filled, &c.”—(Brice’s “Hindústání and English Dictionary.” London, Trübner & Co., 1864).
BEEBEE, which the author of the Slang Dictionary declares means a lady, and is “Anglo-Indian,” is in general use among English Gipsies for aunt. It is also a respectful form of address to any middle-aged woman, among friends.
CULL or CULLY, meaning a man or boy, in Old English cant, is certainly of Gipsy origin. Chulai signifies man in Spanish Gipsy (Borrow), and Khulai a gentleman, according to Paspati; in Turkish Rommany—a distinction which the word cully often preserves in England, even when used in a derogatory sense, as of a dupe.
JOMER, a sweetheart or female favourite, has probably some connection in derivation with choomer, a kiss, in Gipsy.
BLOKE, a common coarse word for a man, may be of Gipsy origin; since, as the author of the Slang Dictionary declares, it may be found in Hindustani, as Loke. “Lok, people, a world, region.”—(“Brice’s Hind. Dictionary.”) Bala’ lok, a gentleman.
A DUFFER, which is an old English cant term, expressive of contempt for a man, may be derived from the Gipsy Adovo, “that,” “that man,” or “that fellow there.” Adovo is frequently pronounced almost like “a duffer,” or “a duvva.”
NIGGLING, which means idling, wasting time, doing anything slowly, may be derived from some other Indo-European source, but in English Gipsy it means to go slowly, “to potter along,” and in fact it is the same as the English word. That it is pure old Rommany appears from the fact that it is to be found as Niglavava in Turkish Gipsy, meaning “I go,” which is also found in Nikliovava and Nikaváva, which are in turn probably derived from the Hindustani Nikalná, “To issue, to go forth or out,” &c. (Brice, Hind. Dic.) Niggle is one of the English Gipsy words which are used in the East, but which I have not been able to find in the German Rommany, proving that here, as in other countries, certain old forms have been preserved, though they have been lost where the vocabulary is far more copious, and the grammar much more perfect.
MUG, a face, is derived by Mr Wedgwood from the Italian MOCCA, a mocking or apish mouth (Dictionary of English Etymology), but in English Gipsy we have not only mui, meaning the face, but the older forms from which the English word was probably taken, such as Māk’h (Paspati), and finally the Hindustani Mook and the Sanskrit Mukha, mouth or face (Shakespeare, Hind. Dic., p. 745). In all cases where a word is so “slangy” as mug, it seems more likely that it should have been derived from Rommany than from Italian, since it is only within a few years that any considerable number of the words of the latter language was imparted to the lower classes of London.
BAMBOOZLE, BITE, and SLANG are all declared by the author of the Slang Dictionary to be Gipsy, but, with the exception of the last word, I am unable to verify their Rommany origin. Bambhorna does indeed mean in Hindustani (Brice), “to bite or to worry,” and bamboo-bakshish to deceive by paying with a whipping, while swang, as signifying mimicking, acting, disguise and sham, whether of words or deeds, very curiously conveys the spirit of the word slang. As for bite I almost hesitate to suggest the possibility of a connection between it and Bidorna, to laugh at. I offer not only these three suggested derivations, but also most of the others, with every reservation. For many of these words, as for instance bite, etymologists have already suggested far more plausible and more probable derivations, and if I have found a place for Rommany “roots,” it is simply because what is the most plausible, and apparently the most probable, is not always the true origin. But as I firmly believe that there is much more Gipsy in English, especially in English slang and cant, than the world is aware of, I think it advisable to suggest what I can, leaving to abler philologists the task of testing its value.
Writers on such subjects err, almost without an exception, in insisting on one accurately defined and singly derived source for every word, when perhaps three or four have combined to form it. The habits of thought and methods of study followed by philologists render them especially open to this charge. They wish to establish every form as symmetrical and mathematical, where nature has been freakish and bizarre. Some years ago when I published certain poems in the broken English spoken by Germans, an American philologist, named Haldemann, demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the language which I had put into Hans Breitmann’s mouth was inaccurate, because I had not reduced it to an uniform dialect, making the same word the same in spelling and pronunciation on all occasions, when the most accurate observation had convinced me, as it must any one, that those who have only partially learned a language continually vary their methods of uttering its words.
That some words have come from one source and been aided by another, is continually apparent in English Gipsy, as for instance in the word for reins, “guiders,” which, until the Rommany reached England, was voidas. In this instance the resemblance in sound between the words undoubtedly conduced to an union. Gibberish may have come from the Gipsy, and at the same time owe something to gabble, jabber, and the old Norse or Icelandic gifra. Lush may owe something to Mr Lushington, something to the earlier English lush, or rosy, and something to the Gipsy and Sanskrit. It is not at all unlikely that the word codger owes, through cadger, a part of its being to kid, a basket, as Mr Halliwell suggests (Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1852), and yet come quite as directly from gorger or gorgio. “The cheese” probably has the Gipsy-Hidustani chiz for a father, and the French chose for a mother, while both originally sprung thousands of years ago in the great parting of the Aryan nations, to be united after so long a separation in a distant island in the far northern seas.
The etymologist who hesitates to adopt this principle of joint sources of derivation, will find abundant instances of something very like it in many English Gipsy words themselves, which, as belonging to a language in extreme decay, have been formed directly from different, but somewhat similarly sounding, words, in the parent German or Eastern Rommany. Thus, schukker, pretty; bi-shukker, slow; tschukko, dry, and tschororanes, secretly, have in England all united in shukár, which expresses all of their meanings.
CHAPTER VII. PROVERBS AND CHANCE PHRASES.
An Old Gipsy Proverb—Common Proverbs in Gipsy Dress—Quaint Sayings—Characteristic Rommany Picture-Phrases.
Every race has not only its peculiar proverbs, sayings, and catch-words, but also idiomatic phrases which constitute a characteristic chiaroscuro, if not colour. The Gipsies in England have of course borrowed much from the Gorgios, but now and then something of their own appears. In illustration of all this, I give the following expressions noted down from Gipsy conversation:—
Tacho like my dad. True like my father.
Kushto like my dad. Good like my father.
This is a true Gipsy proverb, used as a strongly marked indication of approbation or belief.
Kushto bāk. Good luck!
As the Genoese of old greeted their friends with the word Guadagna! or “Gain!” indicating as Rabelais declares, their sordid character, so the Gipsy, whose life is precarious, and who depends upon chance for his daily bread, replies to “Sarishan!” (good day!) with “Kushto bāk!” or “Good luck to you!” The Arabic “Baksheesh” is from the same root as bak, i.e., bacht.
When there’s a boro bavol, huller the tan parl the waver rikk pauli the bor. When the wind is high, move the tent to the other side of the hedge behind it.
That is to say, change sides in an emergency.
