Language represents a key element identifying people, in case of the Romany people it seems particularly appropriate. This people dispersed in the whole world because of a centennial diaspora is, in fact, united only by their common origin and language represents a determining testimony. It is split up in a large number of dialects as many as Romany families scattered in five continents. Their language is clearly a trace of their wanderings during centuries and, at the same time, an anchor which connects them to their original land: India.
What strikes – and what actually struck first scholars dealing with it, like Grellmann, Rudiger, Adelung and then Miklosich and Pott – is in fact a tenaciously persisting grammar similar, under many aspects, to that of modern Indo-European Indian languages.
And a basic lexicon where you can recognize without difficulties, a part from some phonetic change, common voices to Hind, Panjabi, Daric languages.
It is no marvel: when about a thousand – or maybe more – years ago, nomadic groups that will have to become nowadays Romany people, started their long journey towards West, they stopped, often for long, in lands inhabited by people with different language and habits. Therefore they themselves changed, assimilating characteristics of these different cultural and linguistics inheritances. Yet, they did not stop long enough to be assimilated - at least in main cases - neither they socially integrated as long as to lost their original identity, a sense of diversity and, somehow, uniqueness.
However, some stopped along the way. They remained nomadic population but on a local basis. In Middle East there are groups which call themselves Dom, while their neighbours call them in various ways (Nawar in Palestine, for instance). In Armenia these groups changed their name in Lom. In Greece, decades later, and from there in the whole Europe and in the world, they became Romany people, losing notion of their origin.
In India, today, we can find many other nomadic population who remind us of what European Romany people have been. Among these Banjara or Lamana are well-known ones. Today, these groups speak a language pretty different from that of their European brothers and more similar to Hindi: in their native country, as well, the strong pressure of sedentary cultures influenced nomad languages. It explains and justifies progressive Romany language differentiating from the Indian ones, without this representing a contradiction.
Different characteristics, therefore, but also common ones. The process for European Romany people was a slow and gradual, but relentless one. Staying along Asiatic paths did not leave very many signs in their language, due to similarities in Indian and Iranian languages. Nevertheless, there are unequivocal witnesses of Iranian and Armenian loans in Romany chib, Romany language.
However, staying in Greece represented an important turning point for the Western group.
There they probably stayed longer than elsewhere, absorbing lexemes and grammar forms which we will find everywhere in European Romany dialects, though different ones.
In various European countries which Romany groups “visited” starting from XIV century, language modifies, often deeply. It is already a rich and flexible language. Its complex nominal declensions and large verbal conjugations give complete communicative possibilities.
In their lexicon loans from Slavic languages, from Hungarian, from Rumanian, from German, from Italian and from all the other European languages increase. So that instead of an “Indian” word for “flower”, we will find in various dialects lexems like lulugi from Greek, bluma from German, fiore from Italian, as well as šungel from a verb that means “to smell" or rozica from the word for "rose" with a typical diminutive Slavic suffix.
A language flexibility expresses itself, as well, with the ability to create new forms, sometimes with a miraculous mix of etymologically different roots. In a sint dialect for instance there is švigardaj "mother-in-law", from daj “mother", word of Indian origin, prefaced from an adaptation of the German Schwieger - (.Schwiergemutter "mother-in-law"), or in a xoraxan dialect from Bosnia there is for “plates" talari, coming from the German Teller “plate”, but with a typical Romany suffix.
All languages undergo such processes and through them enrich their lexicon on the basis of their new needs. Therefore the Romany language, far from corrupting itself, adjusts to changed life conditions, times and environment. On the other hand, it is true that also difficulties understanding each other among single groups increase. In time dialects become increasingly different.
According to more modest esteems Romany people in the world are not less than three millions. We know that al least two third of them speak Danube dialects where Romanian lexical contribution is remarkable. Some groups adopted the language of sedentary neighbours (Rudarians, for instance, the Romanian language). What about the others? The following can be, more than a classification, a list of such dialects, with no pretensions to be exhaustive or unquestionable. Also to be remarked, today “geographic” names are only a convenient solution, in fact dialects spread in the world together with people speaking them.
