The poverty of their language in nouns the Gypsies endeavour to remedy by the frequent use of the word _engro_. This word affixed to a noun or verb turns it into something figurative, by which they designate, seldom very appropriately, some object for which they have no positive name. _Engro_ properly means a fellow, and _engri_, which is the feminine or neuter modification, a thing. When the noun or verb terminates in a vowel, _engro_ is turned into _mengro_, and _engri_ into _mengri_. I have already shown how, by affixing _engro_ to _kaun_, the Gypsies have invented a word to express a hare. In like manner, by affixing _engro_ to _pov_, earth, they have coined a word for a potato, which they call _pov-engro_ or _pov-engri_, earth-fellow or thing; and by adding _engro_ to _rukh_, or _mengro_ to _rooko_, they have really a very pretty figurative name for a squirrel, which they call _rukh-engro_ or _rooko-mengro_, literally a fellow of the tree. _Poggra-mengri_, a breaking thing, and _pea-mengri_, a drinking thing, by which they express, respectively, a mill and a teapot, will serve as examples of the manner by which they turn verbs into substantives. This method of finding names for objects, for which there are properly no terms in Gypsy, might be carried to a great length—much farther, indeed, than the Gypsies are in the habit of carrying it: a slack-rope dancer might be termed _bittitardranoshellokellimengro_, or slightly-drawn-rope-dancing fellow; a drum, _duicoshtcurenomengri_, or a thing beaten by two sticks; a tambourine, _angustrecurenimengri_, or a thing beaten by the fingers; and a fife, _muipudenimengri_, or thing blown by the mouth. All these compound words, however, would be more or less indefinite, and far beyond the comprehension of the Gypsies in general.
The verbs are very few, and with two or three exceptions expressive only of that which springs from what is physical and bodily, totally unconnected with the mind, for which, indeed, the English Gypsy has no word; the term used for mind, _zi_—which is a modification of the Hungarian _sziv_—meaning heart. There are such verbs in this dialect as to eat, drink, walk, run, hear, see, live, die; but there are no such verbs as to hope, mean, hinder, prove, forbid, teaze, soothe. There is the verb _apasavello_, I believe; but that word, which is Wallachian, properly means being trusted, and was incorporated in the Gypsy language from the Gypsies obtaining goods on trust from the Wallachians, which they never intended to pay for. There is the verb for love, _camova_; but that word is expressive of physical desire, and is connected with the Sanscrit _Cama_, or Cupid. Here, however, the English must not triumph over the Gypsies, as their own verb ‘love’ is connected with a Sanscrit word signifying ‘lust.’ One pure and abstract metaphysical verb the English Gypsy must be allowed to possess—namely, _penchava_, I think, a word of illustrious origin, being derived from the Persian _pendashtan_.