The English Gipsies and Their Language Part 9

BARNEY, a mob or crowd, may be derived from the Gipsy _baro_, great or many, which sometimes takes the form of _barno_ or _barni_, and which suggests the Hindustani Bahrna "to increase, proceed, to gain, to be promoted;" and Bharna, "to fill, to satisfy, to be filled, &c."--(Brice's "Hindustani and English Dictionary." London, Trubner & Co., 1864).

BEEBEE, which the author of the Slang Dictionary declares means a lady, and is "Anglo-Indian," is in general use among English Gipsies for aunt.

It is also a respectful form of address to any middle-aged woman, among friends.

CULL or CULLY, meaning a man or boy, in Old English cant, is certainly of Gipsy origin. _Chulai_ signifies man in Spanish Gipsy (Borrow), and _Khulai_ a gentleman, according to Paspati; in Turkish Rommany--a distinction which the word _cully_ often preserves in England, even when used in a derogatory sense, as of a dupe.

JOMER, a sweetheart or female favourite, has probably some connection in derivation with choomer, a kiss, in Gipsy.

BLOKE, a common coa.r.s.e word for a man, may be of Gipsy origin; since, as the author of the Slang Dictionary declares, it may be found in Hindustani, as Loke. "_Lok_, people, a world, region."--("Brice's Hind.

Dictionary.") _Bala' lok_, a gentleman.

A DUFFER, which is an old English cant term, expressive of contempt for a man, may be derived from the Gipsy _Adovo_, "that," "that man," or "that fellow there." _Adovo_ is frequently p.r.o.nounced almost like "a duffer,"

or "_a duvva_."

NIGGLING, which means idling, wasting time, doing anything slowly, may be derived from some other Indo-European source, but in English Gipsy it means to go slowly, "to potter along," and in fact it is the same as the English word. That it is pure old Rommany appears from the fact that it is to be found as _Niglavava_ in Turkish Gipsy, meaning "I go," which is also found in _Nikliovava_ and _Nikavava_, which are in turn probably derived from the Hindustani _Nikalna_, "To issue, to go forth or out,"

&c. (Brice, Hind. Dic.) _Niggle_ is one of the English Gipsy words which are used in the East, but which I have not been able to find in the German Rommany, proving that here, as in other countries, certain old forms have been preserved, though they have been lost where the vocabulary is far more copious, and the grammar much more perfect.

MUG, a face, is derived by Mr Wedgwood from the Italian MOCCA, a mocking or apish mouth (Dictionary of English Etymology), but in English Gipsy we have not only _mui_, meaning the face, but the _older_ forms from which the English word was probably taken, such as Mak'h (Paspati), and finally the Hindustani _Mook_ and the Sanskrit _Mukha_, mouth or face (Shakespeare, Hind. Dic., p. 745). In all cases where a word is so "slangy" as mug, it seems more likely that it should have been derived from Rommany than from Italian, since it is only within a few years that any considerable number of the words of the latter language was imparted to the lower cla.s.ses of London.

BAMBOOZLE, BITE, and SLANG are all declared by the author of the Slang Dictionary to be Gipsy, but, with the exception of the last word, I am unable to verify their Rommany origin. Bambhorna does indeed mean in Hindustani (Brice), "to bite or to worry," and bamboo-baks.h.i.+sh to deceive by paying with a whipping, while _sw.a.n.g_, as signifying mimicking, acting, disguise and sham, whether of words or deeds, very curiously conveys the spirit of the word slang. As for _bite_ I almost hesitate to suggest the possibility of a connection between it and _Bidorna_, to laugh at. I offer not only these three suggested derivations, but also most of the others, with every reservation. For many of these words, as for instance _bite_, etymologists have already suggested far more plausible and more probable derivations, and if I have found a place for Rommany "roots," it is simply because what is the most plausible, and apparently the most probable, is not always the true origin. But as I firmly believe that there is much more Gipsy in English, especially in English slang and cant, than the world is aware of, I think it advisable to suggest what I can, leaving to abler philologists the task of testing its value.

Writers on such subjects err, almost without an exception, in insisting on one accurately defined and singly derived source for every word, when perhaps three or four have combined to form it. The habits of thought and methods of study followed by philologists render them especially open to this charge. They wish to establish every form as symmetrical and mathematical, where nature has been freakish and bizarre. Some years ago when I published certain poems in the broken English spoken by Germans, an American philologist, named Haldemann, demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the language which I had put into Hans Breitmann's mouth was inaccurate, because I had not reduced it to an uniform dialect, making the same word the same in spelling and p.r.o.nunciation on all occasions, when the most accurate observation had convinced me, as it must any one, that those who have only partially learned a language continually vary their methods of uttering its words.