1) Danube group (Kalderaša, Lovara, Curara, and so on);
2) West Balkan group (Istrian, Slovene, Havati, Arlija, and so on.);
3) Sint group (Eftavagarja, Kranarja, Krasarja, Slovacks, and so on);
4) Romany in Centre-Southern Italy;
5) British (Welsh Romany people, but today there is mainly Anglo-Romany people, sort of mixed English and Romany slang);
6) Finnic;
7) Greek-Turkish
8) Iberian (today represented by Calò, gipsy Hispanic-Romany slang).
According to Turner’s theories, the origin of Romany people, through language, is to be searched for in central India. Others believed or believe, as recently Indian Rishi, it should be searched for in North Western areas. Whether it is Panjab or not their origin land, difficult to say it for sure, though, it is out of question the basis of Indian words that we can find in the lexicon of this “European” people just for everyday concepts.
Since their origin in Indian sub-continent lands up to today there have passed one thousand years. Romany people spread in the world speak dialects not always mutually intelligible. But in an age of more and more faster communications it is unthinkable that people united by some sort of auto-conscience might keep these linguistic divisions.
During the past years it has been noticed that Romany people from different countries are searching for unity, not in a political or territorial sense, but rather in a cultural one. Such concept is based on common origin and commitment to look for same values of Romany people of the whole world. Though this movement is, up to now, limited to a small intelligentsia, there are signs of widening of such interests.
The problem of language has been on the agenda in various congresses held in Paris, London, Geneva and Göttingen. It is a right aspiration but difficult to solve: a unitary language is not to be planned theoretically, though theoretical aspect is an indispensable basis to planning.
Tendency, more and more spread, to use dialects for writing seems to be noticed. Up to now language has essentially been oral. Non only collection of songs or of fairy tales are written but also “private” letters, literature as well which has little or nothing in common with old folklore. Magazines are coming out, in Yugoslavia have already been published grammar books of Romany language in Romany language. Studies of Romany linguistic are not longer exclusive prerogative for not Romany scholars.
A written Romany literature and spreading of written use of language, though at the moment in various dialects, could be the first important step to a unitary language and to a new awareness for this people looking for themselves.
In the meantime this movement contributes removing a traditional image, for sure not always positive of Gipsy (Tsigan, Zigeuner, Zingaro, Cygan, and so on) to transform him in a Romany person. As to say a man fully entitled to be leader of modern society , with his culture supply and the ability to communicate with his language.
I remember Rasim Sejdic, great gipsy poet, used to believe in the poetic transposition affirming poetry is oral, it arises from singing and is alive in its sound, the moment it is produced. But it is an afterthought of an essentially lyric, creative poetry, of author.
It is different to affirm that poetry arises from orality, since orality is a primary condition of languages, which does not foresees a passage to written language, neither suffers from inferiority complexes. Gipsy poetry is oral first of all, like any primitive poetry, it is world knowledge, intimate pre-rational contact with nature and things.
Therefore it has no name, it does not belong to anybody, as tales and fairy tales can be a single body, instead. Poetry is magic, nice relation with a world which obscure and terrible forces are perceived, but it is not possible to control unless recreating it in poetry and exorcizing its malefic or beneficial potentialities.
That is how poetry arises in the same way as a liturgical formula, a magic word, a repetitive formula of a speech of re-using. That is why, in fact, the name of first composer – but is there a first one? – can not come to us. In the very moment of its formulation (and I underline formulation, in etymological sense) it becomes common patrimony of a culture which repeats it and sings it, which spreads it in the wind like canes used to diffuse to the wind the secret of donkey ears of king Mida.
Gipsy poetry takes part in this magic, it is primitive poetry in this same sense, this is why it is before anything oral and anonymous. We are far from simplistic statements of being anonymous due to an inferiority condition of oral literature, from lack of memory of the past and history and so on...This is ethnocentric and reductive point of view of those not understanding that it is a different idea of world, of history and of poetry.
Gipsy’s world is open and without boundaries, without ideas of history which are not, maybe, journey and a journey without destination. Only when Romany man will stop, his Poetry becomes something else, an object. Therefore the label of a name will be put at the foot of the page, differentiating styles and authors.
As well as a society is not literate just because its language can be written, but just when its language spreads abstract ideas and to a selected public on the basis of class criteria, in the same way oral gypsy poetry is and remains magic formula, pre-scientific knowledge of external world and global relation of undifferentiated society with undifferentiated nature.
