[189] Before considering this trait in the character of the Scottish Gipsies, it may interest the reader to know that the same peculiarity obtains among those on the continent.
Of the Hungarian Gipsies, Grellmann writes: “It will be recollected, from the first, how great a secret they make of their language, and how suspicious they appear when any person wishes to learn a few words of it. Even if the Gipsy is not perverse, he is very inattentive, and is consequently likely to answer some other rather than the true Gipsy word.”
Of the Hungarian Gipsies, Bright says: “No one, who has not had experience, can conceive the difficulty of gaining intelligible information, from people so rude, upon the subject of their language. If you ask for a word, they give you a whole sentence; and on asking a second time, they give the sentence a totally different turn, or introduce some figure altogether new. Thus it was with our Gipsy, who, at length, tired of our questions, prayed most piteously to be released; which we granted him, only on condition of his returning in the evening.”
Of the Spanish Gipsies, Mr. Borrow writes: “It is only by listening attentively to the speech of the Gitanos, whilst discoursing among themselves, that an acquaintance with their dialect can be formed, and by seizing upon all unknown words, as they fall in succession from their lips. Nothing can be more useless and hopeless than the attempt to obtain possession of their vocabulary, by enquiring of them how particular objects and ideas are styled in the same; for, with the exception of the names of the most common things, they are totally incapable, as a Spanish writer has observed, of yielding the required information; owing to their great ignorance, the shortness of their memories, or, rather, the state of bewilderment to which their minds are brought by any question which tends to bring their reasoning faculties into action; though, not unfrequently, the very words which have been in vain required of them will, a minute subsequently, proceed inadvertently from their mouths.”
What has been said by the two last-named writers is very wide of the mark; Grellmann, however, hits it exactly. The Gipsies have excellent memories. It is all they have to depend on. If they had not good memories, how could they, at the present day, speak a word of their language at all? The difficulty in question is down-right shuffling, and not a want of memory on the part of the Gipsy. The present chapter will throw some light on the subject. Even Mr. Borrow himself gives an ample refutation to his sweeping account of the Spanish Gipsies, in regard to their language; for, in another part of his work, he says: “I recited the Apostles’ Creed to the Gipsies, sentence by sentence, which they translated as I proceeded. They exhibited the greatest eagerness and interest in their unwonted occupation, and frequently broke into loud disputes as to the best rendering, many being offered at the same time. I then read the translation aloud, whereupon they raised a shout of exultation, and appeared not a little proud of the composition.” On this occasion, Mr. Borrow evidently had the Gipsies in the right humour—that is, off their guard, excited, and much interested in the subject. He says, in another place: “The language they speak among themselves, and they are particularly anxious to keep others in ignorance of it.” As a general thing, they seem to have been bored by people much above them in the scale of society; with whom, their natural politeness, and expectations of money or other benefits, would naturally lead them to do anything than give them that which it is inborn in their nature to keep to themselves.—Ed.
[190] This opinion is confirmed by the fact that the Gipsies whom the Rev. Mr. Crabbe has civilized will not now be seen among the others of the tribe, at his annual festival, at Southampton. We have already seen, under the head of Continental Gipsies, that “those who are gold-washers in Transylvania and the Banat have no intercourse with others of their nation; nor do they like to be called Gipsies.”
[191] On the whole, however, our Scottish peasantry, in some districts, do not greatly despise the Tinklers; at least not to the same extent as the inhabitants of some other countries seem to do. When not involved in quarrels with the Gipsies, our country people, with the exception of a considerable portion of the land-owners, were, and are even yet, rather fond of the superior families of the nomadic class of these people, than otherwise.
[192] Their (the female’s) speech is as fluent, and their eyes as unabashed, in the presence of royalty, as before those from whom they have nothing to hope or fear; the result of which is, that most minds quail before them.—Borrow on the Spanish Gipsies.—Ed.
[193] This woman evidently mistook our author for a Gipsy gent, such as he is described at [page 169].—Ed.
[194] It would be well for the reader to consider what a Gipsy is, irrespective of the language which he speaks; for the race comes before the speech which it uses. That will be done fully in my [Disquisition] on the Gipsies. The language, considered in itself, however interesting it may be, is a secondary consideration; it may ultimately disappear, while the people who now speak it will remain.—Ed.