One remarkable feature
must not be passed over without notice, namely, the very
considerable number of Sclavonic words, which are to be found
embedded within it, whether it be spoken in Spain or Germany, in
England or Italy; from which circumstance we are led to the
conclusion, that these people, in their way from the East,
travelled in one large compact body, and that their route lay
through some region where the Sclavonian language, or a dialect
thereof, was spoken. This region I have no hesitation in asserting
to have been Bulgaria, where they probably tarried for a
considerable period, as nomad herdsmen, and where numbers of them
are still to be found at the present day. Besides the many
Sclavonian words in the Gypsy tongue, another curious feature
attracts the attention of the philologist - an equal or still
greater quantity of terms from the modern Greek; indeed, we have
full warranty for assuming that at one period the Spanish section,
if not the rest of the Gypsy nation, understood the Greek language
well, and that, besides their own Indian dialect, they occasionally
used it for considerably upwards of a century subsequent to their
arrival, as amongst the Gitanos there were individuals to whom it
was intelligible so late as the year 1540.
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