‘However, brother,’ he continued, in a more cheerful tone, ‘I am no hindity mush, [428b] as you well know. I suppose you have not forgot how, fifteen years ago, when you made horse-shoes in the little dingle by the side of the great north road, I lent you fifty cottors [428c] to purchase the wonderful trotting cob of the innkeeper with the green Newmarket coat, which three days after you sold for two hundred.
‘Well, brother, if you had wanted the two hundred, instead of the fifty, I could have lent them to you, and would have done so, for I knew you would not be long pazorrhus to me. I am no hindity mush, brother, no Irishman; I laid out the other day twenty pounds in buying rupenoe peam-engries; [429a] and in the Chong-gav, [429b] have a house of my own with a yard behind it.
‘And, forsooth, if I go thither, I can choose a place to light a fire upon, and shall have no necessity to ask leave of these here Gentiles.’
Well, dear reader, this last is the translation of the Gypsy sentence which heads the chapter, and which is a very characteristic specimen of the general way of speaking of the English Gypsies.
The language, as they generally speak it, is a broken jargon, in which few of the grammatical peculiarities of the Rommany are to be distinguished. In fact, what has been said of the Spanish Gypsy dialect holds good with respect to the English as commonly spoken: yet the English dialect has in reality suffered much less than the Spanish, and still retains its original syntax to a certain extent, its peculiar manner of conjugating verbs, and declining nouns and pronouns. I must, however, qualify this last assertion, by observing that in the genuine Rommany there are no prepositions, but, on the contrary, post-positions; now, in the case of the English dialect, these post-positions have been lost, and their want, with the exception of the genitive, has been supplied with English prepositions, as may be seen by a short example:—
Hungarian Gypsy. [429c] | English Gypsy. | English. |
Job | Yow | He |
Leste | Leste | Of him |
Las | Las | To him |
Les | Los | Him |
Lester | From leste | From him |
Leha | With leste | With him |
PLURAL. | ||
Jole | Yaun | They |
Lente | Lente | Of them |
Len | Len | To them |
Len | Len | Them |
Lender | From Lende | From them |
The following comparison of words selected at random from the English and Spanish dialects of the Rommany will, perhaps, not be uninteresting to the philologist or even to the general reader. Could a doubt be at present entertained that the Gypsy language is virtually the same in all parts of the world where it is spoken, I conceive that such a vocabulary would at once remove it.
| English Gypsy. | Spanish Gypsy. | |
| Ant | Cria | Crianse |
| Bread | Morro | Manro |
| City | Forus | Foros |
| Dead | Mulo | Mulo |
| Enough | Dosta | Dosta |
| Fish | Matcho | Macho |
| Great | Boro | Baro |
| House | Ker | Quer |
| Iron | Saster | Sas |
| King | Krallis | Crális |
| Love(I) | Camova | Camelo |
| Moon | Tchun | Chimutra |
| Night | Rarde | Rati |
| Onion | Purrum | Porumia |
| Poison | Drav | Drao |
| Quick | Sig | Sigo |
| Rain | Brishindo | Brejindal |
| Sunday | Koorokey | Curque |
| Teeth | Danor | Dani |
| Village | Gav | Gao |
| White | Pauno | Parno |
| Yes | Avalí | Ungalé |
As specimens of how the English dialect maybe written, the following translations of the Lord’s Prayer and Belief will perhaps suffice.