The Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of Spain · Chapter 31Specimens of Gypsy Dialects
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
‘Tachipen if I jaw ’doi, I can lel a bit of tan to hatch: N’etist I shan’t puch kekomi wafu gorgies.’
The above sentence, dear reader, I heard from the mouth of Mr. Petulengro, the last time that he did me the honour to visit me at my poor house, which was the day after Mol-divvus [359], 1842: he stayed with me during the greater part of the morning, discoursing on the affairs of Egypt, the aspect of which, he assured me, was becoming daily worse and worse. ‘There is no living for the poor people, brother,’ said he, ‘the chokengres (police) pursue us from place to place, and the gorgios are become either so poor or miserly, that they grudge our cattle a bite of grass by the wayside, and ourselves a yard of ground to light a fire upon. Unless times alter, brother, and of that I see no probability, unless you are made either poknees or mecralliskoe geiro (justice of the peace or prime minister), I am afraid the poor persons will have to give up wandering altogether, and then what will become of them?’
‘However, brother,’ he continued, in a more cheerful tone, ‘I am no hindity mush, [360a] as you well know. I suppose you have not forgot how, fifteen years ago, when you made horseshoes in the little dingle by the side of the great north road, I lent you fifty cottors [360b] to purchase the wonderful trotting cob of the innkeeper with the green Newmarket coat, which three days after you sold for two hundred.
‘Well, brother, if you had wanted the two hundred instead of the fifty, I could have lent them to you, and would have done so, for I knew you would not be long pazorrhus to me. I am no hindity mush, brother, no Irishman; I laid out the other day twenty pounds in buying ruponoe peamengries; [360c] and in the Chonggav, [360d] have a house of my own with a yard behind it.
‘And, forsooth, if I go thither, I can choose a place to light afire upon, and shall have no necessity to ask leave of these here Gentiles.’
Well, dear reader, this last is the translation of the Gypsy sentence which heads the chapter, and which is a very characteristic specimen of the general way of speaking of the English Gypsies.
The language, as they generally speak it, is a broken jargon, in which few of the grammatical peculiarities of the Rommany are to be distinguished. In fact, what has been said of the Spanish Gypsy dialect holds good with respect to the English as commonly spoken: yet the English dialect has in reality suffered much less than the Spanish, and still retains its original syntax to a certain extent, its peculiar manner of conjugating verbs, and declining nouns and pronouns.
ENGLISH DIALECT
Moro Dad, savo djives oteh drey o charos, te caumen Gorgio ta Romany Chal tiro nav, te awel tiro tem, te kairen tiro lav aukko prey puv, sar kairdios oteh drey o charos. Dey men to-divvus moro divvuskoe moro, ta for-dey men pazorrhus tukey sar men for-denna len pazorrhus amande; ma muk te petrenna drey caik temptacionos; ley men abri sor doschder. Tiro se o tem, Mi-duvel, tiro o zoozlu vast, tiro sor koskopen drey sor cheros. Avali. Ta-chipen.
SPANISH DIALECT
Batu monro sos socabas oté enré ye char, que camele Gacho ta Romani Cha tiro nao, qu’abillele tiro chim, querese tiro lao acoi opré ye puve sarta se querela oté enré ye char. Diñanos sejonia monro manro de cata chibes, ta estormenanos monrias bisauras sasta mu estormenamos a monrias bisabadores; na nos meques petrar enré cayque pajandia, lillanos abri de saro chungalipen. Persos tiro sinela o chim, Undevel, tiro ye silna bast, tiro saro lachipen enré saro chiros. Unga. Chachipé.
English Translation of the above
Our Father who dwellest there in heaven, may Gentile and Gypsy love thy name, thy kingdom come, may they do thy word here on earth as it is done there in heaven. Give us to-day our daily bread, [361a] and forgive us indebted to thee as we forgive them indebted to us, [361b] suffer not that we fall into no temptation, take us out from all evil. [361c] Thine [361d] is the kingdom my God, thine the strong hand, thine all goodness in all time. Aye. Truth.
The following short sentences in Hungarian Gypsy, in addition to the prayer to the Virgin given in the Introduction, will perhaps not prove unacceptable to the reader. In no part of the world is the Gypsy tongue at the present day spoken with more purity than in Hungary, [362] where it is used by the Gypsies not only when they wish to be unintelligible to the Hungarians, but in their common conversation amongst themselves.
From these sentences the reader, by the help of the translations which accompany them, may form a tolerable idea not only of what the Gypsy tongue is, but of the manner in which the Hungarian Gypsies think and express themselves. They are specimens of genuine Gypsy talk—sentences which I have myself heard proceed from the mouths of the Czigany; they are not Busno thoughts done into gentle Rommany. Some of them are given here as they were written down by me at the time, others as I have preserved them in my memory up to the present moment. It is not improbable that at some future time I may return to the subject of the Hungarian Gypsies.