The English Gipsies and Their Language

ged Eye.-Shavers.-Clichy.-Caliban.-A Rum 'un.-Pal.-Trash.-Cadger.-Cad.-Bosh.-Bats.-Chee-chee.-The Cheese.-Chiv Fence

).-Welcher.-Yack.-Lushy.-A Mull.-Pross.-Toshers.-Up to Trap.-Barney.-Beebee.-Cull, Culley.-Jomer.-Bloke.-Duffe

ace in Rommany. At least one-third of the words now used by Scottish Gipsies are unintelligible to their English brothers. To satisfy myself on this point, I have examined an intelligent English Gipsy on the Scottish Gipsy vocabularies in Mr Simpson's work, and found it was as I anticipated; a statement which will not appear incredible when it is remembered, that even the Rommany of Yetholm have a dialect marked and distinct from tha

ppearance on the turf, and that the chuckni was a peculiar form of whip, very long and heavy, first used by the Gipsies. "Jockeyism," says Mr Borrow, "properly means the management of a whip, and the word jockey is neither more nor less than the term, slightl

n clubs as in stables, and often denotes stylish and gentlemanly driving. And the term is without the slightest modification, either of pronunciation or meaning, directly and simply Gipsy, and is used by Gipsies in the same way. It has,

casions; is used as substantive and adjective, and has a far wider scope than the Latin res." Thus covo may mean "that man;" covi, "that woman;" and covo or cuvvo, as it very often does in English, "that, there." It sometimes appears in the word acovat, or this. There is no expre

e, and hoax, are probably Rommany from this root, and I have no doubt that the expression, "Yes, with a hook," meaning "it is false," comes from the same. The well-known "Hookey" who corresponds so closely with his untruthful

ary word reached the public. In the original Gipsy tongue the word to quarrel is chinger-av, meaning also (Pott, Zigeuner, p. 209) to cut, hew, and fight, while to cut is chinav. "Cutting up" is, if the reader reflects, a very unmeaning word as applied to outrageous or noisy pranks; but in Gipsy, whether English, Germa

or that he shinned it, for run away, unless we have recou

-to cry-but v and w are so frequently transposed that we may consider them as the same letter. Rāw or me rauaw, "I howl" or "cry," is German Gipsy. Rowan is given by Pott as equivalent to th

ipe, in Rommany, mean a tongue, inferring scolding, and chiv anything sharp-pointed, as for instance a dagger, or goad or knife. But the old Gipsy word chiv-av among its numerous meaning

which in English have become blended into one. Thus, chib or chiv, a tongue, and tschiwawa (or chiv-ava), to lay, place, lean, sow, sink, set upright, move, harness, cover up, are united in England into chiv,

flask. But when we reflect on the constant mingling of Gipsies with prizefighters, it is almost evident that the word BONGO may have been the origin of it. A bongo yakko or yak, means a

is the Rommany word for child all the world over, and the English term chavies, in Scottish Gipsy shavies, or shavers, leaves us but little room for do

the noted prison of that name, but it is perhaps not undeserving

ppellation which literally signifies blackness in Gipsy. In fact, this very word, or Cauliban, is giv

cates), came from Rum or Rom, a Gipsy. It is a peculiar word, and all of its peculiarities might well be assumed by the sporting Gipsy, who is always, in his way, a character, gifted with an indescribable

ing come directly from that language, without the slightest change. On the C

the German Gipsy of the present day, as in the Turkish Rommany, it means so directly "fear, mental weakness and worthlessness," that it may possibly have ha

all to be found in German Gipsy, which is in its turn identical with the Rommany language of India-of the Nāts

et I believe that it was abbreviated from cadger, and that this is simply the Gipsy word Gorgio, which often means a man in the abstract. I have seen this wo

t the Gipsies at home already had, in all probability, from the same Persian source, or else from the Sanskrit. With the Gipsies, bosh is a fiddle, musi

d, Tom Pats. "To pad the hoof," and "to stand pad "-the latter phrase meaning to stand upright, or to stand and beg, are probably derived from pat. It should be borne i

of the present day for a term which is familiar to every Gipsy and "traveller" in England, and which, as Mr Simson discovered l

ies use it, and it is to be found as "chiz" in Hindustani, in which language it means a thing. Gipsies do not, however, seem to regard it themselves, a

a term evidently derived from the Gipsy chiv, a sharp-pointed instrument o

ang Dictionary to go to the banks of the Danube for the origin of a word which is in the mouths of all Engl

confessed-from "gorgeous,"-a word with which it has no more in common than with gouges or chisels. A gorger or gorgio-the two are often confounded-is the common Gipsy

