Zerduscht, or Zoroaster, whose affinity to the said tongues is as
easily established as that of the Sanscrit, and which, in respect
to antiquity, may well dispute the palm with its Indian rival.
Avoiding, however, the discussion of this point, we shall content
ourselves with observing, that closely connected with the Sanscrit,
if not derived from it, are the Bengali, the high Hindustani, or
grand popular language of Hindustan, generally used by the learned
in their intercourse and writings, the languages of Multan,
Guzerat, and other provinces, without mentioning the mixed dialect
called Mongolian Hindustani, a corrupt jargon of Persian, Turkish,
Arabic, and Hindu words, first used by the Mongols, after the
conquest, in their intercourse with the natives. Many of the
principal languages of Asia are totally unconnected with the
Sanscrit, both in words and grammatical structure; these are mostly
of the great Tartar family, at the head of which there is good
reason for placing the Chinese and Tibetian.
Bearing the same analogy to the Sanscrit tongue as the Indian
dialects specified above, we find the Rommany, or speech of the
Roma, or Zincali, as they style themselves, known in England and
Spain as Gypsies and Gitanos. This speech, wherever it is spoken,
is, in all principal points, one and the same, though more or less
corrupted by foreign words, picked up in the various countries to
which those who use it have penetrated. 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.
Where this knowledge was obtained it is difficult to say, - perhaps
in Bulgaria, where two-thirds of the population profess the Greek
religion, or rather in Romania, where the Romaic is generally
understood; that they DID understand the Romaic in 1540, we gather
from a very remarkable work, called EL ESTUDIOSO CORTESANO, written
by Lorenzo Palmireno: this learned and highly extraordinary
individual was by birth a Valencian, and died about 1580; he was
professor at various universities - of rhetoric at Valencia, of
Greek at Zaragossa, where he gave lectures, in which he explained
the verses of Homer; he was a proficient in Greek, ancient and
modern, and it should be observed that, in the passage which we are
about to cite, he means himself by the learned individual who held
conversation with the Gitanos. (66) EL ESTUDIOSO CORTESANO was