Note 182 — Chapter VI · THE GYPSY IN AFRICA

At the end of 1763 the Gazette of Vienna printed a letter from the Hungarian captain, Szekely de Doba. The latter related how a Protestant pastor, when studying at Leyden, made the acquaintance of some Malabar youths, who spoke of a province Zingania (of course Zigeuner), and whose language was that of the Gypsies. He made a vocabulary of about a thousand words, and returning home to Almasch or Almas, near Komorn, he found, to his surprise, that the “tinklers” understood them. The Hindustani grammars published in England (1773) and in Portugal (1778) enabled Grellman, Richardson, Marsden, Ludolf, and others to trace the resemblance with a firm hand. See Mayo and Quindalé, who in p. 45 fall into the vulgar error that the “Mongol-Hindustani jargon” began to be used in India only after the Moghol Conquests. These authors declare that when the celebrated Mezzofanti, of Bologna, became deranged in 1832, he never confused Gypsy with his other thirty-two tongues. Borrow’s Translation of St. Luke is also said to have retained several Spanish words from Padre Scio. As regards the “Germania” argot of Spain, a vocabulary was published about the middle of the last century by Juan Hidalgo; and though mostly obsolete, the useless farrago was textually reproduced in the Diccionario de la Academia.