included in "Die Sprachen Europas" as the only Indian tongue spoken in
this quarter of the world; and I believe that English Gipsy is really the
only strongly-distinct Rommany dialect which has never as yet been
illustrated by copious specimens or a vocabulary of any extent. I
therefore trust that the critical reader will make due allowances for the
very great difficulties under which I have laboured, and not blame me for
not having done better that which, so far as I can ascertain, would
possibly not have been done at all. Within the memory of man the popular
Rommany of this country was really grammatical; that which is now spoken,
and from which I gathered the material for the following pages, is, as
the reader will observe, almost entirely English as to its structure,
although it still abounds in Hindu words to a far greater extent than has
been hitherto supposed.




CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.


The Rommany of the Roads.--The Secret of Vagabond Life in England.--Its
peculiar and thoroughly hidden Nature.--Gipsy Character and the Causes
which formed it.--Moral Results of hungry Marauding.--Gipsy ideas of
Religion. The Scripture story of the Seven Whistlers.--The Baker's
Daughter.--Difficulties of acquiring Rommany.--The Fable of the Cat.--The
Chinese, the American Indian, and the Wandering Gipsy.

Although the valuable and curious works of Mr George Borrow have been in
part for more than twenty years before the British public, {1} it may
still be doubted whether many, even of our scholars, are aware of the