“Hatch apré! Hushti! The prastramengro’s wellin! Jāl the graias avree! Prastee!”
“Jump up! Wide awake there! The policeman’s coming! Run the horses off! Scamper!”
This is an alarm in camp, and constitutes a sufficiently graphic picture. The hint to run the horses off indicates a very doubtful title to their possession.
The prastramengro pens me mustn’t hatch acai.
The policeman says we mustn’t stop here.
No phrase is heard more frequently among Gipsies, who are continually in trouble with the police as to their right to stop and pitch their tents on commons.
I can hatch apré for pange (panj) divvuses.
I can stop here for five days.
A common phrase indicating content, and equivalent to, “I would like to sit here for a week.”
The graias have taddered at the kas-stoggus—we must jāl an dūrer—the gorgio’s dicked us!
The horses have been pulling at the hay-stack—we must hurry away—the man has seen us!
When Gipsies have remained over night on a farm, it sometimes happens that their horses and asses—inadvertently of course—find their way to the haystacks or into a good field. Humanum est errare!
Yeck mush can lel a grai ta panni, but twenty cant kair him pi.
One man can take a horse to water, but twenty can’t make him drink.
A well-known proverb.
A chirrico ’drée the mast is worth dui ’drée the bor.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (hedge).
Never kin a pong dishler nor lel a romni by momeli dood.
Never buy a handkerchief nor choose a wife by candle-light.
Always jāl by the divvus.
Always go by the day.
Chin tutes chuckko by tute’s kaum.
Cut your coat according to your fancy. This is a Gipsy variation of an old proverb.
Fino ranyas kair fino trushnees.
Nice reeds make nice baskets.
He can’t tool his kokerus togetherus (kettenus).
He can’t hold himself together. Spoken of an infirm old man.
Too boot of a mush for his kokero.
Too much of a man for himself; i.e., he thinks too much of himself.
He’s too boot of a mush to rākker a pauveri chavo.
He’s too proud too speak to a poor man. This was used, not in depreciation of a certain nobleman, whom the Gipsy who gave it to me had often seen, but admiringly, as if such hauteur were a commendable quality.
More (koomi) covvas the well.
There are more things to come. Spoken of food on a table, and equivalent to “Don’t go yet.” The appears to be used in this as in many other instances, instead of to for the sake of euphony.
The jivaben has jawed avree out of his gad.
The life has gone out of his shirt, i.e., body. This intimates a long and close connection between the body and the under garment. “Avree out of,” a phrase in which the Gipsy word is immediately followed by its English equivalent, is a common form of expression for the sake of clearness.
I toves my own gad.
I wash my own shirt.
A saying indicating celibacy or independence.
Mo rākkerfor a pennis when tute can’t lel it.
Don’t ask for a thing when you can’t get it.
The wongurs kairs the grasni jāl.
Money makes the mare go.
It’s allers the boro matcho that pet-a-lay ’drée the panni.
It is always the largest fish that falls back into the water.
Bengis your see! Beng in tutes bukko!
The devil in your heart. The devil in your body, or bowels.
This is a common form of imprecation among Gipsies all over the world.
Jawin sār a mush mullerin adrée the boro naflo-ker.
Going like a man dying in the hospital.
Rikker it adrée tute’s kokero see an’ kek’ll jin.
Keep it a secret in your own heart, and nobody will know it.
Del sār mush a sigaben to hair his jivaben. Give every man a chance to make his living.
It’s sim to a choomer, kushti for kek till it’s pordered atween dui.
It’s like a kiss, good for nothing until it is divided between two.
A cloudy sala often purabens to a fino divvus.
A cloudy morning often changes to a fine day.
Iuzhiou panni never jalled avree from a chickli tan.
Clean water never came out from a dirty place.
Sār mush must jāl to the cangry, yeck divvus or the waver.
Every man must go to the church (i.e., be buried) some day or other.
Kek mush ever lelled adusta mongur.
No man ever got money enough.
Pāle the wafri bāk jāls the kushti bāk.
Behind bad luck comes good luck.
Saw mushis ain’t got the sim kammoben as wavers.
All men have not the same tastes.
Lel the tacho pirro, an’ it’s pāsh kaired.
Well begun is half done.
Whilst tute’s rākkerin the cheiruses jāl.
While you are talking the times (hours) fly.
Wafri bāk in a boro ker, sim’s adrée a bitti her.
There may be adversity in a large house as well as in a small one.
The kushtiest covvas allers jāl avree siggest.
The best is soonest gone.
To dick a puro pal is as cāmmoben as a kushti hābben.
To see an old friend is as agreeable as a good meal.
When tuti’s pals chinger yeck with a waver, don’t tute jāl adoi.
When your brothers quarrel don’t you meddle.
Pet up with the rākkerin an’ mor pen chichi.
Endure the chattering and say nothing.
When a mush dels tute a grai tute mān dick ’drée lester’s mui.
When a man gives you a horse you must not look in his mouth.
Mān jāl atut the puvius.
Do not go across the field. Intimating that one should travel in the proper road.
There’s a kushti sovaben at the kunsus of a dūro drum.
There is a sweet sleep at the end of a long road.
Kair the cāmmodearer.
Make the best of it.
Rikker dovo adrée tute’s see.
Keep that a secret.
The koomi foki the tacho.
The more the merrier.
The pishom kairs the gūdlo.
The bee makes the honey. Id est, each does his own work.
The pishom lels the gūdlo avree the roozhers.
The bee gets honey from flowers. Id est, seeks it in the right place.
Hatch till the dood wells apré.
Wait till the moon rises. A very characteristic Gipsy saying.
Can’t pen shukker atut lendy.
You cannot say aught against them.
He’s boccalo ajaw to haw his chokkas.
He’s hungry enough to eat his shoes.
The puro beng is a fino mush!
The devil is a nice character.
Mansha tu pal!
Cheer up, brother. Be a man! Spoken to any one who seems dejected. This corresponds partially to the German Gipsy Manuschwari! which is, however, rather an evil wish and a curse, meaning according to Dr Liebich (Die Zigeuner) the gallows, dire need, and epilepsy. Both in English and German it is, however, derived from Manusch, a man.
He’s a hunnalo nākin mush.
He is an avaricious man. Literally, a spiteful nosed man.
Tute can hair a covva ferridearer if you jāl shukár.
You can do a thing better if you go about it secretly.
We’re lullero adoi we don’t jin the jib.
We are dumb where we do not understand the language.
Chucked (chivved) saw the habben avree.
He threw all the victuals about. A melancholy proverb, meaning that state of irritable intoxication when a man comes home and abuses his family.
A myla that rikkers tute is kushtier to kistur than a grai that chivs you apré.
An ass that carries you is better than a horse that throws you off.
The juva, that sikkers her burk will sikker her bull.
“Free of her lips, free of her hips.”
