© British and Foreign Bible Society

Bernard Gilliat-Smith

Bernard Joseph Leo Gilliat-Smith (1883-1973) was born in Sevenoaks, Kent in England but moved, with his family, to Bruges in Belgium at the age of six. He was educated at Cambridge University. He had a mastery of languages and was a keen etymologist and philologist. From 1902 to 1967 he contributed many items to the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, sometimes using the pen-name Petulengro. In 1909 he joined the British Levant Consular Service. He was first posted to Beirut and then Bulgaria, first at Varna and then from 1920 at Sofia. In 1915 Gilliatt-Smith coined the term “Vlax Romani” which is still used today.

Sfjatone Lukéstar

Whilst working as Vice-Consul at Varna in Bulgaria, Gilliat-Smith spent time with Bulgarian Gypsies and translated the Gospel fo Luke into what he called the Erli (now usually called the Arlija) dialect of Balkan Romani, most of whom were culturally Moslem. He wrote it in Latin script using Czech style diacritics. This was published in 1912 by the British and Foreign Bible Society as “E Devléskoro Sfjato lil e Ísus-Xristóskoro Džiipé thai Meribé e Sfjatone Lukéstar” and catalogued in English as “the Gospel of Luke in Bulgarian Romany”.

Digital Edition

This text was digitised from an original copy in the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) archives, with the help of MissionAssist. It was placed online for the United Bible Societies (UBS) Romani Affinity Group digitisation project.

© British and Foreign Bible Society 1912, 2016