United States or Bahrain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I sees a jolly pig in the yard, and I says to my sister, speaking Rommany, 'Do so and so, says I; which the farming man hearing, asks what we are talking about.
Besides covering his principal, a bonnet must have his eyes about him, for the trade of the pea, though a strictly honest one, is not altogether lawful; so it is the duty of the bonnet, if he sees the constable coming, to say, The gorgio’s welling.’ ‘That is not cant,’ said I, ‘that is the language of the Rommany Chals.’ ‘Do you know those people?’ said the man.
I was not older than you when that happened; yet our people said they had never a better krallis to contrive and plan for them and to keep them in order. And this is so well known, that many Rommany Chals, not of our family, come and join themselves to us, living with us for a time, in order to better themselves, more especially those of the poorer sort, who have little of their own.
The Rommany chal, I say, clubbed his whip, and aimed a blow at the plastramengro, which, if it had hit him on the skull, as was intended, would very likely have cracked it. The plastramengro, however, received it partly on his staff, so that it did him no particular damage.
Now, to my mind, nothing seems more natural than that, when sitting entire days talking with an old Gipsy, no one rises so frequently from the past before me as Mr P . To him all religion represented a portion of the vast mass of frozen, petrified developments, which simply impede the march of intelligent minds; to my Rommany friend, it is one of the thousand inventions of gorgio life, which, like policemen, are simply obstacles to Gipsies in the search of a living, and could he have grasped the circumstances of the case, he would doubtless have replied "Avali, we Gipsies agree on the whole exactly with Mr P ." Extremes meet.
Then he went that road again, to the same house, and said, "Look here at this fine kettle! I gave six shillings for it, and you shall have it for the same money, because you have been so good to me." That man was like a great many men very benevolent to himself. If a Rommany chal gets nashered an' can't latch his drum i' the ratti, he shells avree, "Hup, hup Rom-ma-ny, Rom-ma-ny jo-ter!"
Mr Dickens, however, did not pretend, as some have done, to specially treat of Gipsies, and he made no affectation of a knowledge of any mysteries. He simply reflected popular life as he saw it. But there are many novels and tales, old and new, devoted to setting forth Rommany life and conversation, which are as much like the originals as a Pastor Fido is like a common shepherd.
"Can you VOKER Rommany?" is given by Mr Hotten as meaning "Can you speak Gipsy," but there is no such word in Rommany as voker. He probably meant "Can you rakker" pronounced very often Roker. Continental Gipsy Rakkervava. Mr Hotten derives it from the Latin Vocare! YACK, a watch, probably received its name from the Gipsy Yak an eye, in the old times when watches were called bull's eyes.
‘Yes, stands to you in the place of a father—keeps you out of harm’s way.’ ‘What do you take me for, brother?’ ‘For about three years older than myself.’ ‘Perhaps; but you are of the Gorgios, and I am a Rommany Chal. Tawno Chikno take care of Jasper Petulengro!’ ‘Is that your name?’ ‘Don’t you like it?’ ‘Very much, I never heard a sweeter; it is something like what you call me.’
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. 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.
Word Of The Day