He sims mandy dree the mui—like a puvengro.
He resembles me—like a potato.
Yeck hotchewitchi sims a waver as yeck bubby sims the waver.
One hedgehog is as like another as two peas.
He mored men dui.
He killed both of us. A sarcastic expression.
I dicked their stadees an langis sherros.
I saw their hats on their heads. Apropos of amazement at some very ordinary thing.
When you’ve tatti panni and rikker tutes kokero pāsh mātto you can jal apré the wen sār a grai.
When you have brandy (spirits), and keep yourself half drunk, you can go through the winter like a horse.
CHAPTER VIII. INDICATIONS OF THE INDIAN ORIGIN OF THE GIPSIES.
Boro Duvel, or “Great God,” an Old Gipsy term for Water—Bishnoo or Vishnu, the Rain-God—The Rain, called God’s Blood by Gipsies—The Snow, “Angel’s Feathers.”—Mahadeva—Buddha—The Simurgh—The Pintni or Mermaid—The Nag or Blind-Worm—Nagari and Niggering—The Nile—Nats and Nautches, Naubat and Nobbet—A Puncher—Pitch, Piller and Pivlibeebee—Quod—Kishmet or Destiny—The Koran in England—“Sass”—Sherengro—Sarserin—Shali or Rice—The Shaster in England—The Evil Eye—Sikhs—Stan, Hindostan, Iranistan—The true origin of Slang—Tat, the Essence of Being—Bahar and Bar—The Origin of the Words Rom and Romni.—Dom and Domni—The Hindi tem—Gipsy and Hindustani points of the Compass—Salaam and Shulam—Sarisham!—The Cups—Women’s treading on objects—Horseflesh—English and Foreign Gipsies—Bohemian and Rommany.
A learned Sclavonian—Michael von Kogalnitschan—has said of Rommany, that he found it interesting to be able to study a Hindu dialect in the heart of Europe. He is quite right; but as mythology far surpasses any philology in interest, as regards its relations to poetry, how much more wonderful is it to find—to-day in England—traces of the tremendous avatars, whose souls were gods, long ago in India. And though these traces be faint, it is still apparent enough that they really exist.
One day an old Gipsy, who is said to be more than usually “deep” in Rommany, and to have had unusual opportunity for acquiring such knowledge from Gipsies older and deeper than himself, sent word to me, to know if “the rye” was aware that Boro Duvel, or the Great God, was an old Rommany expression for water? I thought that this was a singular message to come from a tent at Battersea, and asked my special Gipsy factotum, why God should be called water, or water, God? And he replied in the following words:
“Panni is the Boro Duvel, and it is Bishnoo or Vishnoo, because it pells alay from the Boro Duvel. ‘Vishnu is the Boro Duvel then?’—Āvali. There can’t be no stretch adoi—can there, rya? Duvel is Duvel all the world over—but by the right formation, Vishnoo is the Duvel’s ratt. I’ve shūned adovo būt dusta cheiruses. An’ the snow is poris, that jāls from the angels’ winguses. And what I penned, that Bishnoo is the Duvel’s ratt, is pūro Rommanis, and jinned by saw our foki.” {110}
Now in India, Vishnu and Indra are the gods of the rain.
The learned, who insist that as there ought to be, so there must be, but a single source of derivation for every word, ignoring the fact that a dozen causes may aid in its formation, will at once declare that, as Bishnoo or Vishnoo is derived from the old Gipsy Brishni or Brschindo, and this from the Hindu Barish, and the Sanscrit Varish or Prish, there can be “no rational ground” for connecting the English Gipsy word with the Hindu god. But who can tell what secret undercurrents of dim tradition and vague association may have come down to the present day from the olden time. That rain should be often called God’s blood, and water bearing the name of Vishnu be termed God, and that this should be regarded as a specially curious bit of Gipsy lore, is at any rate remarkable enough.
As for the Gipsies in question ever having heard of Vishnu and other gods (as a friend suggests to me), save in this dim tradition, I can only say, that I doubt whether either of them ever heard even of the apostles; and I satisfied myself that the one who brought the secret had never heard of Joseph, was pitiably ignorant of Potiphar’s wife, and only knew of “Mozhus” or Moses, that he “once heerd he was on the bulrushes.”
Mahadeva, or Mahadev, exists apparently in the mouth of every English Gipsy in the phrase “Maduveleste!” or, God bless you. This word Maduvel is often changed to Mi—duvel, and is generally supposed to mean “My God;” but I was once assured, that the old and correct form was Ma, meaning great, and that it only meant great in connection with Duvel.
A curious illustration of a lost word returning by chance to its original source was given one day, when I asked a Gipsy if he knew such a word as Būddha? He promptly replied, “Yes; that a booderi or boodha mush was an old man;” and pointing to a Chinese image of Buddha, said: “That is a Boohda.” He meant nothing more than that it represented an aged person, but the coincidence was at least remarkable. Budha in Hindustani really signifies an old man.
The same Gipsy, observing on the chimney-piece a quaint image of a Chinese griffin—a hideous little goblin with wings—informed me that the Gipsy name for it was a Seemór or Seemorus, and further declared that the same word meant a dolphin. “But a dolphin has no wings,” I remarked. “Oh, hasn’t it?” rejoined the Gipsy; “its fins are its wings, if it hadn’t wings it could not be a Seemór.” I think I recognise in this Seemór, the Simurgh or Griffin of Persian fable. {112} I could learn nothing more than this, that the Gipsy had always regarded a dolphin as resembling a large-headed winged monster, which he called a Seemór.
NAG is a snake in Hindustani. The English Gipsies still retain this primæval word, but apply it only to the blind-worm. It is, however, remarkable that the Nag, or blind-worm, is, in the opinion of the Rommany, the most mysterious of creatures. I have been told that “when a nag mullers it’s hardus as a kosh, and you can pogger it like a swägler’s toov,” “When a blind-worm dies it is as hard as a stick, and you can break it like a pipe-stem.” They also believe that the Nag is gifted, so far as his will goes, with incredible malignity, and say of him—
“If he could dick sim’s he can shoon,
He wouldn’t mukk mush or graī jāl ān the drum.”
“If he could see as well as he can hear, he would not allow man or horse to go on the road.”
The Hindi alphabet Deva Nagari, “the writing of the gods,” is commonly called Nagari. A common English Gipsy word for writing is “niggering.” “He niggered sār he could pooker adrée a chinamangree.” The resemblance between nagari and nigger may, it is true, be merely accidental, but the reader, who will ascertain by examination of the vocabulary the proportion of Rommany words unquestionably Indian, will admit that the terms have probably a common origin.
