Romany language

From Freepedia

Romany (Romanes)
Spoken in: The speakers of Romany are widespread and stateless.
Region:
Total speakers: 1.5 million
Ranking: not in top 100
Genetic classification: Indo-European
 Indo-Iranian
  Indo-Aryan
   Central Zone
    Romany
Official status
Official language of: ---
Regulated by: ---
Language codes
ISO 639-1
ISO 639-2rom
SILRMY
See also: Language – List of languages

Romany (or Romani) is the language of the Roma and Sinti, travelling peoples often referred to in English as "gypsies". They came originally from the Indian Subcontinent or what is now, northern India and parts of Pakistan, and their language belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language group. It was primarily through studies of the Romany language in comparison with north Indian dialects and languages that the origins of the Roma people have been traced geographically back to India. The Romany language must not be confused with the Romanian language (spoken by Romanians), nor with the Romansh language (spoken in Switzerland), both Romance languages.

Analysis of the Romany language has shown that it is closely related to those spoken in northern India, in particular Punjabi. This language relationship is believed to indicate the Roma's and Sinti's true geographical origin. Loanwords in Romany make it possible to trace the pattern of their migration west.

Romany, Punjabi, and Pothohari share some identical words and grammar systems. However, one recent theory reported in Nature suggests that Romany is most closely related to Sinhala.

The Romany language is rather a collection of related languages that comprise all the members of a single genetic subgroup. Because variants of the language are only now in the process of being codified in those countries with high Roma populations (for example, Slovakia), these variants are sometimes classified as dialects.

Some sources have noticed large influences of Azerbaijani in the Romany language, while some claimed there was a strong influence from Iran.

While these two schools have been strongly opposed over the past few years, one person, Tomas O' Carthaigh of [Media Roma Film Productions http://www.romafilmfund.com] has suggested that southern Azerbaijan, in northern Iran, was the location, as it crosses both theories.

Contents

Romany loanwords in English

Romany has loaned many words to English, including posh, pal, and lollipop. These mostly turn up in slang—such as gadgie (man), shiv or chiv (knife), or cooshtie (good) — and in regional dialects, such as radge (adj bad or angry, noun a state of irritation) and jougal (dog) in south east Scotland and parni (water) and bewer (woman) in West Yorkshire in England. Urban British slang shows an increasing level of Romany influence, with some words becoming accepted into the lexicon of standard English (for example, chav from an unknown Anglo-Romany word, possibly charvy meaning either "baby" or "mate" depending on context, chavi meaning male child or charver meaning prostitute). The abandonment of their traditional nomadic lifestyle by many gypsies, largely due to government policy over the last 30 years, is likely to be the motor for this process.

Loanwords from other languages in Romany

As might be expected in the language of a nomadic people, many loanwords have been incorporated into Romany from many of the languages encountered in their movements across Europe and Asia. Some of these loanwords may be relatively widespread across many of the dialects (particularly lexical borrowings from central Asian languages), or relatively local e.g. loanwords from Slovak and Czech incorporated into Carpathian Romany.

Distribution


Image:Cingene11.jpg

Romany dialects

Some authorities distinguish seven extant varieties of Romany:

  1. Vlax (in Albania, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, and neighbouring countries)
  2. Balkan Romany (in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia-Montenegro, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine)
  3. Romany of Wales
  4. Romany of Finland
  5. Sinte (in Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, and Switzerland)
  6. Carpathian Romany (in the Czech Republic, Poland (particularly in the south), Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine)
  7. Baltic Romany (in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland (particularly in the north), Belarus, Ukraine and Russia)

In Anatolia, the following three dialects or subdialects are found:

  1. Rumely (Thrace) dialect (Thrace, Uskudar [A district in Anatolian side of Bosphorus]) Most of loanwords from Greek
  2. Anatolian dialect. Most of loanwords from Turkish, Kurdish and Persian
  3. Posha dialect, Armenian gypsies from East Anatolia mostly nomads but some of them settled in Van. The Kurds call them (settled ones) Mytryp.

See also

External links

References

  • Gray, RD; Atkinson, QD (2003). "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin." Nature. 426, 435-439.
  • Özhan Öztürk. Black Sea: Enyclopedic Dictionary (Karadeniz: Ansiklopedik Sözlük). 2. Cilt. Heyamola Yayıncılık. İstanbul. 2005. ISBN 975-6121-00-9.

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