Part 13 (1/2)
and that it was adopted to distinguish the sect soon after he disappeared The word, as is well known, has the same import in the Hindoovee” (”Asiatic Researches,” vol i p 293, and vol ii p 200)
This was a noble word to give a nae and truth
The English Gipsy calls a mermaid a _pintni_; in Hindu it is _bint ool buhr_, a maid of the sea Bero in Gipsy is the sea or a shi+p, but the Roinal _bint_, by which a girl is known all over the East
”Ya bint' Eeskendereyeh”
_Stan_ is a word confounded by Gipsies with both _stand_, a place at the races or a fair, and _tan_, a stopping-place, frorees in sound andwith the Eastern _stan_, ”a place, station,” and by application ”country,” so familiar to the reader in Hindustan, Iranistan, Beloochistan, and many other names It is curious to find in the Gipsy tan not only the root-word of a tent, but also the ”Alabama,” or ”here we rest,” applied by the world's early travellers to so _ does _not_ e of the Gipsies, but is applied by thee, as in a play; to being an acrobat, or taking part in a show It is a very old Gipsy word, and indicates plainly enough the origin of the cant word ”slang” Using other e, strikes a Gipsy as _artificial_; andof conventional stage language as ”theatrical slang” Its antiquity and origin appear in the Hindu swangi, an actor; swang, ards the sound of the words, ” as faithfully as a cockney would exchange _hat_ with '_at_
Deepest a deep words in India is _tat_, an ele; but it is allish Gipsy say ”that's the tatto (or tat) of it,”itself,”
the whole of it And thus the ultimate point of Brahma, and the infinite depth of all transcendental philosophy, may reappear in a cheap, portable, and convenient for of some mysterious transaction was that it a; for to such base uses have the Shaster and the Vedas coland
It is, however, pleasant to find the Persian _bahar_, a garden, recalling Bahar Danush, the garden of knowledge (Hindustani, bagh), reappearing in the English Gipsy _bar_ ”She pirryed adree the bar lellin ruzhers”
”She walked in the garden plucking flowers” And it is also like old tihts at hoh it be now quite obsolete, and signifies no longer a public street for shops, but an open field
But of all words which identify the Gipsies with the East, and which prove their Hindu origin, those by which they call themselves Rom and Romni are most conclusive In India the Dom caste is one of the lowest, whose business it is for the men to res at weddings Everything known of the Dom identifies them with Gipsies As for the sound of the word, any one need only ask the first Gipsy whom he meets to pronounce the Hindu _d_ or the word Dom, and he will find it at once converted into _l_ or _r_ There are, it is true, other castes and classes in India, such as Nats, the roving Banjaree, Thugs, &c, all of which have left unmistakable traces on the Gipsies, from which I conclude that at soerous there was a general expulsion of them from India {124}
I would call particular attention to estion that the Corn of India is the true parent of the Rom, because all that is known of the former caste indicates an affinity between them The Dom pariahs of India who carry out or touch dead bodies, also eat the bodies of aniland The occupation of the Do ly allied I was reminded of this at the last opera which I witnessed at Covent Garden, on seeing stage Gipsies introduced as part of the fete in ”La Traviata”
A curious indication of the Indian origin of the Gipsies n country beyond sea as the Hindi te in Hindustani their oord for Indian Nothing was land should speak of far-away regions as being the sanorant people the second generation could hardly fail to extend the tereneric At present an Irishman is a _Hindi tem mush_, or Hindu; and it is rather curious, by the way, that a few years ago in A that was _anti_-Irish or native American received the same appellation, in allusion to the exclusive systeh the Gipsies have sadly confounded the Hindu terms for the ”cardinal points,” no one can deny that their own are of Indian origin
Uttar is north in Hindustani, and Utar is west in Rommany As it was explained to me, I was told that ”Utar means west and wet too, because the ind is wet” _shi+ a Gipsy what it meant, he promptly replied, ”It's where the snow comes froed to porus, and means the west
This confusion of terms is incidental to every rude race, and it must be constantly borne in ests day, or black white, to the most cultivated mind; but the Gipsy confuses the naht and shadow, by the same word More than this, he is prone to confuse almost all opposites on all occasions, and wonders that you do not promptly accept and understand what his own people co the Indians of North A the accurate use of words, is aroes, despite their heedless ignorance, so deficient, since they are at least very fond of elegant expressions and forcible preaching I am positive and confident that it would be ten tie from the wildest Indian on the North Ah the latter may be inclined with all his heart and soul to teach, even to the extent of passing his leisure days in ”skir up old Rommany words Now the Gipsy has passed his entire life in the busiest scenes of civilisation, and is fa this, I have found by experience that the lish as I was ignorant of his language, and with no enius as regards ability to teach language when compared to most Gipsies
Everybody has heard of the Oriental _salaa ”Shulam to your kokero!” is another form of _sarishan_! the conifies ”early in the evening,” from which I infer that the Doht-Cavalier of Quevedo, and who sang when night fell, ”Arouse ye, then, !” just as we say (or used to say) ”Good-day!” {127}