From Sanskrit to English Gipsy may be regarded as a descent “from the Nile to a street-gutter,” but it is amusing at least to find a passable parallel for this simile. Nill in Gipsy is a rivulet, a river, or a gutter. Nala is in Hindustani a brook; nali, a kennel: and it has been conjectured that the Indian word indicates that of the great river of Egypt.
All of my readers have heard of the Nautch girls, the so-called bayadères or dancing-girls of India; but very few, I suppose, are aware that their generic name is remotely preserved in several English Gipsy words. Nāchna in Hindustani means to dance, while the Nāts, who are a kind of Gipsies, are generally jugglers, dancers, and musicians. A natua is one of these Nāts, and in English Gipsy nautering means going about with music. Other attractions may be added, but, as I have heard a Gipsy say, “it always takes music to go a-nauterin’ or nobbin’.”
Naubat in the language of the Hindu Nāts signifies “time, turn, and instruments of music sounding at the gate of a great man, at certain intervals.” “Nobbet,” which is a Gipsy word well known to all itinerant negro minstrels, means to go about with music to get money. “To nobbet round the tem, bosherin’.” It also implies time or turn, as I inferred from what I was told on inquiry. “You can shoon dovo at the wellgooras when yeck rākkers the waver, You jāl and nobbet.” “You can hear that at the fairs when one says to the other, You go and nobbet,” meaning, “It is your turn to play now.”
Nāchna, to dance (Hindustani), appears to be reflected in the English Gipsy “nitchering,” moving restlessly, fidgeting and dancing about. Nobbeting, I was told, “is nauterin’—it’s all one, rya!”
Paejama in India means very loose trousers; and it is worth noting that Gipsies call loose leggings, trousers, or “overalls,” peajamangris. This may be Anglo-Indian derived from the Gorgios. Whether “pea-jacket” belongs in part to this family, I will not attempt to decide.
Living constantly among the vulgar and uneducated, it is not to be wondered at that the English Gipsies should have often given a vulgar English and slangy term to many words originally Oriental. I have found that, without exception, there is a disposition among most people to promptly declare that all these words were taken, “of course,” from English slang. Thus, when I heard a Gipsy speak of his fist as a “puncher,” I naturally concluded that he did so because he regarded its natural use to be to “punch” heads with. But on asking him why he gave it that name, he promptly replied, “Because it takes pānge (five) fingers to make a fist.” And since panja means in Hindustani a hand with the five fingers extended, it is no violent assumption to conclude that even puncher may owe quite as much to Hindustani as to English, though I cheerfully admit that it would perhaps never have existed had it not been for English associations. Thus a Gipsy calls a pedlar a packer or pack-mush. Now, how much of this word is due to the English word pack or packer, and how much to paikár, meaning in Hindustani a pedlar? I believe that there has been as much of the one as of the other, and that this doubly-formative influence, or influence of continuation, should be seriously considered as regards all Rommany words which resemble in sound others of the same meaning, either in Hindustani or in English. It should also be observed that the Gipsy, while he is to the last degree inaccurate and a blunderer as regards English words (a fact pointed out long ago by the Rev. Mr Crabb), has, however, retained with great persistence hundreds of Hindu terms. Not being very familiar with peasant English, I have generally found Gipsies more intelligible in Rommany than in the language of their “stepfather-land,” and have often asked my principal informant to tell me in Gipsy what I could not comprehend in “Anglo-Saxon.”
“To pitch together” does not in English mean to stick together, although pitch sticks, but it does in Gipsy; and in Hindustani, pichchi means sticking or adhering. I find in all cases of such resemblance that the Gipsy word has invariably a closer affinity as regards meaning to the Hindu than to the English, and that its tendencies are always rather Oriental than Anglo-Saxon. As an illustration, I may point out piller (English Gipsy) to attack, having an affinity in pilna (Hindustani), with the same meaning. Many readers will at once revert to pill, pillér, and pillage—all simply implying attack, but really meaning to rob, or robbery. But piller in English Gipsy also means, as in Hindustani, to assault indecently; and this is almost conclusive as to its Eastern origin.
It is remarkable that the Gipsies in England, or all the world over, have, like the Hindus, a distinctly descriptive expression for every degree of relationship. Thus a pivli beebee in English Gipsy, or pupheri bahim in Hindustani, is a father’s sister’s daughter. This in English, as in French or German, is simply a cousin.
Quod, imprisonment, is an old English cant and Gipsy word which Mr Hotten attempts to derive from a college quadrangle; but when we find that the Hindu quaid also means confinement, the probability is that it is to it we owe this singular term.
There are many words in which it is evident that the Hindu Gipsy meaning has been shifted from a cognate subject. Thus putti, the hub of a wheel in Gipsy, means the felly of a wheel in Hindustani. Kaizy, to rub a horse down, or scrape him, in the original tongue signifies “to tie up a horse’s head by passing the bridle to his tail,” to prevent his kicking while being rubbed or ’scraped. Quasur, or kasur, is in Hindustani flame: in English Gipsy kessur signifies smoke; but I have heard a Gipsy more than once apply the same term to flame and smoke, just as miraben stands for both life and death.
Very Oriental is the word kismet, or destiny, as most of my readers are probably aware. It is also English Gipsy, and was explained to me as follows: “A man’s kismut is what he’s bound to kair—it’s the kismut of his see. Some men’s kismut is better’n wavers, ’cos they’ve got more better chiv. Some men’s kismut’s to bikin grais, and some to bikin kānis; but saw foki has their kismut, an’ they can’t pen chichi elsus.” In English, “A man’s destiny is what he is bound to do—it is the fate of his soul (life). Some men’s destiny is better than others, because they have more command of language. Some are fated to sell horses, and others to sell hens; but all people have their mission, and can do nothing else.”
Qurán in the East means the Koran, and qurán uthara to take an oath. In English Gipsy kurran, or kurraben, is also an oath, and it seems strange that such a word from such a source should exist in England. It is, however, more interesting as indicating that the Gipsies did not leave India until familiarised with Mohammedan rule. “He kaired his kurran pré the Duvel’s Bavol that he would jāl ’vree the tem for a besh.” “He swore his oath upon God’s Breath (the Bible) that he would leave the country for a year.” Upon inquiring of the Gipsy who uttered this phrase why he called the Bible “God’s Breath,” he replied naïvely, “It’s sim to the Duvel’s jivaben, just the same as His breathus.” “It is like God’s life, just the same as His breath.”
It is to be observed that nearly all the words which Gipsies claim as Gipsy, notwithstanding their resemblance to English, are to be found in Hindustani. Thus rutter, to copulate, certainly resembles the English rut, but it is quite as much allied to rutana (Hindustani), meaning the same thing. “Sass,” or sauce, meaning in Gipsy, bold, forward impudence, is identical with the same English word, but it agrees very well with the Hindu sáhas, bold, and was perhaps born of the latter term, although it has been brought up by the former.
