The English Gypsies can count up to six, and have the numerals for ten and twenty, but with those for seven, eight, and nine, perhaps not three Gypsies in England are acquainted. When they wish to express those numerals in their own language, they have recourse to very uncouth and roundabout methods, saying for seven, dui trins ta yeck, two threes and one; for eight, dui stors, or two fours; and for nine, desh sore but yeck, or ten all but one. Yet at one time the English Gypsies possessed all the numerals as their Transylvanian, Wallachian, and Russian brethren still do; even within the last fifty years there were Gypsies who could count up to a hundred. These were tatchey Romany, real Gypsies, of the old sacred black race, who never slept in a house, never entered a church, and who, on their death-beds, used to threaten their children with a curse, provided they buried them in a churchyard. The two last of them rest, it is believed, some six feet deep beneath the moss of a wild, hilly heath,--called in Gypsy the Heviskey Tan, or place of holes; in English, Mousehold,--near an ancient city, which the Gentiles call Norwich, and the Romans the Chong Gav, or the town of the hill.
With respect to Grammar, the English Gypsy is perhaps in a worse condition than with respect to words. Attention is seldom paid to gender; boro rye and boro rawnie being said, though as rawnie is feminine, bori and not boro should be employed. The proper Gypsy plural terminations are retained in nouns, but in declension prepositions are generally substituted for postpositions, and those prepositions English. The proper way of conjugating verbs is seldom or never observed, and the English method is followed. They say, Idick, I see, instead of dico; I dick'd, I saw, instead of dikiom; if I had dick'd, instead of dikiomis. Some of the peculiar features of Gypsy grammar yet retained by the English Gypsies will be found noted in the Dictionary.
I have dwelt at some length on the deficiencies and shattered condition of the English Gypsy tongue; justice, however, compels me to say that it is far purer and less deficient than several of the continental Gypsy dialects. It preserves far more of original Gypsy peculiarities than the French, Italian, and Spanish dialects, and its words retain more of the original Gypsy form than the words of those three; moreover, however scanty it may be, it is far more copious than the French or the Italian Gypsy, though it must be owned that in respect to copiousness it is inferior to the Spanish Gypsy, which is probably the richest in words of all the Gypsy dialects in the world, having names for very many of the various beasts, birds, and creeping things, for most of the plants and fruits, for all the days of the week, and all the months in the year; whereas most other Gypsy dialects, the English amongst them, have names for only a few common animals and insects, for a few common fruits and natural productions, none for the months, and only a name for a single day--the Sabbath--which name is a modification of the Modern Greek [Greek text: ].
Though the English Gypsy is generally spoken with a considerable alloy of English words and English grammatical forms, enough of its proper words and features remain to form genuine Gypsy sentences, which shall be understood not only by the Gypsies of England, but by those of Russia, Hungary, Wallachia, and even of Turkey; for example:-Kek man camov te jib bolli-mengreskoenaes, Man camov te jib weshenjugalogonaes.
I do not wish to live like a baptized person.
I wish to live like a dog of the wood.
It is clear-sounding and melodious, and well adapted to the purposes of poetry. Let him who doubts peruse attentively the following lines:-Coin si deya, coin se dado?
Pukker mande drey Romanes, Ta mande pukkeravava tute.
Rossar-mescri minri deya!
Wardo-mescro minro dado!
Coin se dado, coin si deya?
Mande's pukker'd tute drey Romanes;
Knau pukker tute mande.
Petulengro minro dado, Purana minri deya!
Tatchey Romany si men -
Mande's pukker'd tute drey Romanes, Ta tute's pukker'd mande.
The first three lines of the above ballad are perhaps the oldest specimen of English Gypsy at present extant, and perhaps the purest.
They are at least as old as the time of Elizabeth, and can pass among the Zigany in the heart of Russia for Ziganskie. The other lines are not so ancient. The piece is composed in a metre something like that of the ancient Sclavonian songs, and contains the questions which two strange Gypsies, who suddenly meet, put to each other, and the answers which they return.
In using the following Vocabulary the Continental manner of pronouncing certain vowels will have to be observed: thus ava must be pronounced like auva, according to the English style; ker like kare, miro like meero, zi like zee, and puro as if it were written pooro.
ROMANO LAVO-LIL--WORD-BOOK OF THE ROMANY
AABRI, ad. prep. Out, not within, abroad: soving abri, sleeping abroad, not in a house. Celtic, Aber (the mouth or outlet of a river).
Acai / Acoi, ad. Here.
Adje, v. n. To stay, stop. See Atch, az.
Adrey, prep. Into.
Ajaw, ad. So. Wallachian, Asha.
Aladge, a. Ashamed. Sans. Latch, laj.
Aley, ad. Down: soving aley, lying down; to kin aley, to buy off, ransom. Hun. Ala, alat.
Amande, pro. pers. dat. To me.
An, v. a. imp. Bring: an lis opre, bring it up.
Ana, v. a. Bring. Sans. Ani.
Ando, prep. In.
Anglo, prep. Before.
Apasavello, v. n. I believe.
Apopli, ad. Again. Spanish Gypsy, Apala (after). Wal. Apoi (then, afterwards).
Apre, ad. prep. Up: kair lis apre, do it up. Vid. Opre.
Aranya / Araunya, s. Lady. Hungarian Gypsy, Aranya. See Rawnie.
Artav / Artavello, v. a. To pardon, forgive. Wal. Ierta. Span.
Gyp. Estomar.
Artapen, s. Pardon, forgiveness.
Artaros. Arthur.
Asa / Asau, ad. Also, likewise, too: meero pal asau, my brother also.
Asarlas, ad. At all, in no manner.
Asa. An affix used in forming the second person singular of the present tense; e.g. camasa, thou lovest.