country they inhabit more easily than their own idiom, which they seldom use, except with the object of conversing freely before strangers. A comparison of the dialect of the German gipsies with that used by the Spanish gipsies, who have held no communication with each other for several centuries, reveals the existence of a great number of words common to both. But everywhere the original language is notably affected, though in different degrees, by its contact with the more cultivated languages into the use of which the nomads have been forced. German in one case and Spanish in the other have so modified the Romany groundwork that it would not be possible for a gipsy from the Black Forest to converse with one of his Andalusian brothers, although a few sentences on each side would suffice to convince them that each was speaking a dialect of the same language. Certain words in very frequent use are, I believe, common to every dialect. Thus, in every vocabulary which I have been able to consult, pani means water, manro means bread, mas stands for meat, and lon for salt.
The nouns of number are almost the same in every case. The German dialect seems to me much purer than the Spanish, for it has preserved numbers of the primitive grammatical forms, whereas the Gitanos have adopted those of the Castilian tongue. Nevertheless, some words are an exception, as though to prove that the language was originally common to all. The preterite of the German dialect is formed by adding ium to the imperative, which is always the root of the verb. In the Spanish Romany the verbs are all conjugated on the model of the first conjugation of the Castilian verbs. From jamar, the infinitive of “to eat,” the regular conjugation should be jame, “I have eaten.” From lillar, “to take,” lille, “I have taken.” Yet, some old gipsies say, as an exception, jayon and lillon. I am not acquainted with any other verbs which have preserved this ancient form.
While I am thus showing off my small acquaintance with the Romany language, I must notice a few words of French slang which our thieves