Dr A. F. Pott remarks of the German Gipsy word schetra, or violin, that he could nowhere find in Rommany a similar instrument with an Indian name. Surrhingee, or sarunghee, is the common Hindu word for a violin; and the English Gipsies, on being asked if they knew it, promptly replied that it was “an old word for the neck or head of a fiddle.” It is true they also called it sarengro, surhingro, and shorengro, the latter word indicating that it might have been derived from sherro-engro—i.e., “head-thing.” But after making proper allowance for the Gipsy tendency, or rather passion, for perverting words towards possible derivations, it seems very probable that the term is purely Hindu.
Zuhru, or Zohru, means in the East Venus, or the morning star; and it is pleasant to find a reflection of the rosy goddess in the Gipsy soor, signifying “early in the morning.” I have been told that there is a Rommany word much resembling soor, meaning the early star, but my informant could not give me its exact sound. Dood of the sala is the common name for Venus. Sunrise is indicated by the eccentric term of “kam-left the panni” or sun-left the water. “It wells from the waver tem you jin,” said my informant, in explanation. “The sun comes from a foreign country, and first leaves that land, and then leaves the sea, before it gets here.”
When a Gipsy is prowling for hens, or any other little waifs, and wishes to leave a broken trail, so that his tracks may not be identified, he will walk with the feet interlocked—one being placed outside the other—making what in America is very naturally termed a snake-trail. This he calls sarserin, and in Hindu sarasáná means to creep along like a snake.
Supposing that the Hindu word for rice, sháli, could hardly have been lost, I asked a Gipsy if he knew it, and he at once replied, “Shali giv is small grain-corn, werry little grainuses indeed.”
Shalita in Hindustani is a canvas sack in which a tent is carried. The English Gipsy has confused this word with shelter, and yet calls a small or “shelter” tent a shelter gunno, or bag. “For we rolls up the big tent in the shelter tent, to carry it.” A tent cloth or canvas is in Gipsy a shummy, evidently derived from the Hindu shumiyana, a canopy or awning.
It is a very curious fact that the English Gipsies call the Scripture or Bible the Shaster, and I record this with the more pleasure, since it fully establishes Mr Borrow as the first discoverer of the word in Rommany, and vindicates him from the suspicion with which his assertion was received by Dr Pott. On this subject the latter speaks as follows:—
“Eschastra de Moyses, l. ii. 22; ο νομος, M.; Sanskrit, çâstra; Hind., shāstr, m. Hindu religious books, Hindu law, Scripture, institutes of science (Shakespeare). In proportion to the importance of the real existence of this word among the Gipsies must be the suspicion with which we regard it, when it depends, as in this instance, only on Borrow’s assertion, who, in case of need, to supply a non-existing word, may have easily taken one from the Sanskrit.”—Die Zigeuner, vol. ii. p. 224.
The word shaster was given to me very distinctly by a Gipsy, who further volunteered the information, that it not only meant the Scriptures, but also any written book whatever, and somewhat marred the dignity of the sublime association of the Bible and Shaster, by adding that “any feller’s bettin’-book on the race-ground was a shasterni lil, ’cos it’s written.”
I have never heard of the evil eye among the lower orders of English, but among Gipsies a belief in it is as common as among Hindus, and both indicate it by the same word, seer or sihr. In India sihr, it is true, is applied to enchantment or magic in general, but in this case the whole may very well stand for a part. I may add that my own communications on the subject of the jettatura, and the proper means of averting it by means of crab’s claws, horns, and the usual sign of the fore and little finger, were received by a Gipsy auditor with great faith and interest.
To show, teach, or learn, is expressed in Gipsy by the word sikker, sig, or seek. The reader may not be aware that the Sikhs of India derive their name from the same root, as appears from the following extract from Dr Paspati’s études: “Sikava, v. prim. 1 cl. 1 conj. part, siklo’, montrer, apprendre. Sanskrit, s’iks’, to learn, to acquire science; siksáka, adj., a learner, a teacher. Hindustani, seek’hna, v.a., to learn, to acquire; seek’h, s.f., admonition.” I next inquired why they were called Seeks, and they told me it was a word borrowed from one of the commandments of their founder, which signifies ‘learn thou,’ and that it was adopted to distinguish the sect soon after he disappeared. The word, as is well known, has the same import in the Hindoovee” (“Asiatic Researches,” vol. i. p. 293, and vol. ii. p. 200). This was a noble word to give a name to a body of followers supposed to be devoted to knowledge and truth.
The English Gipsy calls a mermaid a pintni; in Hindu it is bint ool buhr, a maid of the sea. Bero in Gipsy is the sea or a ship, but the Rommany had reduced the term to the original bint, by which a girl is known all over the East.
“Ya bint’ Eeskenderéyeh.”
Stan is a word confounded by Gipsies with both stand, a place at the races or a fair, and tan, a stopping-place, from which it was probably derived. But it agrees in sound and meaning with the Eastern stan, “a place, station,” and by application “country,” so familiar to the reader in Hindustan, Iranistan, Beloochistan, and many other names. It is curious to find in the Gipsy tan not only the root-word of a tent, but also the “Alabama,” or “here we rest,” applied by the world’s early travellers to so many places in the Morning Land.
Slang does not mean, as Mr Hotten asserts, the secret language of the Gipsies, but is applied by them to acting; to speaking theatrical language, as in a play; to being an acrobat, or taking part in a show. It is a very old Gipsy word, and indicates plainly enough the origin of the cant word “slang.” Using other men’s words, and adopting a conventional language, strikes a Gipsy as artificial; and many men not Gipsies express this feeling by speaking of conventional stage language as “theatrical slang.” Its antiquity and origin appear in the Hindu swángí, an actor; swang, mockery, disguise, sham; and swang lena, to imitate. As regards the sound of the words, most English Gipsies would call swang “slang” as faithfully as a Cockney would exchange hat with ’at.
Deepest among deep words in India is tat, an element, a principle, the essence of being; but it is almost amusing to hear an English Gipsy say “that’s the tátto (or tāt) of it,” meaning thereby “the thing itself,” the whole of it. And thus the ultimate point of Brahma, and the infinite depth of all transcendental philosophy, may reappear in a cheap, portable, and convenient form, as a declaration that the real meaning of some mysterious transaction was that it amounted to a sixpenny swindle at thimble-rig; for to such base uses have the Shaster and the Vedas come in England.
It is, however, pleasant to find the Persian bahar, a garden, recalling Bahar Danush, the garden of knowledge (Hindustani, bāgh), reappearing in the English Gipsy bar. “She pirryed adrée the bar lellin ruzhers.” “She walked in the garden plucking flowers.” And it is also like old times and the Arabian Nights at home, to know that bazaar is a Gipsy word, though it be now quite obsolete, and signifies no longer a public street for shops, but an open field.
