Far from being gibberish, Romani is an inflected language possessing more cases for its noun than did Latin; and it is Indian, although the Gypsies, true to their reputation, have begged words with which to supplement their vocabulary from Persians, Greeks, Slavs and other peoples among whom they have dwelt. It has been said that “the Arabic of the Bedouin in this century is incomparably more nearly identical with that of the tribes through whose borders the children of Israel were led by Moses than is any one of our contemporary European tongues with its ancestor of the same remote period.” A similar cause has enabled the Gypsies, ever wandering, separating and reuniting, to resist more successfully than a sedentary race could have resisted the gradual changes which ultimately part a language into mutually incomprehensible dialects. Their speech is an echo which has reverberated through the centuries, for in it may be heard ancient Indian forms that have been lost in India itself, and dearest of all to the philologist, though most perplexing, a number of words which are almost pure Sanskrit. But if you ask the linguistic student of the _Roma_ whence they come, you will receive no reply more definite than a reference to north-west Hindustan and the inhospitable mountains thereabouts; while for the date of the Gypsy exodus you may choose at will any period between 300 B.C. and 1300 A.D. and find high philological authority for your choice. To satisfy, or, better still, to stimulate curiosity about the language of the “Brahmins of the roads,” a short nursery story in the dialect of the coppersmiths is here reprinted from the pages of the _Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society_, by the kind permission of Mr. E. O. Winstedt, to whom it was dictated by one of Kola’s sons-in-law. Most of the consonants may, without serious error, be pronounced as in English, _r_ being rolled as in “rural,” _g_ hard as in “gas,” and s unvoiced as in “sago.” The symbol _zh_ represents the French _j_ or the _z_ in English “azure,” while _sh_ is the corresponding unvoiced sound in “ash”: with _t_ prefixed the latter becomes _tsh_, the double sound heard twice in “church,” which would be written _tshə_(_r_)_tsh_. In Romani the letter _h_ is often found after _p_, _t_ and _k_, where, except in the mouths of Irish speakers, it is not used in English. Thus _ph_ and _th_ have not the values they have in “philosophy” and “theology,” nor _kh_ (as in Oriental languages) that of the _ch_ in Scottish “loch,” but the _h_ must be sounded after the other consonant: _p+h_, _t+h_, and _k+h_. The vowels may be pronounced as in Italian, the additional vowel _ə_ representing the vowels in English “but” and “cur,” and the diphthongs _ai_ and _au_ being similar to the sounds in “aisle” and “ounce.” The vowel in English “law” is written _aw_. For examples the following words may be taken:— _but_ (much) as “boot.” _hai_ (and) as “high.” _háide_! (come!) as “high-day.”