A very curious point of affinity between the Gipsies and Hindus may be found in a custo words:--
”When a mush mullers, an' the juvas adree his ker can't _kair habben_ because they feel so naflo 'bout the roone, or the chavi or juvalo mush, or whoever it may be, then their friends for trin divvuses kairs their habben an' bitchers it a lende An' that's tacho Rommanis, an' they wouldn't be dessen Ro an' tukli”
”When a man dies, and the women in his house cannot prepare food (literally, one (or the girl, or young man, or whoever it may be), then their friends for three days prepare their food and send it to them And that is real Rommany (custom), and they would not be decent Rommany felloould not do that for people in sorrow and distress”
Precisely the same custom prevails in India, where it is characterised by a phrase strikingly identical with the English Gipsy terland it is to _kair habben_, in Hindustani (Brice, Hin Dict) ”karwa khana is the food that is sent for three days from relations to a family in which one of the members has died” The Hindu karwana, to in of the English Gipsy _kair_ (to make or cook), while from khana, or 'hana, to eat, comes _haw_ and _habben_, or food
The reader who is faious observances of India is probably aware of the extraordinary regard in which the cup is held by -cups are kept by the Gipsies with superstitious regard, the utround ”Should this happen, the cup is _never_ used again By touching the ground it becomes sacred, and should noelse, he keeps his drinking-cup under every circumstance” I have not been able to ascertain whether this species of regard for the cup ever existed in England, but I know of many who could not be induced to drink fro the very frivolous and insufficient one, that it reminded them of a blood-basin It is alin of the antipathy No such consideration deters English peasants fro-vessels
In Ger the Gipsies, if a woman has trodden on any object, or if the skirt of her dress has swept over or touched it, it is either destroyed, or if of value, is disposed of or never used again I found on inquiry that the saland, and that if the object be a crockery plate or cup, it is at once broken For this reason, evenevery cooking utensil, and all that pertains to the table, high up in their waggons It is alree with those ofexcept horseflesh A Ros that have died a natural death, and _hotchewitchi_, or hedgehog, as did the belle of a Gipsy party to ive no reason whatever for this inconsistent abstinence But Mr Simson in his ”History of the Gipsies” has adduced aa special superstitious regard for the horse a it with certain customs in India It would be a curious matter of research could we learn whether the es, who made abstinence fro in Germany and in Scandinavia), derived their superstition, in common with the Gipsies, fro for the Indian origin of many Gipsy words we are often bewildered, and that no field in philology presents such opportunity for pugnacious critics to either attack or defend the validity of the proofs alleged The very word for ”doubtful” or ”auous,” _dubeni_ or _dub'na_, is of this description Is it derived from the Hindu _dhoobd'ha_, which every Gipsy would pronounce _doobna_, or frolish _dubious_, which has been made to assume the Gipsy- Indian termination _na_? Of this word I was naively told, ”If a juva's bori (girl is big), that's _dub'ni_; and if she's shuvalo (swelled up), _that's_ dubni: for it may pen (say) she's kaired a tikno (is _enceinte_), and it lish Gipsy also employs the word _dukkeni_ for ”doubtful,” and compare it with the Hindustani _dhokna_ or _dukna_, the true derivation becomes apparent
Had Dr Pott or Dr Paspati had recourse to the plan which I adopted of reading a copious Hindustani dictionary entirely through, word by word, to a patient Gipsy, noting down all which he recognised, and his renderings of them, it is very possible that these learned men would in Ger proof as to the Indian origin of Rommany At present the dictionary which I intend shall follow this work shows that, so far as the Roland contains a far greater nued Hindu words than any other, a fact to which I would especially call the attention of all who are interested in this curious language
And what isexhausted, and that by patient research aht be increased to possibly five or six thousand words
It is very possible that when they first came from the East to Europe the Gipsies had a very copious supply of words, for there were ence But in Turkey, as in Gerht into such close contact with the _Gorgios_ as in England: they have not preserved their familiarity with so many ideas, and consequently their vocabulary has diminished Most of the Continental Gipsies are still wild, black wanderers, unfalish Gipsy has at least a name, and to which he has continued to apply old Indian words Every one falish Gipsies in Aent than their Gere party of the latter appeared at an English racecourse, where they excited lish Roms, not as rivals, but si,” saidelse: they were the dirtiest Gipsies I ever saw; and when the juvas suckled the children, they sikkered their burks (showed their breasts) as I never saomen do before foki” Such people would not, as a rule, know so many words as those who looked down on thelo-Rommany, and different works on India, is that the Gipsies are the descendants of a vast number of Hindus, of the prirated from that country early in the fourteenth century