But of all words which identify the Gipsies with the East, and which prove their Hindu origin, those by which they call themselves Rom and Romni are most conclusive. In India the Dom caste is one of the lowest, whose business it is for the men to remove carcasses, while the Domni, or female Dom, sings at weddings. Everything known of the Dom identifies them with Gipsies. As for the sound of the word, any one need only ask the first Gipsy whom he meets to pronounce the Hindu d or the word Dom, and he will find it at once converted into l or r. There are, it is true, other castes and classes in India, such as Nāts, the roving Banjaree, Thugs, &c., all of which have left unmistakable traces on the Gipsies, from which I conclude that at some time when these pariahs became too numerous and dangerous there was a general expulsion of them from India. {124}
I would call particular attention to my suggestion that the Corn of India is the true parent of the Rom, because all that is known of the former caste indicates an affinity between them. The Dom pariahs of India who carry out or touch dead bodies, also eat the bodies of animals that have died a natural death, as do the Gipsies of England. The occupation of the Domni and Romni, dancing and making music at festivals, are strikingly allied. I was reminded of this at the last opera which I witnessed at Covent Garden, on seeing stage Gipsies introduced as part of the fête in “La Traviata.”
A curious indication of the Indian origin of the Gipsies may be found in the fact that they speak of every foreign country beyond sea as the Hindi tem, Hindi being in Hindustani their own word for Indian. Nothing was more natural than that the Rommany on first coming to England should speak of far-away regions as being the same as the land they had left, and among such ignorant people the second generation could hardly fail to extend the term and make it generic. At present an Irishman is a Hindi tem mush, or Hindu; and it is rather curious, by the way, that a few years ago in America everything that was anti-Irish or native American received the same appellation, in allusion to the exclusive system of castes.
Although the Gipsies have sadly confounded the Hindu terms for the “cardinal points,” no one can deny that their own are of Indian origin. Uttar is north in Hindustani, and Utar is west in Rommany. As it was explained to me, I was told that “Utar means west and wet too, because the west wind is wet.” Shimal is also north in Hindu; and on asking a Gipsy what it meant, he promptly replied, “It’s where the snow comes from.” Poorub is the east in Hindustani; in Gipsy it is changed to porus, and means the west.
This confusion of terms is incidental to every rude race, and it must be constantly borne in mind that it is very common in Gipsy. Night suggests day, or black white, to the most cultivated mind; but the Gipsy confuses the name, and calls yesterday and to-morrow, or light and shadow, by the same word. More than this, he is prone to confuse almost all opposites on all occasions, and wonders that you do not promptly accept and understand what his own people comprehend. This is not the case among the Indians of North America, because oratory, involving the accurate use of words, is among them the one great art; nor are the negroes, despite their heedless ignorance, so deficient, since they are at least very fond of elegant expressions and forcible preaching. I am positive and confident that it would be ten times easier to learn a language from the wildest Indian on the North American continent than from any real English Gipsy, although the latter may be inclined with all his heart and soul to teach, even to the extent of passing his leisure days in “skirmishing” about among the tents picking up old Rommany words. Now the Gipsy has passed his entire life in the busiest scenes of civilisation, and is familiar with all its refined rascalities; yet notwithstanding this, I have found by experience that the most untutored Kaw or Chippewa, as ignorant of English as I was ignorant of his language, and with no means of intelligence between us save signs, was a genius as regards ability to teach language when compared to most Gipsies.
Everybody has heard of the Oriental salaam! In English Gipsy shulam means a greeting. “Shulam to your kokero!” is another form of sarishan! the common form of salutation. The Hindu sar i sham signifies “early in the evening,” from which I infer that the Dom or Rom was a nocturnal character like the Night-Cavalier of Quevedo, and who sang when night fell, “Arouse ye, then, my merry men!” or who said “Good-evening!” just as we say (or used to say) “Good-day!” {127}
A very curious point of affinity between the Gipsies and Hindus may be found in a custom which was described to me by a Rom in the following words:—
“When a mush mullers, an’ the juvas adrée his ker can’t kair habben because they feel so naflo ’bout the rom being gone, or the chavï or juvalo mush, or whoever it may be, then their friends for trin divvuses kairs their habben an’ bitchers it a lende. An’ that’s tacho Rommanis, an’ they wouldn’t be dessen Rommany chuls that wouldn’t kair dovo for mushis in sig an’ tukli.”
“When a man dies, and the women in his house cannot prepare food (literally, make food) as they feel so badly because the man is gone (or the girl, or young man, or whoever it may be), then their friends for three days prepare their food and send it to them. And that is real Rommany (custom), and they would not be decent Rommany fellows who would not do that for people in sorrow and distress.”
Precisely the same custom prevails in India, where it is characterised by a phrase strikingly identical with the English Gipsy term for it. In England it is to kair habben, in Hindustani (Brice, Hin. Dict.) “karwá khana is the food that is sent for three days from relations to a family in which one of the members has died.” The Hindu karwáná, to make or to cause to do, and kara, to do, are the origin of the English Gipsy kair (to make or cook), while from khana, or ’hāna, to eat, comes haw and habben, or food.
The reader who is familiar with the religious observances of India is probably aware of the extraordinary regard in which the cup is held by many sects. In Germany, as Mr Liebich declares, drinking-cups are kept by the Gipsies with superstitious regard, the utmost care being taken that they never fall to the ground. “Should this happen, the cup is never used again. By touching the ground it becomes sacred, and should no more be used. When a Gipsy cares for nothing else, he keeps his drinking-cup under every circumstance.” I have not been able to ascertain whether this species of regard for the cup ever existed in England, but I know of many who could not be induced to drink from a white cup or bowl, the reason alleged being the very frivolous and insufficient one, that it reminded them of a blood-basin. It is almost needless to say that this could never have been the origin of the antipathy. No such consideration deters English peasants from using white crockery drinking-vessels.
In Germany, among the Gipsies, if a woman has trodden on any object, or if the skirt of her dress has swept over or touched it, it is either destroyed, or if of value, is disposed of or never used again. I found on inquiry that the same custom still prevails among the old Gipsy families in England, and that if the object be a crockery plate or cup, it is at once broken. For this reason, even more than for convenience, real Gipsies are accustomed to hang every cooking utensil, and all that pertains to the table, high up in their waggons. It is almost needless to point out how closely these ideas agree with those of many Hindus. The Gipsy eats every and any thing except horseflesh. Among themselves, while talking Rommany, they will boast of having eaten mullo baulors, or pigs that have died a natural death, and hotchewitchi, or hedgehog, as did the belle of a Gipsy party to me at Walton-on-Thames in the summer of 1872. They can give no reason whatever for this inconsistent abstinence. But Mr Simson in his “History of the Gipsies” has adduced a mass of curious facts, indicating a special superstitious regard for the horse among the Rommany in Scotland, and identifying it with certain customs in India. It would be a curious matter of research could we learn whether the missionaries of the Middle Ages, who made abstinence from horse-flesh a point of salvation (when preaching in Germany and in Scandinavia), derived their superstition, in common with the Gipsies, from India.
