The English Gipsies and Their Language

by Charles Godfrey Leland

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.”