Romani

International Romani Day

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Today it is the day of Romani culture. Stéphane Laederich informs us about the intricacies of this transnational language.
A Danish version can be read here and a Russian version can be read here.

On Romanes

Romanes, often also denoted as Romani Čhib or Romani Šib [the Roma language], is originally spoken by all Roma and continues to be so by many Roma in the world. Be it either by migration or by work and social niche specialization, Roma divided themselves into distinct groups. Some groups, such as many of the Hungarian Carpathian Roma or the Spanish Cale, have completely lost the language, partly due to earlier bans on speaking Romanes. Others only speak it in a version that … ↪

Lingoblog, true crime and the identification of the victim after more than 30 years

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Linea de tranvia en Watermael Boitsfort public domain scaled

(trigger warning: violent content)

Last year, November/December 2022, Lingoblog brought a quiz about a true crime. We had received a mail with the request to help to solve a crime that had been committed in 1992. The crime had not been resolved, but finally the identity of the victim has been identified, thanks to the tattoo with a text that we showed. The tattoo is not reproduced here. It can be seen in the article linked to below.

This was the story in the quiz:

In 1999 [sic] the body of a woman was found in Antwerp, Belgium (…) She had a tattoo on her body. But what does it say on the tattoo? Many people have looked at it,

… ↪

Irish Travellers and their Language

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thumbnail Speirs020502Dublin13809 22

Now I must begin with a confession: I have never been to Ireland and I do not personally know any Irish Travellers, but I have always been fascinated by their language. I know that there are some every year in my hometown in Denmark, and most often they are heading north with their caravans. I once saw, on my way to work, a group at Tangkrogen in Aarhus, but when I came back they were gone. As far as I understood, they were sent away by the police.

Irish Travellers are a minority ethnic group.  This status was recognised by the Irish State on 1st March 2017.  The Equal Status Act refers to Irish Travellers in the following way: “Traveller … ↪

The future of the Romani language

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Romanis historical distribution

Today, April 8, is International Romani Day.

The Romani language belongs to the family of neo-Indian languages. It is closely related to Hindi and has its roots in Sanskrit. However, Romani shares features of European languages as well, as some European languages influenced Romani (Greek, Romanian, Turkish and some Slavonic languages). This makes Romani unique, not only because Romani is the only Indian language spoken outside of India, but also because it is an Indo-European language related to other European languages.

Romani developed outside of India during the period of Roma migration from India to Europe some 1,000 years ago. On their way to Europe, Roma came in contact with different languages and those languages influenced the Romani lexicon and … ↪