the language is everywhere essentially the same and stands closer to Hindustani than any other tongue.[1]
Now the race is almost ubiquitous over a very large area; it is found in every country of Europe, Turkey in Asia, Persia, Turkestan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Siberia; it extends to the Sudan and the N. Coast of Africa and is scattered in both hemispheres of the New World. 'Everywhere,' says Sinclair (Jl. G. Lore Soc. Jan. 1908) 'it is the same gipsy race and the language is the same romani chib, in different stages of decay and modified by various environments.' The writer (as MacR. remarks) 'deliberately omits India.' The purest form is spoken in Balkania and region of Lower Danube; as we go further from this focus or cradleland numbers decrease and dialect degenerates. In the East, as we come near Hindukush and the Indian confines, the tongue has almost vanished and the people are very scanty. 'There are no Indian gipsies,' says Sinclair roundly, and 'there is no need to go to India to seek the cradle of the romani tongue.' There are, it is true, gipsy-like castes in India, but they would not find themselves at home with their supposed kinsmen in the west; and while Turk and Welsh gipsies could converse together, neither would be understood by a member of any gipsy-like caste in India. The Indian tribe or caste of Bazigars or Bediyas are certainly gipsy-like in custom: they are also called Panchpirias or Nats and live apart from their neighbours, preserving a certain ethnic individuality. They juggle and dance, weave baskets and tell fortunes: each tribe has its king.
6. Known in Bengal and United Provinces, numbering nearly 60,000 in census of 1901, the Bediya or Beriya act
- ↑ Many words are identical, for water, black, knife, lady, nose, hair; the numerals are conclusive as to kinship: Groome's typical sentence 'Go see who knocks at the door' is in effect the same in both tongues. Of borrowed words from other languages, Byzantine Greek and Slavonic supply the most; there are but a few from Persian, Armenian, Magyar, Rumanian and German.
