[The English Gipsies and Their Language by Charles G. Leland]@TWC D-Link bookThe English Gipsies and Their Language CHAPTER VI 16/25
In Gipsy, _raklo_ is a youth or boy, and _rakli_, a girl; Arabic, _ragol_, a man.
I am informed, on good authority, that these words are known in India, though I cannot find them in dictionaries.
They are possibly transposed from _Lurka_ a youth and _lurki_ a girl, such transpositions being common among the lowest classes in India. RUMMY or RUMY, as applied to women, is simply the Gipsy word _romi_, a contraction of _romni_, a wife; the husband being her _rom_. BIVVY for beer, has been derived from the Italian _bevere_, but it is probably Gipsy, since in the old form of the latter language, Biava or Piava, means to drink.
To _pivit_, is still known among English Gipsies. RIGS--running one's rigs is said to be Gipsy, but the only meaning of _rig_, so far as I am able to ascertain in Rommany, is _a side_ or _an edge_.
It is, however, possible that one's _side_ may in earlier times have been equivalent to "face, or encounter." To _rikker_ or _rigger_ in Gipsy, is to carry anything. MOLL, a female companion, is probably merely the nickname for Mary, but it is worth observing, that _Mal_ in old Gipsy, or in German Gipsy, means an associate, and Mahar a wife, in Hindustani. STASH, to be quiet, to stop, is, I think, a variation of the common Gipsy word hatch, which means precisely the same thing, and is derived from the older word _atchava_. STURABAN, a prison, is purely Gipsy.
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