The dialect of the gypsies of Wales

By Sampson, John.

Subjects: Gypsies, Language, Welsh Romani, Indian language

Description: According to the author the book brings to a conclusion his study of the Indian language (Romani) spoken in the heart of Wales by the Gypsies (Kale). In England and Scotland the Anglo-Romani, through the gradual loss of it's inflections and a great deal of its vocabulary had sunk to a shadow of it's once stately and beautifully constructed language. In the summer of 1894, while caravanning in North Wales, the author made the exciting discovery that the ancient Romani tongue, which had become extinct in England and Scotland, had been miraculously preserved by the Welsh Gypsies. The Kale, when they understood the author's interest in their language, did everything they could to help the author with his work. the Welsh Kale are the descendants of an eponymous ancestor Abram Wood, reputed King of the Gypsies, who was born before the close of the seventeenth century and the Welsh Kale dialect, which had been preserved in Wales represented a survival of the oldest and purest form of British Romani. The author visited every part of Wales in his field work and over a period of twenty years became familiar with their life, lore, customs and beliefs of the people who spoke "the strangest of all the mother-tongues spoken in these Islands". The author believed that he was lucky in stumbling upon the Welsh Romani in its Augustan, or at least its Silver Age,where decay was setting in. The author predicted that within a couple of generations the ancient Kale speech would be lost.