eeing, is purely Gipsy in its origin, and i

ectly enough, from the Gipsy dukkerin,-a fact which I specify, since it is one of the very rare

owner, owes its pseudonym to the Gipsy word tawno or tano, meaning "l

rd for a road. In English slang it is applie

psies, it may have been derived either from "Gip," the nickname for Gipsy, with ish or r

rigin. The common word in every Rommany dialect for

on word. In Rommany it can be correctly applied only to a letter or a piece of paper, which is writte

or confusion is obvious. The author of the Slang Dictionary, in order to explain this word, goes as usual to the Wallachian Gipsies, for what he might have learned from t

that it meant to pilfer. Such, at least, is my earliest recollection, and of hearing school boys ask one another in jest, of their acquisitions or gifts, "Where did you loaf that from?" A petty pilferer was a loafer, but in a very short time all of the tribe o

ndian, and only a recent importation into our English "slanguage," it has alw

-Saxon for a basket, but is quite as likely to have come from Maunder,

es themselves do not use the word, nor does it belong to the

t is more likely that it was derived from the Gipsy panni or water. "Brandy pawnee" is undoubtedly an Angl

ns, and sometimes for money in general, is the diminutive of the Gipsy word p

age atut means across or against, though to curry (German and Turkish Gipsy kurava), has some of the slang meaning attributed to queer. An E

boy, and rakli, a girl; Arabic, ragol, a man. I am informed, on good authority, that these words are known in India, though I cannot find them in

mply the Gipsy word romi, a contraction o

robably Gipsy, since in the old form of the latter language, Biava or

ertain in Rommany, is a side or an edge. It is, however, possible that one's side may in earlier tim

ary, but it is worth observing, that Mal in old Gipsy, or in Ge

f the common Gipsy word hatch, which means precisely th

psy distarabin, but there is no such word beginning with dis, in the

derived from the Gipsy

the Gipsy tove, to wash (German Gipsy Tovava). She is, so to speak, freshly washed. To

, to drive with the reins; derived beyond doubt from the Gipsy word tool,

s composition, but it may have partially got its name from some sporting Gipsy in whose language the word for five is the same as in Sanskrit. Ther

dded that it is pure Gipsy, and is still known at the present day to every Rom

re is no such word in Rommany as voker. He probably meant "Can you rākker"-pronounced ve

rthy of remark that in old Gipsy a Walshdo or Welsher meant a Fren

from the Gipsy Yak an eye, in the old ti

as Lush; as Paspati derives it, there seems to be some ground for supposing the words to be purely Rommany. Dr Johnson said of lush that it was "opposite to pale," and this curiously enough shows its first source, wh

as is said, from the Gipsy, must have come from Mullo meaning dead, and the Sanskrit Mar

igin, I am inclined to derive this from the old Gipsy Priss, to read. In English Gipsy Prasser or Pross means to ridicule or

ous that in Turkish Gipsy Tasi is a cup, and in Turkish Persian it means, according to Paspati, a copper basin used in the baths. It is as characteristic of English Gipsy as o

ame, fish, pigs, and poultry; he quiets kicking horses until they can be sold; and last, not least, kills or catches rats and mice. As with the Indians of North America, medicine-whether to kill or cure-is to the Gipsy the art of arts, and those who affect a knowledge of it are always regarded as the most intelligent. It is, however, remarkable, that the Gipsy, though he lives in fields and woods, is, all the world over, far inferior to the American Indian as regards a knowledge of t

or barni, and which suggests the Hindustani Bahrna "to increase, proceed, to gain, to be promoted;" and Bharná, "

is "Anglo-Indian," is in general use among English Gipsies for aunt. It is

man in Spanish Gipsy (Borrow), and Khulai a gentleman, according to Paspati; in Turkish Rommany-a distinc

e, has probably some connection in der

or of the Slang Dictionary declares, it may be found in Hindustani, as Loke. "Lok

n, may be derived from the Gipsy Adovo, "that," "that man," or "that fellow

ct that it is to be found as Niglavava in Turkish Gipsy, meaning "I go," which is also found in Nikliovava and Nikaváva, which are in turn probably derived from the Hindustani Nikalná, "To issue, to go forth or out," &c. (Brice, Hind. Dic.) Niggle is one of the English Gipsy wo

nglish word was probably taken, such as Māk'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

s, 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 derivation

lish 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 wa

e time owe something to gabble, jabber, and the old Norse or Icelandic gifra. Lush may owe something to Mr Lushington, 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

mselves, 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 Easte