at a certain period by political disturbances, had travelled
through Persia, making a very short stay there, thence to Armenia
staying there a little longer, and then possibly to the Byzantine
Empire at an indefinite period between 1100 and 1200; and that
another clan had followed in their wake, passing through Persia,
settling in Armenia and then going farther down to Syria, Egypt
and North Africa. These two tribes though of a common
remote Indian origin must, however, be kept strictly apart
from one another in our investigation, for they stand to each
other in the same relation as they stand to the various dialects
in India. The linguistic proof of origin can therefore now not
go further than to establish the fact that the Gipsy language
is in its very essence an originally Indian dialect, enriched in its
vocabulary from the languages of the peoples among whom
the Gipsies had sojourned, whilst in its grammatical inflection
it has slowly been modified, to such an extent that in some
cases, like the English or the Servian, barely a skeleton has
remained.
Notwithstanding the statements to the contrary, a Gipsy from Greece or Rumania could no longer understand a Gipsy of England or Germany, so profound is the difference. But the words which have entered into the Gipsy language, borrowed as they were from the Greeks, Hungarians, Rumanians, &c., are not only an indication of the route taken—and this is the only use that has hitherto been made of the vocabulary—but they are of the highest importance for fixing the time when the Gipsies had come in contact with these languages. The absence of Arabic is a positive proof that not only did the Gipsies not come via Arabia (as maintained by De Goeje) before they reached Europe, but that they could not even have been living for any length of time in Persia after the Mahommedan conquest, or at any rate that they could not have come in contact with such elements of the population as had already adopted Arabic in addition to Persian. But the form of the Persian words found among European Gipsies, and similarly the form of the Armenian words found in that language, are a clear indication that the Gipsies could not have come in contact with these languages before Persian had assumed its modern form and before Armenian had been changed from the old to the modern form of language. Still more strong and clear is the evidence in the case of the Greek and Rumanian words. If the Gipsies had lived in Greece, as some contend, from very ancient times, some at least of the old Greek words would be found in their language, and similarly the Slavonic words would be of an archaic character, whilst on the contrary we find medieval Byzantine forms, nay, modern Greek forms, among the Gipsy vocabulary collected from Gipsies in Germany or Italy, England or France; a proof positive that they could not have been in Europe much earlier than the approximate date given above of the 11th or 12th century. We then find from a grammatical point of view the same deterioration, say among the English or Spanish Gipsies, as has been noticed in the Gipsy dialect of Armenia. It is no longer Gipsy, but a corrupt English or Spanish adapted to some remnants of Gipsy inflections. The purest form has been preserved among the Greek Gipsies and to a certain extent among the Rumanian. Notably through Miklosich’s researches and comparative studies, it is possible to follow the slow change step by step and to prove, at any rate, that, as far as Europe is concerned, the language of these Gipsies was one and the same, and that it was slowly split up into a number of dialects (13 Miklosich, 14 Colocci) which shade off into one another, and which by their transitional forms mark the way in which the Gipsies have travelled, as also proved by historical evidence. The Welsh dialect, known by few, has retained, through its isolation, some of the ancient forms.
Religion, Habits and Customs.—Those who have lived among the Gipsies will readily testify that their religious views are a strange medley of the local faith, which they everywhere embrace, and some old-world superstitions which they have in common with many nations. Among the Greeks they belong to the Greek Church, among the Mahommedans they are Mahommedans, in Rumania they belong to the National Church. In Hungary they are mostly Catholics, according to the faith of the inhabitants of that country. They have no ethical principles and they do not recognize the obligations of the Ten Commandments. There is extreme moral laxity in the relation of the two sexes, and on the whole they take life easily, and are complete fatalists. At the same time they are great cowards, and they play the rôle of the fool or the jester in the popular anecdotes of eastern Europe. There the poltroon is always a Gipsy, but he is good-humoured and not so malicious as those Gipsies who had endured the hardships of outlawry in the west of Europe.
There is nothing specifically of an Oriental origin in their religious vocabulary, and the words Devla (God), Bang (devil) or Trushul (Cross), in spite of some remote similarity, must be taken as later adaptations, and not as remnants of an old Sky-worship or Serpent-worship. In general their beliefs, customs, tales, &c. belong to the common stock of general folklore, and many of their symbolical expressions find their exact counterpart in Rumanian and modern Greek, and often read as if they were direct translations from these languages. Although they love their children, it sometimes happens that a Gipsy mother will hold her child by the legs and beat the father with it. In Rumania and Turkey among the settled Gipsies a good number are carriers and bricklayers; and the women take their full share in every kind of work, no matter how hard it may be. The nomadic Gipsies carry on the ancient craft of coppersmiths, or workers in metal; they also make sieves and traps, but in the East they are seldom farriers or horse-dealers. They are far-famed for their music, in which art they are unsurpassed. The Gipsy musicians belong mostly to the class who originally were serfs. They were retained at the courts of the boyars for their special talent in reciting old ballads and love songs and their deftness in playing, notably the guitar and the fiddle. The former was used as an accompaniment to the singing of either love ditties and popular songs or more especially in recital or heroic ballads and epic songs; the latter for dances and other amusements. They were the troubadours and minstrels of eastern Europe; the largest collection of Rumanian popular ballads and songs was gathered by G. Dem. Teodorescu from a Gipsy minstrel, Petre Sholkan; and not a few of the songs of the guslars among the Servians and other Slavonic nations in the Balkans come also from the Gipsies. They have also retained the ancient tunes and airs, from the dreamy “doina” of the Rumanian to the fiery “czardas” of the Hungarian or the stately “hora” of the Bulgarian. Liszt went so far as to ascribe to the Gipsies the origin of the Hungarian national music. This is an exaggeration, as seen by the comparison of the Gipsy music in other parts of south-east Europe; but they undoubtedly have given the most faithful expression to the national temperament. Equally famous is the Gipsy woman for her knowledge of occult practices. She is the real witch; she knows charms to injure the enemy or to help a friend. She can break the charm if made by others. But neither in the one case nor in the other, and in fact as little as in their songs, do they use the Gipsy language. It is either the local language of the natives as in the case of charms, or a slightly Romanized form of Greek, Rumanian or Slavonic. The old Gipsy woman is also known for her skill in palmistry and fortune-telling by means of a special set of cards, the well-known Tarok of the Gipsies. They have also a large stock of fairy tales resembling in each country the local fairy tales, in Greece agreeing with the Greek, and in Rumania with the Rumanian fairy tales. It is doubtful, however, whether they have contributed to the dissemination of these tales throughout Europe, for a large number of Gipsy tales can be shown to have been known in Europe long before the appearance of the Gipsies, and others are so much like those of other nations that the borrowing may be by the Gipsy from the Greek, Slav or Rumanian. It is, however, possible that playing-cards might have been introduced to Europe through the Gipsies. The oldest reference to cards is found in the Chronicle of Nicolaus of Cavellazzo, who says that the cards were first brought into Viterbo in 1379 from the land of the Saracens, probably from Asia Minor or the Balkans. They spread very quickly, but no one has been able as yet to trace definitely the source whence they were first brought. Without