Songs telling far away facts are real encyclopedic epics, like miniatures of Iliad or Odyssey , but worth of the same consideration and refrains and stornellos, dedications and conjuration. “Styles” and genres melt in a unique functional consideration. It is language what enriches the power of such compositions, language only moment of fidelity philologically the same. Verba manent, we might well say about this poetry, exhausting itself in the wind, but stays in the relation between man and things, between man and powers around him.
Therefore no wonder or turning ones back. This is poetry, this is the poetry of a gold period, as Vico meant was the language itself of the ancients. We speak by poetry since in the word we discover the world, moment by moment, like Adam discovered the world, for God’s will, giving name to things.
Poetry is metaphor, then, magic formula and knowledge. Nothing strange if in such concept there is no place for the story of single men – if they are not metaphor themselves – or for single authors of poetry itself. As well as the shadow of Homer is wrapped by mystery, “recreated” name for necessities of a later epoch.
This is the anonymous gipsy poetry. It teaches us this in case we had forgotten it.
Bibliography
(LD = Lacio Drom)
Ascoli, G. I., Zigeunerisches, Halle 1865.
Berberski, S., La coscienza dei Rom del proprio nome, LD , 10/3-4 (1974): 6-12
Berlingeri, P.L., Un romanzo antico, LD, 21/4 (1985), p. 11-1
Colocci, A., Gli Zingari, storia di un popolo errante, Torino 1889
De Cesare, D., Sul concetto di metafora in G.B.Vico, "Boll. di St. Vichiani", 16 (s.d.): 325-334
Edelman, D.I., The Dardic and Nuristani Language, Moskow 1983
Finck, F. N., Die Sprache der Armenischen Zigeuner, St. Pétersburg 1907
Franci, G.R., Una madre lontana: l'India e gli Zingari, LD, 27/2 (1991), pp. 27-37
Franzese, S., Il dialetto dei sinti piemontesi, note grammaticali e glossario, Torino, 1985
Gjerdman, O., E. Ljungberg, The Language of the Swedish Coppersmith Gypsy J.D.Taikon, Uppsala-Kobenhavn 1963
Grierson, G. A., Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. XI, Gypsy Languages, Delhi, Varanasi, Patna, 1968
Hancock, I., Problems in the Creation of a Standard Dialect of Romanes, Working Papers in Sociolinguistics, 25, University of Texas, Austin 1975
Hancock, I., Armenian Contributions to the Gyspsy Language, Paper presented to the 7th Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the Gypsy Lore Society, Washington 1985
Havelock, E.A., Cultura orale e civiltà della scrittura, Bari 1973 (ed. or. Preface to Plato, Cambridge (Mass.) 1963)
Hübschmannová, M., What Can Sociology Suggest About the Origin of Roms, "Archiv Orientalní", 40 (1972), pp. 51-64
Ljungberg, E., (en collaboration avec L. Scherp), Contribution à la discussion sur l'Orthographie de la Langue Tsigane, La Direction Nationále de l'Enseignement Public en Suède, (ciclostilato, s. l.), (1977)
Macalister, R.A., Grammar and Vocabulary of the Nawar or Zutt, the Nomad Smiths of Palestine, Gypsy Lore So. Monograph No. 3, Edinburgh 1914
Maximoff, M., La bambola di Mameliga, Torino 1988 (ed. or. La poupée de Mameliga, Paris 1986)
Miklosich, F., Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Zigeunermundarten, Wien 1874-78
Miklosich, F., Ueber die Mundarten und die Wanderungen der Zigeuner Europas, Wien 1872-81
Mutti, C., Glossario sinto-emiliano, LD, 2 (1989), pp. 15-20
Ong, W.J., Oralità e scrittura. Le tecnologie della parola, Bologna 1986 [ed.or. Orality and Literacy. The Technologizing of the Word, London, New York 1982]
