Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death, & burial, religion, language, sciences & arts, &c. &c. &c.; with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearance in EuropeGrellmann, Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb
History
Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death, & burial, religion, language, sciences & arts, &c. &c. &c.; with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearance in Europe
Grellmann, Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb
Romanies
Me Kerel Me Kurrta I make
Tu Kerech Tu Kurrta Thou makest
Job Kerel Uweh Kurrta He maketh
PLURAL NUMBER.
Scho Kerjem Hum Kurrte We make
Tumen Kerjen Tum Kurrte Ye make
Ou Kerde Jnne Kurrte They make
IMPERFECT.—SINGULAR NUMBER.
Me Kerjom Me Kurrtatha I did make
Tu Kerjel Tu Kurrtatha Thou didst make
O Kerje Uweh Kurrtatha He did make
PLURAL NUMBER.
Scho Kerjom Hum Kurrtathe We did make
Tumen Kerjen Tum Kurrtathe Ye did make
On Kerde Jnne Kurrtathe They did make
The comparison thus far will, it is presumed, be sufficient to convince
every person of the truth of the position, that the Gipsey language is
really that of Hindostan. Let the reader look over the catalogue once
more, and it will appear, on the average, that every third Gipsey word is
likewise an Hindostan one; or still more, out of thirty Gipsey words,
eleven or twelve are constantly of Hindostan. This agreement is
uncommonly great: it must at the same time be remembered, that the words
above communicated have been learned from the Gipseys within a few years;
consequently, at a time when they had been nearly four complete centuries
away from Hindostan, their native country (as we may now assert it to
be), among people who spoke languages totally different, and in which the
Gipseys themselves conversed. Under the constant, and so long continued,
influx of these languages, their own must necessarily have suffered great
alteration; more especially as they are a people entirely ignorant,
without either writing or literature. One foreign word after another
must have crept into their language; consequently, by the frequent use of
such words, the Gipsey word of the same signification was more rarely
used, and by degrees lost from their recollection: by which circumstance
the original composition of their language became completely deranged;
{190} which is the reason why, as any person may convince himself by
inspection, various languages and idioms—Turkish, Grecian, Latin,
Wallachian, Hungarian, Sclavonian, German, and others—make part of the
foregoing vocabulary. The word _rome_, _man_, is Coptic; with, perhaps,
a few more. It does not appear that there is so much Persian in the
Gipsey language, as has been generally imagined; and even what there is
of it they may have brought with them from their native country, as many
Persian words are current in Hindostan.
After all these reflections, we ought rather to wonder that the number of
Hindostan words in the Gipsey language is so considerable, than to
require it should be greater, in order to furnish sufficient proof of the
Hindostan language being the Gipseys’ mother tongue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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