There can be no doubt that in seeking for the Indian origin of many Gipsy words we are often bewildered, and that no field in philology presents such opportunity for pugnacious critics to either attack or defend the validity of the proofs alleged. The very word for “doubtful” or “ambiguous,” dubeni or dub’na, is of this description. Is it derived from the Hindu dhoobd’ha, which every Gipsy would pronounce doobna, or from the English dubious, which has been made to assume the Gipsy-Indian termination na? Of this word I was naïvely told, “If a juva’s bori (girl is big), that’s dub’ni; and if she’s shuvalo (swelled up), that’s dubni: for it may pen (say) she’s kaired a tikno (is enceinte), and it may pen she hasn’t.” But when we find that the English Gipsy also employs the word dukkeni for “doubtful,” and compare it with the Hindustani dhokna or dukna, the true derivation becomes apparent.
Had Dr Pott or Dr Paspati had recourse to the plan which I adopted of reading a copious Hindustani dictionary entirely through, word by word, to a patient Gipsy, noting down all which he recognised, and his renderings of them, it is very possible that these learned men would in Germany and Turkey have collected a mass of overwhelming proof as to the Indian origin of Rommany. At present the dictionary which I intend shall follow this work shows that, so far as the Rommany dialects have been published, that of England contains a far greater number of almost unchanged Hindu words than any other, a fact to which I would especially call the attention of all who are interested in this curious language. And what is more, I am certain that the supply is far from being exhausted, and that by patient research among old Gipsies, the Anglo-Rommany vocabulary might be increased to possibly five or six thousand words.
It is very possible that when they first came from the East to Europe the Gipsies had a very copious supply of words, for there were men among them of superior intelligence. But in Turkey, as in Germany, they have not been brought into such close contact with the Gorgios as in England: they have not preserved their familiarity with so many ideas, and consequently their vocabulary has diminished. Most of the Continental Gipsies are still wild, black wanderers, unfamiliar with many things for which the English Gipsy has at least a name, and to which he has continued to apply old Indian words. Every one familiar with the subject knows that the English Gipsies in America are far more intelligent than their German Rommany cousins. A few years ago a large party of the latter appeared at an English racecourse, where they excited much attention, but greatly disgusted the English Roms, not as rivals, but simply from their habits. “They couldn’t do a thing but beg,” said my informant. “They jinned (knew) nothing else: they were the dirtiest Gipsies I ever saw; and when the juvas suckled the children, they sikkered their burks (showed their breasts) as I never saw women do before foki.” Such people would not, as a rule, know so many words as those who looked down on them.
The conclusion which I have drawn from studying Anglo-Rommany, and different works on India, is that the Gipsies are the descendants of a vast number of Hindus, of the primitive tribes of Hindustan, who were expelled or emigrated from that country early in the fourteenth century. I believe they were chiefly of the primitive tribes, because evidence which I have given indicates that they were identical with the two castes of the Doms and Nāts—the latter being, in fact, at the present day, the real Gipsies of India. Other low castes and outcasts were probably included in the emigration, but I believe that future research will prove that they were all of the old stock. The first Pariahs of India may have consisted entirely of those who refused to embrace the religion of their conquerors.
It has been coolly asserted by a recent writer that Gipsies are not proved to be of Hindu origin because “a few” Hindu words are to be found in their language. What the proportion of such words really is may be ascertained from the dictionary which will follow this work. But throwing aside all the evidence afforded by language, traditions, manners, and customs, one irrefutable proof still remains in the physical resemblance between Gipsies all the world over and the natives of India. Even in Egypt, the country claimed by the Gipsies themselves as their remote great-grandfather-land, the native Gipsy is not Egyptian in his appearance but Hindu. The peculiar brilliancy of the eye and its expression in the Indian is common to the Gipsy, but not to the Egyptian or Arab; and every donkey-boy in Cairo knows the difference between the Rhagarin and the native as to personal appearance. I have seen both Hindus in Cairo and Gipsies, and the resemblance to each other is as marked as their difference from Egyptians.
A few years ago an article on the Rommany language appeared in the “Atlantic Magazine” (Boston, U.S., America), in which the writer declared that Gipsy has very little affinity with Hindustani, but a great deal with Bohemian or Chech—in fact, he maintained, if I remember right, that a Chech and a Rom could understand one another in either of their respective tongues. I once devoted my time for several months to unintermitted study of Chech, and consequently do not speak in entire ignorance when I declare that true Rommany contains scores of Hindu words to one of Bohemian. {133}
CHAPTER IX. MISCELLANEA.
Gipsies and Cats.—“Christians.”—Christians not “Hanimals.”—Green, Red, and Yellow.—The Evil Eye.—Models and Morals.—Punji and Sponge-cake.—Troubles with a Gipsy Teacher.—Pilferin’ and Bilberin’.—Khapana and Hopper.—Hoppera-glasses.—The little wooden Bear.—Huckeny Ponkee, Hanky Panky, Hocus-pocus, and Hokkeny Bāro.—Burning a Gipsy Witch alive in America.—Daniel in the Lions’ Den.—Gipsy Life in Summer.—The Gavengroes.—The Gipsy’s Story of Pitch-and-Toss.—“You didn’t fight your Stockings off?”—The guileless and venerable Gipsy.—The Gipsy Professor of Rommany and the Police.—His Delicacy of Feeling.—The old Gipsy and the beautiful Italian Models.—The Admired of the Police.—Honesty strangely illustrated.—Gipsies willing or unwilling to communicate Rommany.—Romance and Eccentricity of Gipsy Life and Manners.—The Gipsy Grandmother and her Family.—A fine Frolic interrupted.—The Gipsy Gentleman from America.—No such Language as Rommany.—Hedgehogs.—The Witch Element in Gipsy Life.—Jackdaws and Dogs.—Their Uses.—Lurchers and Poachers.—A Gipsy Camp.—The Ancient Henry.—I am mistaken for a Magistrate or Policeman.—Gipsies of Three Grades.—The Slangs.—Jim and the Twigs.—Beer rained from Heaven.—Fortune-telling.—A golden Opportunity to live at my Ease.—Petulamengro.—I hear of a New York Friend.—The Professor’s Legend of the Olive-leaf and the Dove, “A wery tidy little Story.”—The Story of Samson as given by a Gipsy.—The great Prize-fighter who was hocussed by a Fancy Girl.—The Judgment Day.—Passing away in Sleep or Dream to God.—A Gipsy on Ghosts.—Dogs which can kill Ghosts.—Twisted-legged Stealing.—How to keep Dogs away from a Place.—Gipsies avoid Unions.—A Gipsy Advertisement in the “Times.”—A Gipsy Poetess and a Rommany Song.
