may reasonably be inferred that none of them can differ much from the
original Gypsy speech; so that when speaking of Gypsy language, any
one of these may be taken as a standard. One of them--I shall not
mention which--I have selected for that purpose, more from fancy than
any particular reason.

The Gypsy language, then, or what with some qualification I may call
such, may consist of some three thousand words, the greater part of
which are decidedly of Indian origin, being connected with the
Sanscrit or some other Indian dialect; the rest consist of words
picked up by the Gypsies from various languages in their wanderings
from the East. It has two genders, masculine and feminine; o
represents the masculine and i the feminine: for example, boro rye,
a great gentleman; bori rani, a great lady. There is properly no
indefinite article: gajo or gorgio, a man or gentile; o gajo, the
man. The noun has two numbers, the singular and the plural. It has
various cases formed by postpositions, but has, strictly speaking, no
genitive. It has prepositions as well as postpositions; sometimes
the preposition is used with the noun and sometimes the postposition:
for example, cad o gav, from the town; chungale mannochendar, evil
men from, i.e. from evil men. The verb has no infinitive; in lieu
thereof, the conjunction 'that' is placed before some person of some
tense. 'I wish to go' is expressed in Gypsy by camov te jaw,
literally, I wish that I go; thou wishest to go, caumes te jas, thou
wishest that thou goest; caumen te jallan, they wish that they go.
Necessity is expressed by the impersonal verb and the conjunction
'that': hom te jay, I must go; lit. I am that I go; shan te jallan,
they are that they go; and so on. There are words to denote the
numbers from one up to a thousand. For the number nine there are two
words, nu and ennyo. Almost all the Gypsy numbers are decidedly