Partisani, S., Glossario degli zingari dell'Italia centro-meridionale, LD, 1 (1972), pp. 2-27
Partisani, S., Glossario del dialetto zingaro piemontese, LD, 6 (1972), pp. 11-32
Partisani, S., Glossario del dialetto zingaro lombardo, LD, 4 (1973), pp. 2-29
Partisani, S., Glossario estrekaria, LD 17/4-5 (1981): 58-60
Paspati, A.G., Etudes sur les Tchinghianés ou Bohémiens de l'Empire Ottoman, Constantinople 1870
Pellis, U., Il rilievo zingaresco all'Annuziata di Giulianova (Teramo), "Boll. Atlante Linguistico Italiano" 2/2 (1936), pp. 61-85
Pischel, R., Comparative Grammar of the Prakrit Languages, transl. by Subhadra Jha, Delhi, Varanasi, Patna 1965
Pott, A.F., Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien, 2 voll., Halle 1884-85
Rishi, W.R., Multilingual Romani Dictionary, Chandigarh 1974
Rishi, W.R., Roma, the Panjabi Emigrants in Europe, Central and Middle Asia, the USSR and the Americas, Patiala 1976
Sampson, J., The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales, Oxford 1926
Soravia, G., Glossario degli Zingari d'Abruzzo, “Lacio Drom”, 1 (1971), pp. 2-12
Soravia, G., Influenze Italiane nel dialetto degli Zingari d'Abruzzo, “Lacio Drom” 6 (1972): pp. 6-10
Soravia, G., Gli Zingari di Reggio Calabria: situazione culturale e linguistica, "Lacio Drom" 10/5-6 (1974), pp. 19-29
Soravia, G., Dialetti degli zingari italiani, Pisa 1977
Soravia, G., Schizzo tagmemico del dialetto degli Zingari di Reggio Calabria con vocabolario, “Lacio Drom”, 2-3 (1978), pp. 1-69
Soravia, G., R. Sejdi, Lo Zingaro e il Gatto, "Lacio Drom" 5 (1978), pp. 4-24
Soravia, G., Pianificazione linguistica, standardizzazione e alfabetizzazione, “Lacio Drom”, 3-4 /1980, pp. 10-22
Soravia, G., Vocabolario sinto delle Venezie, “Lacio Drom” 4-5 (1981): 1-57
Soravia, G., Un racconto dei Rom xoraxané, "Lares", 51/1 (1985): 27-33
Soravia, G., Tre racconti di spettri in sinto istriano di M. Raidic, "Lares", 52 (1986): 511-519
Soravia, G., Dialetti zingari: atlanti linguistici e nomadismo, in Atlanti regionali: aspetti metodologici, linguistici e etnografici, Pisa 1986, pp. 539-48
Soravia, G., Lingua cultura e visione del mondo tra i rom, "Lacio Drom", 25/1 (1989), pp. 24-29
Soravia, G., La scrittura nel vento: di letteratura orale zingara e d'altro ancora, "Lacio Drom" 27/2 (1991), pp. 14-23
Soravia, G., La lingua come spazio nella cultura nomade, in Gente del Mondo. Voci e silenzi delle culture zingare, Roma, 1994, pp. 105-112
Soravia, G., Nomade, Zingaro, Profugo, Immigrato, "La Società Multietnica", Osservatorio Metropolitano delle Immigrazioni, Bologna, N. 2 (agosto 1996), pp. 19-25
Soravia, G., Nikolic, S., Xoxavno Peter - Pietro il Bugiardo, "Lacio Drom", 15/6 (1979), pp. 2-13
Soravia, G., A. Tropea, Vocabolario kalderašitska, "Lacio Drom",
Soravia, G., C. Fochi, Vocabolario sinottico delle lingue zingare parlate in Italia, Roma 1995
Thesleff, A., Worterbuch des Dialekts der finnlandischen Zigeuner, Helsingfors 1901
Trail, R., A Lamani Grammar, Norman 1970
Turner, R.L., The Position of Romani in Indo-Aryan, GLS Monographs 4, Edinburgh 1927.
Valtonen, P., Suomen Mustalaiskielen Etymologinen Sanakirja, Helsinki 1972
Vaux de Foletier, F., Mille anni di storia degli Zingari, Milano 1978 [Mille ans d’histoire des Tsiganes,Paris 1970 ]
Viaggio, G., Storia degli Zingari in Italia, Roma 1997
Wolf, S., Grosses Wörterbuch der Zigeunersprache, Mannheim 1960
Traduzione di Giulia Romano