The third
assertion of Hervas, as to the Gitanos speaking the allegorical
language of which he exhibits specimens, is entitled to about equal
credence as the two former. The truth is, that the entire store of
erudition of the learned Jesuit, and he doubtless was learned to a
remarkable degree, was derived from books, either printed or
manuscript. He compared the Gypsy words in the publication of
Grellmann with various vocabularies, which had long been in
existence, of the robber jargons of Spain and Italy, which jargons
by a strange fatuity had ever been considered as belonging to the
Gypsies. Finding that the Gypsy words of Grellmann did not at all
correspond with the thieves' slang, he concluded that the Gypsies
of Spain and Italy had forgotten their own language, and to supply
its place had invented the jargons aforesaid, but he never gave
himself the trouble to try whether the Gypsies really understood
the contents of his slang vocabularies; had he done so, he would
have found that the slang was about as unintelligible to the
Gypsies as he would have found the specimens of Grellmann
unintelligible to the thieves had he quoted those specimens to
them.
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