That some words have come from one source and been aided by another, is continually apparent in English Gipsy, as for instance in the word for reins, "guiders," which, until the Rommany reached England, was voidas.

In this instance the resemblance in sound between the words undoubtedly conduced to an union. Gibberish may have come from the Gipsy, and at the same time owe something to _gabble_, _jabber_, and the old Norse or Icelandic _gifra_. _Lush_ may owe something to Mr Lus.h.i.+ngton, something to the earlier English _lush_, or rosy, and something to the Gipsy and Sanskrit. It is not at all unlikely that the word _codger_ owes, through _cadger_, a part of its being to _kid_, a basket, as Mr Halliwell suggests (Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1852), and yet come quite as directly from _gorger_ or _gorgio_. "The cheese" probably has the Gipsy-Hidustani _chiz_ for a father, and the French _chose_ for a mother, while both originally sprung thousands of years ago in the great parting of the Aryan nations, to be united after so long a separation in a distant island in the far northern seas.

The etymologist who hesitates to adopt this principle of joint sources of derivation, will find abundant instances of something very like it in many English Gipsy words themselves, which, as belonging to a language in extreme decay, have been formed directly from different, but somewhat similarly sounding, words, in the parent German or Eastern Rommany. Thus, _schukker_, pretty; _bi-shukker_, slow; _tschukko_, dry, and _tschororanes_, secretly, have in England all united in _shukar_, which expresses all of their meanings.

CHAPTER VII. PROVERBS AND CHANCE PHRASES.

An Old Gipsy Proverb--Common Proverbs in Gipsy Dress--Quaint Sayings--Characteristic Rommany Picture-Phrases.

Every race has not only its peculiar proverbs, sayings, and catch-words, but also idiomatic phrases which const.i.tute a characteristic chiaroscuro, if not colour. The Gipsies in England have of course borrowed much from the Gorgios, but now and then something of their own appears. In ill.u.s.tration of all this, I give the following expressions noted down from Gipsy conversation:--

_Tacho like my dad_. True like my father.

_Kushto like my dad_. Good like my father.

This is a true Gipsy proverb, used as a strongly marked indication of approbation or belief.

_Kushto bak_. Good luck!

As the Genoese of old greeted their friends with the word _Guadagna_! or "Gain!" indicating as Rabelais declares, their sordid character, so the Gipsy, whose life is precarious, and who depends upon chance for his daily bread, replies to "Sarishan!" (good day!) with "Kushto bak!" or "Good luck to you!" The Arabic "Baksheesh" is from the same root as bak, _i.e_., bacht.

_When there's a boro bavol_, _huller the tan parl the waver rikk pauli the bor_. When the wind is high, move the tent to the other side of the hedge behind it.

That is to say, change sides in an emergency.

"_Hatch apre! Hushti! The prastramengro's wellin! Jal the graias avree! Prastee_!"

"Jump up! Wide awake there! The policeman's coming! Run the horses off! Scamper!"

This is an alarm in camp, and const.i.tutes a sufficiently graphic picture.

The hint to run the horses off indicates a very doubtful t.i.tle to their possession.

_The prastramengro pens me mustn't hatch acai_.

The policeman says we mustn't stop here.

No phrase is heard more frequently among Gipsies, who are continually in trouble with the police as to their right to stop and pitch their tents on commons.

_I can hatch apre for pange_ (_panj_) _divvuses_.

I can stop here for five days.

A common phrase indicating content, and equivalent to, "I would like to sit here for a week."

_The graias have taddered at the kas-stoggus_--_we must jal an durer_--_the gorgio's d.i.c.ked us_!

The horses have been pulling at the hay-stack--we must hurry away--the man has seen us!

When Gipsies have remained over night on a farm, it sometimes happens that their horses and a.s.ses--inadvertently of course--find their way to the haystacks or into a good field. _Humanum est errare_!

_Yeck mush can lel a grai ta panni_, _but twenty cant kair him pi_.

One man can take a horse to water, but twenty can't make him drink.

A well-known proverb.

_A chirrico 'dree the mast is worth dui_ '_dree the bor_.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (hedge).

_Never kin a pong dishler nor lel a romni by momeli dood_.

Never buy a handkerchief nor choose a wife by candle-light.

_Always jal by the divvus_.

Always go by the day.

_Chin tutes chuckko by tute's kaum_.

Cut your coat according to your fancy. This is a Gipsy variation of an old proverb.