Gypsy language book reaches new audience
SARAH BREALEY
06 January 2007 07:45It is a book which began with a schoolboy's index cards and has been more than 50 years in the making.
An East Anglian man's labour of love has become the most definitive guide to the language of gypsies and has even been listed as one of the world's top 10 reference books.
Now James Hayward is about to reprint his book, Gypsy Jib, amid successful sales all over the world.
Mr Hayward, 68, from Wissett, near Halesworth, first started recording gypsy language at the age of 12 or 13. Inspired at first by his grandmother, a Romany gypsy who was born in a travelling wagon, his quest to record a dying language has been spurred on by the fact that he has no children of his own to pass it to.
He said: "I started out on a card index that I started putting together when I was at grammar school. It was schoolboy stuff, I only had about 100 words, but nevertheless. I wanted to make sure that someone after me could read this and find out what I knew. I used to walk around with stuff in my head that no-one else knew.
"He said it was "a great surprise" to find the book rated among the top 10 reference books in the world. Gypsy Jib was praised by the journal Reference Reviews, which is devoted to reviewing new reference books. His book was rated alongside the Oxford Encyclopaedia of American Literature, Macmillan's Encyclopaedia of Religion, and the Design Encyclopaedia, from Lawrence King and the Museum of Modern Art.
(MORE)
06 January 2007 07:45It is a book which began with a schoolboy's index cards and has been more than 50 years in the making.
An East Anglian man's labour of love has become the most definitive guide to the language of gypsies and has even been listed as one of the world's top 10 reference books.
Now James Hayward is about to reprint his book, Gypsy Jib, amid successful sales all over the world.
Mr Hayward, 68, from Wissett, near Halesworth, first started recording gypsy language at the age of 12 or 13. Inspired at first by his grandmother, a Romany gypsy who was born in a travelling wagon, his quest to record a dying language has been spurred on by the fact that he has no children of his own to pass it to.
He said: "I started out on a card index that I started putting together when I was at grammar school. It was schoolboy stuff, I only had about 100 words, but nevertheless. I wanted to make sure that someone after me could read this and find out what I knew. I used to walk around with stuff in my head that no-one else knew.
"He said it was "a great surprise" to find the book rated among the top 10 reference books in the world. Gypsy Jib was praised by the journal Reference Reviews, which is devoted to reviewing new reference books. His book was rated alongside the Oxford Encyclopaedia of American Literature, Macmillan's Encyclopaedia of Religion, and the Design Encyclopaedia, from Lawrence King and the Museum of Modern Art.
(MORE)
Labels: Culture, Gypsy, Language
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