The same writer obtained from one of these Syrian-Egyptian Gipsies a not inconsiderable vocabulary of their language, and says: “I find many Arabic, Turkish, and some Greek words in it; it appears to me, however, that they have borrowed from a fourth language, which was perhaps their mother-tongue, but which I cannot name, wanting dictionaries.” The words which he gives appear to me to consist of Egyptian-Arabic, with its usual admixture from other sources, simply made into a gibberish, and sometimes with one word substituted for another to hide the meaning—the whole probably obtained through a dragoman, as is seen, for instance, when he gives the word nisnaszehá, a fox, and states that it is of unknown origin. The truth is, nisnas means a monkey, and, like most of Seetzen’s “Nuri” words, is inflected with an á final, as if one should say “monkeyó.” I have no doubt the Nauár may talk such a jargon; but I should not be astonished, either, if the Shekh who for a small pecuniary consideration eagerly aided Seetzen to note it down, had “sold” him with what certainly would appear to any Egyptian to be the real babble of the nursery. There are a very few Rommany words in this vocabulary, but then it should be remembered that there are some Arabic words in Rommany.
The street-cry of the Gipsy women in Cairo is [ARABIC TEXT which cannot be reproduced] “Neduqq wanetahir!” “We tattoo and circumcise!” a phrase which sufficiently indicates their calling. In the “Deutscher Dragoman” of Dr Philip Wolff, Leipzig, 1867, I find the following under the word Zigeuner:—
“Gipsy—in Egypt, Gagrî” (pronounced more nearly ’Rh’agri), “plural Gagar; in Syria, Newarî, plural Nawar. When they go about with monkeys, they are called Kurudâti, from kird, ape. The Gipsies of Upper Egypt call themselves Saâideh—i.e., people from Said, or Upper Egypt (vide Kremer, i. 138-148). According to Von Gobineau, they are called in Syria Kurbati, [ARABIC TEXT which cannot be reproduced] (vide ‘Zeitschrift der D. M. G.,’ xi. 690).”
More than this of the Gipsies in Egypt the deponent sayeth not. He has interrogated the oracles, and they were dumb. That there are Roms in the land of Mizr his eyes have shown, but whether any of them can talk Rommany is to him as yet unknown.
* * * * *
Since the foregoing was printed, I have found in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. XVI., Part 2, 1856, p. 285), an article on The Gipsies in Egypt, by the late Captain Newbold, F.R.S., which gives much information on this mysterious subject. The Egyptian Gipsies, as Captain Newbold found, are extremely jealous and suspicious of any inquiry into their habits and mode of life, so that he had great difficulty in tracing them to their haunts, and inducing them to unreserved communication.
These Gipsies are divided into three kinds, the Helebis, Ghagars (Rhagarin), and Núris or Náwer. Of the Rhagars there are sixteen thousand. The Helebi are most prosperous of all these, and their women, who are called Fehemis, are the only ones who practice fortune-telling and sorcery. The male Helebis are chiefly ostensible dealers in horses and cattle, but have a bad character for honesty. Some of them are to be found in every official department in Egypt, though not known to be Gipsies—(a statement which casts much light on the circumstance that neither the chief of police himself nor the Shekh of the Rhagarin, with all their alleged efforts, could find a single Gipsy for me). The Helebis look down on the Rhagarin, and do not suffer their daughters to intermarry with them, though they themselves marry Rhagarin girls. The Fehemi, or Helebi women, are noted for their chastity; the Rhagarin are not. The men of the Rhagarin are tinkers and blacksmiths, and sell cheap jewellery or instruments of iron and brass. Many of them are athletes, mountebanks, and monkey-exhibitors; the women are rope-dancers and musicians. They are divided into classes, bearing the names of Romani, Meddahin, Ghurradin, Barmeki (Barmecides), Waled Abu Tenna, Beit er Rafái, Hemmeli, &c. The Helebis and Rhagarin are distinctly different in their personal appearance from the other inhabitants of Egypt, having the eyes and expression peculiar to all Gipsies. Captain Newbold, in fact, assumes that any person “who remains in Egypt longer than the ordinary run of travellers, and roams about the streets and environs of the large towns, can hardly fail to notice the strange appearance of certain females, whose features at once distinguish them from the ordinary Fellah Arabs and Cophts of the country.”
“The Nuris or Náwers are hereditary thieves, but are now (1856) employed as police and watchmen in the Pacha’s country estates. In Egypt they intermarry with the Fellahin or Arabs of the soil, from whom, in physical appearance and dress, they can hardly be distinguished. Outwardly they profess Mohammedanism, and have little intercourse with the Helebis and Ghagars (or Rhagarin).”
Each of these tribes or classes speak a separate and distinct dialect or jargon. That of the Rhagarin most resembles the language spoken by the Kurbáts, or Gipsies of Syria. “It seems to me probable,” says Captain Newbold, “that the whole of these tribes had one common origin in India, or the adjacent countries on its Western frontier, and that the difference in the jargons they now speak is owing to their sojourn in the various countries through which they have passed. This is certain, that the Gipsies are strangers in the land of Egypt.”
I am not astonished, on examining the specimens of these three dialects given by Captain Newbold, with the important addition made by Mr W. Burckhardt Barker, that I could not converse with the Rhagarin. That of the Náwers does not contain a single word which would be recognised as Rommany, while those which occur in the other two jargons are, if not positively either few and far between, strangely distorted from the original. A great number are ordinary vulgar Arabic. It is very curious that while in England such a remarkably large proportion of Hindustani words have been preserved, they have been lost in the East, in countries comparatively near the fatherland—India.