When we consider that the Persian has adopted so many words and
phrases from the Arabic, we are at first disposed to wonder that a
considerable portion of these words are not to be discovered in
every dialect of the Gypsy tongue, since the Persian has lent it so
much of its vocabulary. Yet such is by no means the case, as it is
very uncommon, in any one of these dialects, to discover words
derived from the Arabic. Perhaps, however, the following
consideration will help to solve this point. The Gitanos, even
before they left India, were probably much the same rude, thievish,
and ignorant people as they are at the present day. Now the words
adopted by the Persian from the Arabic, and which it subsequently
introduced into the dialects of India, are sounds representing
objects and ideas with which such a people as the Gitanos could
necessarily be but scantily acquainted, a people whose circle of
ideas only embraces physical objects, and who never commune with
their own minds, nor exert them but in devising low and vulgar
schemes of pillage and deceit. Whatever is visible and common is
seldom or never represented by the Persians, even in their books,
by the help of Arabic words: the sun and stars, the sea and river,
the earth, its trees, its fruits, its flowers, and all that it
produces and supports, are seldom named by them by other terms than
those which their own language is capable of affording; but in
expressing the abstract thoughts of their minds, and they are a
people who think much and well, they borrow largely from the
language of their religion - the Arabic.
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