Part 3 — FOOTNOTES
Reading edition
‘Las Muchis. (The Sparks.)
‘Bus de gres chabalas orchiris man diqué á yes chiro purelar sistilias sata rujias, y or sisli carjibal diñando trutas discandas.
‘Annis præteritis Iuliobrigam urbem, vulgo Logroño, pestilenti laborantem morbo, et hominibus vacuam invadere hi ac diripere tentarunt, perfecissentque ni Dens O. M. cuiusdam bibliopolæ opera, in corum, capita, quam urbi moliebantur perniciem avertisset.’ Didascalia, Lugduni, 1615, I vol. 8VO. p. 405, cap. 50.
To this work we shall revert on a future occasion.
He gets rid of any evidence with respect to the origin of the Gitános which their language might be capable of affording in the following summary manner: ‘As to the particular jargon which they use, any investigation which people might pretend to make would be quite useless; in the first place, on account of the reserve which they exhibit on this point; and secondly, because, in the event of some being found sufficiently communicative, the information which they could impart would lead to no advantageous result, owing to their extreme ignorance.’
It is scarcely worth while to offer a remark on reasoning which could only emanate from an understanding of the very lowest order,—so the Gitános are so extremely ignorant, that however frank they might wish to be, they would be unable to tell the curious inquirer the names for bread and water, meat and salt, in their own peculiar tongue—for, assuredly, had they sense enough to afford that slight quantum of information, it would lead to two very advantageous results, by proving, first, that they spoke the same language as the Gypsies, etc., and were consequently the same people—and secondly, that they came not from the coast of Northern Africa, where only Arabic and Shillah are spoken, but from the heart of Asia, three words of the four being pure Sanscrit.