Ebook Spanish and Italian Folk-Songs

The original gipsy rhymes — some rude specimens of which may be found in Borrow's Gzprz'er of Spain — are in a Jargon of Spanish Rommany, unintelligible to most Spaniards; but although these last despise the abject and down-trodden Jitanos, their songs and dances have always found many admirers, among the Andalusians especially. Probably as a consequence of this, the gipsy singers and improvisatori seem, as far back as the end of the last century, to have adopted for their songs a form and dialect more comprehensible to their Spanish audiences. Among these they found pupils and imitators, who were the means of further intermingling the gipsy poetry with the Spanish.