[217] Mr. Baird’s Missionary Report contained a collation of the Scottish Gipsy with Hindostanee, but that appeared considerably after what our author has said was written.—Ed.
[218] Meeting a Bengalee at Peebles, begging money to pay his passage back to India, I repeated to him, from memory, a few of the Gipsy words I had collected a week before. After listening attentively, he answered that it was the Moor’s language I had got, and gave me the English of paunie, water, and davies, day. I took the first opportunity of mentioning this interview to the Gipsies, observing it was the general opinion that their forefathers came from India. They, however, persisted in their own tradition, that they were a tribe of Ethiopians, which is believed by all the Scottish Gipsies. [See [pages 113] and [315].—Ed.]
[219] A lady who resided seventeen years in India, already alluded to, mentioned to me that the pronunciation of the Hindoos is broad, like that of the Scotch, particularly where the letter a occurs; and that the Scotch learn Hindostanee sooner, and more correctly, than the natives of other countries. For this reason, I am inclined to think that the Scottish Gipsy will have a greater resemblance to Hindostanee than the Gipsy of some other countries.
[220] In the report of the Fourteenth Gipsies’ Festival, held at Southampton, under the superintendence of the Rev. James Crabb, the Gipsies’ friend, on the 25th December, 1841, is the following statement:
“The above gentleman, (the Rev. J. West, one of the speakers at the festival,) with the Rev. Mr. Crabb, and two elderly Gipsies, who speak the Gipsy language, called, the following morning, on a lady who had long resided in India, and speaks the Hindostanee language; and it was clear that many of the Rommany (Gipsy) words were pure Hindostanee, and other words strongly resembled that language.”—Hampshire Advertiser, 1st January, 1842.
This statement, made some years subsequent to the period at which I took down the words from Lobbs and the Gipsies in Scotland, is nearly in my own words, and proves that my opinion, as to the close affinity between Hindostanee and the Scottish Gipsy language, is correct.
[221] The four last of these numerals, in the Scottish Gipsy language, differ very considerably from the corresponding ones in the Table. I leave the matter to be settled by philologists.
[222] It is remarkable, considering how much the habits and occupations of the Gipsies bring them in contact with beggars, thieves, and other bad and disorderly characters, how few of the slang words used by such persons have been adopted by them.—Rev. Mr. Baird’s Missionary Report to the Scottish Church, 1840.—Ed.
[223] Of the Highland Gipsies, I had the following account from a person of observation, and highly worthy of credit: There are many settled in Kintyre, who travel through the Highlands and Lowlands annually. They certainly speak, among themselves, a language totally distinct from either Gaelic or Lowland Scotch.—Blackwood’s Magazine.—Ed.
[224] “There is reason for supposing that the Gipsies had been wandering in the remote regions of Sclavonia, for a considerable time previous to entering Bohemia—the first civilized country of Europe in which they made their appearance; as their language abounds with words of Sclavonic origin, which could not have been adopted in a hasty passage through a wild and half populated country.”—Borrow.