I also obtained a verse of a ballad, which I may not literally render into pure English:—
“Cosson kailyah corrum me morro sari,
Me gul ogalyach mir;
Rāhet mānent trasha moroch
Me tu sosti mo dīēle.”“Coming from Galway, tired and weary,
I met a woman;
I’ll go bail by this time to-morrow,
You’ll have had enough of me.”
Me tu sosti, “Thou shalt be (of) me,” is Romany, which is freely used in Shelta.
The question which I cannot solve is, On which of the Celtic languages is this jargon based? My informant declares that it is quite independent of Old
Irish, Welsh, or Gaelic. In pronunciation it appears to be almost identical with the latter; but while there are Gaelic words in it, it is certain that much examination and inquiry have failed to show that it is contained in that language. That it is “the talk of the ould Picts—thim that built the stone houses like beehives”—is, I confess, too conjectural for a philologist. I have no doubt that when the Picts were suppressed thousands of them must have become wandering outlaws, like the Romany, and that their language in time became a secret tongue of vagabonds on the roads. This is the history of many such lingoes; but unfortunately Owen’s opinion, even if it be legendary, will not prove that the Painted People spoke the Shelta tongue. I must call attention, however, to one or two curious points. I have spoken of Shelta as a jargon; but it is, in fact, a language, for it can be spoken grammatically and without using English or Romany. And again, there is a corrupt method of pronouncing it, according to English, while correctly enunciated it is purely Celtic in sound. More than this I have naught to say.
Shelta is perhaps the last Old British dialect as yet existing which has thus far remained undiscovered. There is no hint of it in John Camden Hotten’s Slang Dictionary, nor has it been recognized by the Dialect Society. Mr. Simson, had he known the “Tinklers” better, would have found that not Romany, but Shelta, was the really secret language which they employed, although Romany is also more or less familiar to them all. To me there is in it something very weird and strange. I cannot well say why; it seems as if it might be spoken by witches and talking toads, and uttered by the Druid stones, which are
fabled to come down by moonlight to the water-side to drink, and who will, if surprised during their walk, answer any questions. Anent which I would fain ask my Spiritualist friends one which I have long yearned to put. Since you, my dear ghost-raisers, can call spirits from the vasty deep of the outside-most beyond, will you not—having many millions from which to call—raise up one of the Pictish race, and, having brought it in from the Ewigkeit, take down a vocabulary of the language? Let it be a lady par préference,—the fair being by far the more fluent in words. Moreover, it is probable that as the Picts were a painted race, woman among them must have been very much to the fore, and that Madame Rachels occupied a high position with rouge, enamels, and other appliances to make them young and beautiful forever. According to Southey, the British blue-stocking is descended from these woad-stained ancestresses, which assertion dimly hints at their having been literary. In which case, voilà notre affaire! for then the business would be promptly done. Wizards of the secret spells, I adjure ye, raise me a Pictess for the sake of philology—and the picturesque!
Footnotes:
[19] From the observations of Frederic Drew (The Northern Barrier of India, London, 1877) there can be little doubt that the Dom, or Dûm, belong to the pre-Aryan race or races of India. “They are described in the Shastras as Sopukh, or Dog-Eaters” (Types of India). I have somewhere met with the statement that the Dom was pre-Aryan, but allowed to rank as Hindoo on account of services rendered to the early conquerors.
[22] Up-stairs in this gentleman’s dialect signified up or upon, like top Pidgin-English.