George Borrow

Romano Lavo-Lil (Romany Dictionary) George Borrow

Book Excerpt: ...differ much from the original Gypsy speech; so that when speaking of Gypsy language, any one of these may be taken as a standard. One of them--I shall not mention which--I have selected for that purpose, more from fancy than any particular reason. The Gypsy language, then, or what with some qualification I may call such, may consist of some three thousand words, the greater part of which are decidedly of Indian origin, being connected with the Sanscrit or some other Indian dialect; the rest consist of words picked up by the Gypsies from various languages in their wanderings from the East. It has two genders, masculine and feminine; o represents the masculine and i the feminine: for example, boro rye, a great gentleman; bori rani, a great lady. There is properly no indefinite article: gajo or gorgio, a man or gentile; o gajo, the man. The noun has two numbers, the singular and the plural. It has various cases formed by postpositions, but has, strictly speaking, no genitive. It has prepositions as w...