VERBS. The conjugation of verbs, regular and irregular, is exceedingly complex and full. As a general example, the regular verb dive, `to give,' will suffice.
Examples: Kerava, 'I make'; terelas but cha yen, 'he had many children'; so kamavela, 'what will come ?' me chinghiem les, 'I killed him.' It will readily be seen from the above résumé that romani, where well preserved, is a fully developed and highly inflectional language. This character it has kept where the gypsies live in large numbers, as in Hungary, for instance; but in every country it has received many influences from without. In Hungarian, the word-accent falls invariably on the -first syllable, and this has influenced the Hungarian dialect. Thus, what would be pronounced, radio, 'boy,' radii, in Turkey, would become radio, rcikli, in Hun gary and in all the gypsy dialects of the farther west.
A word about the corrupt English dialect. When the gypsies arrived in England, early in the sixteenth century, they spoke romani of a pure and inflectional character. But association with the country people, and especially with the questionable gentry of the horse-fairs and the roads, caused their speech to become more and more corrupt, until to-day it is the English grammar applied to several hundred gypsy words. The old gypsy men and women who spoke the `real language,' tacho roman/ jib, are dead, and their descendants have forgotten it; but for tunately scholars took it from their lips before it disappeared. Almost every inflected form of
romani may be found in the English dialect. Thus, of the verb; kerava, keresa, kerela, kerena, kdrdo, "I, you, he, they make,' made,' are re corded; but the English gypsies of to-day, in stead of me kerdva, make,' say monde kers (using the English vulgar termination -s in 'I makes') , tute kers, lesti kers, etc. The migrations of the English gypsies are very discernible in their language. The basic stock is Indian; the Persian has supplied many words, as dermal, dovycil, 'sea,' vesh or wesh, 'forest'; the Armenian several, as grast, 'horse,' chor, `deep'; not a few are from the Greek, as drom, `road' (dpdyec), pet'l `horseshoe' (r6raXov), stadi, `hat' (crictdet) ; the Slavic languages have furnished, among others, kralis, 'king,' kichema, 'inn,' lovinor, `beer;' while German is represented by stifi-pal and stifi-pen (Stiefbruder, Stiefschwester), and French, as some think, by biti, 'little' (petit).
Representative specimens of several romani dialects are here appended for comparison. Non romani words and forms are given in italics. '