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.”