The Zincali An Account of the Gypsies of Spain George Henry Borrow 9781142695309 Books
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The Zincali An Account of the Gypsies of Spain George Henry Borrow 9781142695309 Books
This is the first book of note that George Borrow wrote and the fourth of his works that I have read. Fortunately, I did not start with this one. If I had, I probably would not have continued to the others, all of which I enjoyed very much. About three quarters of this book is written in a third-person essay style and documents Borrow’s informal study of the history and language of Gypsies both in Spain and in the larger European world. The other one quarter of it records various anecdotes, both Borrow’s experiences and the experiences of others, generally related to the Gypsies of Spain in the first half of 19th century or earlier. I was not much interested in Borrow’s history and language studies, theories, and speculations although many of them seem fairly accurate based on other reading that I have done. The anecdotes are pleasant and entertaining in the style that Borrow further developed and used so well in his other works: “The Bible in Spain,” “Lavengro,” and “The Romany Rye.” The Kindle version that I read was based on one of the later editions of “The Zincali.” It includes Borrow’s preface to the fourth edition and mentions some of his later works. There are occasionally details mentioned in this work that he more fully developed later with some suggestion that he may have embellished the events in the later works to make a better story. For example, in “The Zincali” Borrow mentions a horse trading episode whereby he made a handsome profit within three days with the financial support of his Gypsy friend Jasper Petulengro. This horse trade is a key narrative element in “The Romany Rye.” However, in the later book the time between buying the horse and selling it at a good profit extends over several weeks with a number of interesting incidents occurring as the owner rides the horse to a fair to be sold. This version of “The Zincali” has a large number of footnotes. However, the footnotes were not hyperlinked and, consequently they were not very helpful except in retrospect. Borrow included a number of songs, couplets, and bits of doggerel in Gitano and other languages. Typically, I skipped over these because they did not attract my interest. After one has read Borrow’s three major Gypsy-related works, “The Zincali” is an interesting addition to read through quickly. But it certainly would not be the place to start.Product details
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The Zincali An Account of the Gypsies of Spain George Henry Borrow 9781142695309 Books Reviews
The author describes his experiences with Gypsies (today usually called Romany or Roma), or Zincali, in Spain. While he was an Englishman whose true goal was to convert them to Christianity, he was able to speak Romany fluently and to pass himself off as one of them. His description of Gypsy lives, history, and culture does not pretend to any kind of objectivity about either the Gypsies or Spain, where he spent the most time with them, he is far more objective in his study of the Romany language compared to Sanskrit, Arabic, and other languages. He concludes that Romany is descended from Sanskrit, justifying his contention that they originated in India, a contention now supported by both linguistic and DNA evidence.
His prejudice against Spain, Spaniards, and Spanish culture is obvious and unabashed, and thus naturally suggests that his descriptions of Romany culture and mores are equally prejudiced. However, his historical investigations appear to be thorough and correspond closely to later research performed in a more deliberately scientific way. He also followed the habit of the time by translating Romany songs into rather stilted rhyming English verse, losing much of the flavor of the original.
His description of the history of Romany persecution alarmingly foreshadows their persecution in the 20th century, including the Nazi attempted genocide that killed anywhere between 220,000 and 1.5 million, a very high proportion of their population (how high is difficult to tell because of the lack of reliable demographic data from before the Nazi regime) and subsequent further attempts to eliminate the people (through forced sterilization) or the culture (through removing children).
Unfortunately, the edition does not include the dictionary from the original print version and mutilates the tables that show word comparisons across languages. This brings the rating down from five stars to four.
Interesting for a casual reader as well as a historian or modern anthropologist.
This is the first book of note that George Borrow wrote and the fourth of his works that I have read. Fortunately, I did not start with this one. If I had, I probably would not have continued to the others, all of which I enjoyed very much. About three quarters of this book is written in a third-person essay style and documents Borrow’s informal study of the history and language of Gypsies both in Spain and in the larger European world. The other one quarter of it records various anecdotes, both Borrow’s experiences and the experiences of others, generally related to the Gypsies of Spain in the first half of 19th century or earlier. I was not much interested in Borrow’s history and language studies, theories, and speculations although many of them seem fairly accurate based on other reading that I have done. The anecdotes are pleasant and entertaining in the style that Borrow further developed and used so well in his other works “The Bible in Spain,” “Lavengro,” and “The Romany Rye.” The version that I read was based on one of the later editions of “The Zincali.” It includes Borrow’s preface to the fourth edition and mentions some of his later works. There are occasionally details mentioned in this work that he more fully developed later with some suggestion that he may have embellished the events in the later works to make a better story. For example, in “The Zincali” Borrow mentions a horse trading episode whereby he made a handsome profit within three days with the financial support of his Gypsy friend Jasper Petulengro. This horse trade is a key narrative element in “The Romany Rye.” However, in the later book the time between buying the horse and selling it at a good profit extends over several weeks with a number of interesting incidents occurring as the owner rides the horse to a fair to be sold. This version of “The Zincali” has a large number of footnotes. However, the footnotes were not hyperlinked and, consequently they were not very helpful except in retrospect. Borrow included a number of songs, couplets, and bits of doggerel in Gitano and other languages. Typically, I skipped over these because they did not attract my interest. After one has read Borrow’s three major Gypsy-related works, “The Zincali” is an interesting addition to read through quickly. But it certainly would not be the place to start.
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