Romany Languages

The Romani languages (alternately called Romanylanguages) are a family of languages spoken by the Roma, a historically nomadic people often known colloquially as Gypsies. The Romani languages are used by an estimated three million native speakers throughout various parts of Europe, as well as within Roma communities in the United States and Australia.

Typically, the Romani languages are divided into two main categories. Romani is the full-fledged language of the Roma people, while para-Romani variants are blends of traditional Romani with the languages of the surrounding regions where Roma communities have settled.

Unlike other languages with similarly broad geographic boundaries, Romani does not have a standard written form. As a result, Romani also does not have an extensive literary history. Regardless, the Romani languages remain culturally relevant and continue to flourish in modern times.

History and Classification

Romani belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family, which is a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the broader Indo-European language family. It originated in ancient times and was first spoken in the area that is now recognized as central India. Other members of the Indo-Aryan language family include Hindi and Sanskrit.

During the medieval era, the people of several distinct Indo-Aryan cultures turned to nomadism, a way of life in which they wandered from place to place rather than lived in a permanent settlement. Three main waves of nomadic emigration during medieval times brought various Indo-Aryan ethnic groups out of their native regions into western Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The third and final wave, which is thought to have begun sometime between the fifth and eighth centuries, brought a particular group of people into the West; they eventually became known as the Roma.

Initially, the Roma made their way into the eastern portions of the Byzantine Empire, which included the capital city of Constantinople in what is now known as Turkey, as well as sizeable territory in parts of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and southwestern Asia. In the centuries that followed, the Roma spread into the Balkans of southeastern Europe. As the Byzantine Empire fell into decline in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, many Roma communities moved farther west, eventually spreading throughout Europe. Some Roma groups migrated eastward instead, settling in different places that included Iranian Azerbaijan (modern day northwest Iran, near the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan) and the Ural Mountains of Russia, which form a divide of sorts between Europe and Asia. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a large number of Roma living in and around Transylvania in central Romania began emigrating across the Atlantic to North and South America.

As the Roma moved from place to place over the centuries, their language naturally evolved. Based on where and when different Roma groups settled in Europe, traditional Romani divided into two primary dialects: Vlach and non-Vlach. Vlach Romani developed among the Roma peoples who lived in Romanian serfdoms (a type of labor bondage) for 400 years before dispersing throughout Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Vlach Romani featured a strong Romanian influence evidenced by the presence of numerous Romanian loanwords (words borrowed from Romani) and other unique characteristics. Non-Vlach Romani proliferated among the nomadic Roma who bypassed Romania and traveled directly to central Europe through Serbia and Croatia starting in the fifteenth century.

The impact of native local languages on the development of Romani languages was not limited simply to the split of traditional Romani into Vlach and non-Vlach Romani. As Roma nomads settled in various European countries and eventually became permanent residents, many populations found it increasingly necessary to adapt to the local culture and learn local languages. While this meant that the use of traditional Romani gradually declined, it also led to the emergence of para-Romani languages, or hybrid tongues that blended elements of both traditional Romani and local languages. The exact nature of para-Romani languages tends to vary; some maintain Romani vocabulary and grammatical structure, while others follow local syntax and only incorporate certain Romani words and phrases.

One of the most remarkable hallmarks of the Romani languages is its lack of standard written form. Although several modern forms exist, none have gained universal acceptance. As a result, there exists little in the way of historical Romani literature. Among the most notable literary contributions by Romani-speaking writers are the works of Bronisława Wajs (1910-1987), whose famed mid-twentieth century poems reflected the ethnic persecution the Roma frequently suffered at the hands of local populations.

Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage

In modern times, the Romani languages are spoken across Europe and in many other places around the world. In total, there are an estimated three million active Romani speakers, though some data suggests this number may be higher. The most densely populated Romani-speaking communities are found in the modern-day Balkan countries of Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, and Romania. While most of the Roma communities in Europe and Scandinavia no longer speak traditional Romani, many use para-Romani languages as a means of communication.

Despite lacking a universally accepted written form, the Romani languages are increasingly used within larger Roma communities in professional and official contexts. In some places, newspapers, books, and other publications are written in Romani, as are emails and other forms of correspondence. Elsewhere, such as in Macedonia, Romani enjoys an official status and is used in government documents and taught in schools.

Where para-Romani languages are common, these unique tongues are often used to facilitate secretive communications. Because few outsiders learn the language, native Romani speakers can either talk to each in Romani or slip Romani words into the local dialect in order to keep their comments private from others.

Bibliography

Beissinger, M.H. "Romani Poetry." The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Roland Greene and Stephen Cushman. 4th ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. 1207–1208. Print.

Dalby, Andrew. "Romani." Dictionary of Languages. 1st rev. ed. London: A&C Black Publishers, 2004. 515–517. Print.

"Romani." Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics. Ed. Keith Brown, et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 10. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005. 656–658. Print.

"Romani (Romanes, Romane, Romnes, Romacilikanes)." Yaron Matras' Archive of Endangered and Smaller Languages, University of Manchester. Web. 28 Aug. 2015. http://languagecontact.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/ELA/languages/Romani.html