TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS, 195 
On the Race and Language of the Gipsies. 
By the Rev. T. W. Norwoop, £.G.S. 
The Gipsies are said to have been first seen in Europe about the year 1417 ; before 
which time their history is involved in very great obscurity. 
A wide-spread and persistent tradition amongst themselves declares them to be 
Egyptians; which they certainly are not, however that denomination arose, and 
whatever credit may seem due to its very general circulation. Many attempts have 
been made to account for this tradition, but without any success. 
They arrived in England some time in the end of the fifteenth century. Polydore 
Virgil seems to be the first author that mentions the English Gipsies: he speaks of 
them as “‘ Assyrians” or “‘ Egyptians,” in terms of strong reprobation. Wherever 
they went, they early made themselves detestable by their vices and cunning; and 
consequently they have been persecuted throughout Europe in a way which makes 
us wonder that they were not all exterminated. It remained long unknown whence 
the Gipsies came, and to what race of men they ought to be referred; but it was at 
length discovered that they are an emigration from India, by researches into their 
strange unwritten language. This disclosure is due to the scholars of Germany; 
and particularly to Grellman, who wrote his “‘ Dissertation’”’ in the last century. 
The same conclusion might have been suggested from considerations of figure, feature, 
and colour; but the best criterion, upon the whole, that we haye at present in such 
aaa.” is the internal testimony of language. Language is the best test of race, 
itherto. 
Grellman arrived at the decision, by a limited comparison of “ Gipsy” with 
**Hindustani,”’ that at least twelve Gipsy words out of every thirty were Indian. 
We know now, after a wider examination, that this proportion has been almost 
doubled ; and also that the Indian words in Gipsy are nearly all of “ Sanskrit” origin. 
“Gipsy” is now, in fact, proved to be a dialect of ‘‘ Sanskrit,” very much overlaid 
with foreign words, such as a wandering nation would be sure to adopt; and also 
considerably differing, in original character, from any other known dialect of the 
Sanskrit speech. : 
We do not despair of finding, in the East, an idiom more closely allied to Gipsy 
than any with which we are yet acquainted. At what time, or from what motives, 
the Gipsies left India, no one has been able to determine. 
The author of this paper read to the Section a list of sixty words (out of a large 
vocabulary collected orally from the Gipsies by himself), each of which is a genuine 
Sanskrit word, and common at the present day to the Gipsy and Hindustani dialects 
of that language. These were names of numerals, elementary ideas, and familiar 
natural objects, such as he judged likely to have been brought from the original 
settlement of the race. 
Doubtful words in “Gipsy,” not yet traced to any language, are their names for 
coins, articles of clothing, and things connected with religious worship. A list of these 
was also read. They may have been changed in travel. It was shown that Gipsy 
has much more in common with Greek and Latin (especially with Greek) than with 
any other European languages. In some of its suffixes it closely resembles the very 
ancient Islandic and Lithuanian dialects. It has great facility, like Greek and Ger- 
man, for coining new words by compounding old roots. This is a sign and property 
of yery ancient languages. Many specimens of Gipsy conversation, orally collected, 
were read, with their exact pronunciation, to the Section. ‘‘ Gipsy”? and Gipsyism 
are fast declining and dying out in England; meanwhile we remember the words of 
Dr. Johnson speaking on the whole subject of language :—‘‘I am not very willing 
that any language should be totally extinguished. The similitude and derivation of 
languages afford the most indubitable proof of the traduction of nations, and the 
genealogy of mankind. They add often physical certainty to historical evidence of 
ancient migrations, and of the revolutions of ages which left no written monuments 
behind them.” 
Notes on Indian Fibres, illustrated by prepared Specimens. 
By J. H. Savier. (Communicated by Colonel Sykes.) 
’ The natives of India were at an early period acquainted with the art of spinning 
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