It would be a difficult matter to decide whether the superstitions and odd fancies entertained by the Gipsies in England are derived from the English peasantry, were brought from India, or picked up on the way. This must be left for ethnologists more industrious and better informed than myself to decide. In any case, the possible common Aryan source will tend to obscure the truth, just as it often does the derivation of Rommany words. But nothing can detract from the inexpressibly quaint spirit of Gipsy originality in which these odd credos are expressed, or surpass the strangeness of the reasons given for them. If the spirit of the goblin and elfin lingers anywhere on earth, it is among the Rommany.
One day I questioned a Gipsy as to cats, and what his opinion was of black ones, correctly surmising that he would have some peculiar ideas on the subject, and he replied—
“Rommanys never lel kaulo matchers adrée the ker, ’cause they’re mullos, and beng is covvas; and the puro beng, you jin, is kaulo, an’ has shtor herros an’ dui mushis—an’ a sherro. But pauno matchers san kushto, for they’re sim to pauno ghosts of rānis.”
Which means in English, “Gipsies never have black cats in the house, because they are unearthly creatures, and things of the devil; and the old devil, you know, is black, and has four legs and two arms—and a head. But white cats are good, for they are like the white ghosts of ladies.”
It is in the extraordinary reason given for liking white cats that the subtle Gipsyism of this cat-commentary consists. Most people would consider a resemblance to a white ghost rather repulsive. But the Gipsy lives by night a strange life, and the reader who peruses carefully the stories which are given in this volume, will perceive in them a familiarity with goblin-land and its denizens which has become rare among “Christians.”
But it may be that I do this droll old Gipsy great wrong in thus apparently classing him with the heathen, since he one day manifested clearly enough that he considered he had a right to be regarded as a true believer—the only drawback being this, that he was apparently under the conviction that all human beings were “Christians.” And the way in which he declared it was as follows: I had given him the Hindustani word janwur, and asked him if he knew such a term, and he answered—
“Do I jin sitch a lav (know such a word) as janwur for a hanimal? Āvo (yes); it’s jomper—it’s a toadus” (toad).
“But do you jin the lav (know the word) for an animal?”
“Didn’t I just pooker tute (tell you) it was a jomper? for if a toad’s a hanimal, jomper must be the lav for hanimal.”
“But don’t you jin kek lav (know a word) for sar the covvas that have jivaben (all living things)—for jompers, and bitti matchers (mice), and gryas (horses)? You and I are animals.”
“Kek, rya, kek (no, sir, no), we aren’t hanimals. Hanimals is critters that have something queer about ’em, such as the lions an’ helephants at the well-gooroos (fairs), or cows with five legs, or won’ful piebald grais—them’s hanimals. But Christins aint hanimals. Them’s mushis” (men).
To return to cats: it is remarkable that the colour which makes a cat desirable should render a bowl or cup objectionable to a true Gipsy, as I have elsewhere observed in commenting on the fact that no old-fashioned Rommany will drink, if possible, from white crockery. But they have peculiar fancies as to other colours. Till within a few years in Great Britain, as at the present day in Germany, their fondness for green coats amounted to a passion. In Germany a Gipsy who loses caste for any offence is forbidden for a certain time to wear green, so that ver non semper viret may be truly applied to those among them who bloom too rankly.
The great love for red and yellow among the Gipsies was long ago pointed out by a German writer as a proof of Indian origin, but the truth is, I believe, that all dark people instinctively choose these hues as agreeing with their complexion. A brunette is fond of amber, as a blonde is of light blue; and all true kaulo or dark Rommany chāls delight in a bright yellow pongdishler, or neckerchief, and a red waistcoat. The long red cloak of the old Gipsy fortune-teller is, however, truly dear to her heart; she feels as if there were luck in it—that bāk which is ever on Gipsy lips; for to the wanderers, whose home is the roads, and whose living is precarious, Luck becomes a real deity. I have known two old fortune-telling sisters to expend on new red cloaks a sum which seemed to a lady friend very considerable.
I have spoken in another chapter of the deeply-seated faith of the English Gipsies in the evil eye. Subsequent inquiry has convinced me that they believe it to be peculiar to themselves. One said in my presence, “There was a kauli juva that dicked the evil yack ad mandy the sala—my chavo’s missis—an’ a’ter dovo I shooned that my chavo was naflo. A bongo-yācki mush kairs wafro-luckus. Avali, the Gorgios don’t jin it—it’s saw Rommany.”
I.e., “There was a dark woman that looked the evil eye at me this morning—my son’s wife—and after that I heard that my son was ill. A squint-eyed man makes bad-luck. Yes, the Gorgios don’t know it—it’s all Rommany.”
The Gipsy is of an eminently social turn, always ready when occasion occurs to take part in every conversation, and advance his views. One day my old Rom hearing an artist speak of having rejected some uncalled-for advice relative to the employment of a certain model, burst out in a tone of hearty approbation with—
“That’s what I say. Every man his own juva (every man his own girl), an’ every painter his own morals.”
If it was difficult in the beginning for me to accustom the Gipsy mind to reply clearly and consistently to questions as to his language, the trouble was tenfold increased when he began to see his way, as he thought, to my object, and to take a real interest in aiding me. For instance, I once asked—
“Puro! do you know such a word as punji? It’s the Hindu for capital.”
(Calmly.) “Yes, rya; that’s a wery good word for capital.”
“But is it Rommany?”
(Decidedly.) “It’ll go first-rateus into Rommany.”
“But can you make it out? Prove it!”
(Fiercely.) “Of course I can make it out. Kushto. Suppose a man sells ’punge-cake, would’nt that be his capital? Punje must be capital.”
But this was nothing to what I endured after a vague fancy of the meaning of seeking a derivation of words had dimly dawned on his mind, and he vigorously attempted to aid me. Possessed with the crude idea that it was a success whenever two words could be forced into a resemblance of any kind, he constantly endeavoured to Anglicise Gipsy words—often, alas! an only too easy process, and could never understand why it was I then rejected them. By the former method I ran the risk of obtaining false Hindustani Gipsy words, though I very much doubt whether I was ever caught by it in a single instance; so strict were the tests which I adopted, the commonest being that of submitting the words to other Gipsies, or questioning him on them some days afterwards. By the latter “aid” I risked the loss of Rommany words altogether, and undoubtedly did lose a great many. Thus with the word bilber (to entice or allure), he would say, in illustration, that the girls bilbered the gentleman into the house to rob him, and then cast me into doubt by suggesting that the word must be all right, “’cause it looked all the same as pilferin’.”