Glottocode: roma1330
Romani is a group of divergent varieties deriving from Indo-Aryan (Indic) languages. The largest varieties are Vlax Romani, Balkan Romani and Sinti Romani. Romani is known as "romani čhib/ćhib/šib" by its speakers.
Migration and mass expulsion ensured an extremely disperse spread of Romani from its regions of origin over huge parts of the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. Due to the wide spatial distance, the individual varieties have been exposed to strong influences of the respective umbrella language which have largely contributed to the diversification of Romani. Some Romani communities speak mixed languages based on the surrounding language with retained Romani-derived vocabulary.
Romani shows a multitude of dialects and a lack of a standardized language. Although Romani is used mainly as an oral language, some Roma do write in Romani. It is written mainly in the Latin alphabet.
Settlements represented in our collection
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The phonology of Romani shows that the language clearly derived from Sanskrit. Some phonetic changes correspond to those undergone by modern Indian languages, others represent a more archaic state.
Also concerning the morphology, Romani possesses a grammatical system similar to modern Indic languages (two numbers, two genders, three moods, three persons, five tenses).
The lexicon includes items of central and northwestern Indic origin and adoptions from Persian, Kurdish, Ossetic, Georgian, Armenian, and Byzantine Greek, later from Slavic, Romanian, Hungarian, German and others.
Historically, most Romani speakers have not had ready access to literacy instruction. Until a few decades ago there was no tradition of writing in Romani, but a rich oral tradition existed. During the late 20th century language standardization became the focus among the communities both on the national and international level. Romani has a growing literature and is used in periodicals and in the broadcast media.
Bibliography
Bibliography
- Bagchi, Tista: Romany languages. www.britannica.com/topic/Romany-languages
- Bakker, Peter (1999): “The Northern Branch of Romani: Mixed and Non-Mixed Varieties”, in: Halwachs, Dieter W.; Menz, Florian (Hg.): Die Sprache der Roma. Perspektiven der Romani-Forschung in Österreich im interdisziplinären und internationalen Kontext, Klagenfurt: Drava.
- Boretzky, Norbert (2002): Die Vlach-Dialekte des Romani. Strukturen - Sprachgeschichte - Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse - Dialektkarten. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz.
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- Boretzky, Norbert (2002): „Romani“ in: Lexikon der Sprachen des europäischen Ostens. Klagenfurt. Okuka, Miloš. Wien, Klagenfurt, Wieser: 927-939.
- Boretzky, Norbert; Cech, Petra (2016): Der Romani-Dialekt von Prilep/Makedonien, Graz: Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
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- Cech, Petra; Heinschink, Mozes F (1999): „Sepecides-Romani: Grammatik, Texte und Glossar eines türkischen Romani-Dialekts.“, in: Balkanologische Veröffentlichungen 34. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
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Kjučukov, Christo; Marušiakova, Elena; Popov, Veselin (ed.) (2016): Roma: Past, Present, Future. München: LINCOM GmbH. - Friedman, Victor A. (2012): Balkan Romani: The Dialect of Ajios Athanasios/Greece, in: Languages of the World/Materials 481. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
- Kostov, Kiril (1963): Die Zigeunersprache Bulgariens. Doctoral dissertation. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität
- Kyuchukov, Hristo (2016): "Some Notes on Balkan Romani", in: Russian Linguistic Bulletin 1 (05), 8-11.
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- van den Heuvel, Wilco / Urech, Evelyne (2014): “Romani dialect variation in Transylvania: Migration and diffusion”, in: Romani Studies 24, 43-70.
- Matras, Yaron (2005): “The classification of Romani dialects: A geographic-historical perspective”, in: Schrammel, Barbara and Dieter W. Halwachs (eds.) General and applied Romani linguistics. Munich: Lincom Europa. 7−26.
- Wolf, Josef (2004): Development of Ethnic Structure in the Banat 1890-1992. Stuttgart, Bortntraeger.
- Илиев, Димитър; Костов, Кирил (2004): Ромска граматика въз основа на ерлийския ромски говор в София. София.