HIS INCONSISTENCIES REGARDING THE LANGUAGE. 123 



offence), run wenches, or stole chil- 

 dren. 



The following extracts will illus- 

 trate Mr. Borrow's singular incon- 

 sistencies in regard to the mental 

 peculiarities of the Gipsies when 

 speaking their language : 



Before considering this trait in the 

 character of the Scottish Gipsies [in re- 

 gard to keeping their language a secret], 

 it may interest the reader to know that 

 the same peculiarity obtains among those 

 on the continent. 



Of the Hungarian Gipsies, Grellmann 

 writes : " It will be recollected, from 

 the first, how great a secret they make 

 of their language, and how suspicious 

 they appear when any person wishes to 

 learn a few words of it. Even if the 

 Gipsy is not perverse, he is very inatten- 

 tive, and is consequently likely to an- 

 swer some other rather than the true 

 Gipsy word." Of the Hungarian Gip- 

 sies, Bright says : " No one, who has 

 not had experience, can conceive the 

 difficulty of gaining intelligible informa- 

 tion, from people so rude, upon the sub- 

 iject of their language. If you ask fora 

 word, they give you a whole sentence ; 

 and on asking a second time, they give 

 the sentence a totally different turn, or 

 introduce some figure altogether new. 

 Thus it was with our Gipsy, who, at 

 length, tired of our questions, prayed 

 most piteously to be released ; which we 

 granted him, only on condition of his 

 returning in the evening." Of the 

 Spanish Gipsies, Mr. Borrow writes : 

 " It is only by listening attentively to the 

 speech of the Gitanos, whilst discours- 

 ing among themselves, that an acquaint- 

 ance with their dialect can be formed, 

 and by seizing upon all unknown words, 

 as they fall in succession from their lips. 

 Nothing can be more useless and hope- 

 less than the attempt to obtain posses- 

 sion of their vocabulary, by inquiring of 

 them how particular objects and ideas 

 are styled in the same ; for, with the ex- 

 ception of the names of the most com- 

 mon things, they are totally incapable, 

 as a Spanish writer has observed, of 

 yielding the required information ; owing 

 to their great ignorance, the shortness of 

 their memories, or rather the state of 

 bewilderment to which their minds are 

 brought by any question which tends to 

 bring their reasoning faculties into ac- 

 tion ; though, not unfrequently, the very 

 words which have been in vain required 



of them will, a minute subsequently, 

 proceed inadvertently from their 

 mouths." What has been said by the 

 two last-named writers is very wide of 

 the mark ; Grellmann, however, hits it 

 exactly. The Gipsies have * excellent 

 memories. It is all they have to depend 

 on. If they had not good memories, 

 how could they, at the present day, 

 speak a word of their language at all ? 

 The difficulty in question is downright 

 shuffling, and not a want of memory on 

 the part of the Gipsy. The present 

 chapter will throw some light on the 

 subject. Even Mr. Borrow himselt 

 gives an ample refutation to his sweep- 

 ing account of the Spanish Gipsies, in 

 regard to their language ; for, in another 

 part of his work, he says : '' I recited 

 the Appstles' Creed to the Gipsies, sen- 

 tence by sentence, which they translated 

 as I proceeded. They exhibited the 

 greatest eagerness and interest in their 

 unwonted occupation, and frequently 

 broke into loud disputes as to the best 

 rendering, many being offered at the 

 same time. I then read the translation 

 aloud, whereupon they raised a shout ot 

 exultation, and appeared not a little 

 proud of the composition." On this oc- 

 casion, Mr. Borrow evidently had the 

 Gipsies in the right humour that is, oft 

 their guard, excited, and much interest- 

 ed in the subject. He says, in another 

 place : " The language they speak 

 among themselves, and they are partic- 

 ularly anxious to keep others in igno- 

 rance of it." As a general thing, they 

 seem to have been bored by people much 

 above them in the scale of society ; with 

 whom their natural politeness, and ex- 

 pectations of money or other benefits, 

 would naturally lead them to do any- 

 thing than give them that which is in- 

 born in their nature to keep to them- 

 selves (Ed., p. 281). 



Besides the difficulties mentioned in 

 the way of getting any of their language 

 from them, there is a general one that 

 arises from the suspicious, unsettled, 

 restless, fickle and volatile nature by 

 which they are characterized. It is a 

 rare thing to get them to speak consecu- 

 tively for more than a few minutes on 

 any subject, thus precluding the possi- 

 bility, in most instances, of taking advan- 

 tage of any favourable humour in which 

 they may be found, in the matter of their 

 ganeral history leaving alone the for- 

 mal and serious procedure necessary to 

 be followed in regard to their language. 



