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Romani is an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities. According to Ethnologue, seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their own. The largest of these are Vlax Romani, Balkan Romani (600,000), and Sinte Romani (300,000). Some Romani communities speak mixed languages based on the surrounding language with retained Romani-derived vocabulary – these are known by linguists as Para-Romani varieties, rather than dialects of the Romani language itself.
Shelta is a language spoken by Mincéirí, particularly in Ireland and the United Kingdom. It is widely known as the Cant, to its native speakers in Ireland as De Gammon, and to the linguistic community as Shelta. The exact number of native speakers is hard to determine due to sociolinguistic issues but Ethnologue puts the number of speakers at 30,000 in the UK, 6,000 in Ireland, and 50,000 in the US. The figure for at least the UK is dated to 1990; it is not clear if the other figures are from the same source.
Teuchter is a Lowland Scots word sometimes used to offensively describe a Scottish Highlander, in particular a Gaelic-speaking Highlander. It is offensive, equivalent to other cultural epithets used by more powerful groups to describe people they have oppressed, but is often seen as amusing by the speaker. The term is contemptuous, essentially describing someone seen to be uncouth and rural.
A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group. It may also be called a cryptolect, argot, pseudo-language, anti-language or secret language. Each term differs slightly in meaning; their uses are inconsistent. Richard Rorty defines cant by saying that "'Cant', in the sense in which Samuel Johnson exclaims, 'Clear your mind of cant,' means, in other words, something like that which 'people usually say without thinking, the standard thing to say, what one normally says'." In Heideggerian terms it is what "das Man" says.
Angloromani or Anglo-Romani is a mixed language of Indo-European origin involving the presence of Romani vocabulary and syntax in the English used by descendants of Romanichal Travellers in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States, and South Africa.
Thieves' cant is a cant, cryptolect, or argot which was formerly used by thieves, beggars, and hustlers of various kinds in Great Britain and to a lesser extent in other English-speaking countries. It is now mostly obsolete and used in literature and fantasy role-playing, although individual terms continue to be used in the criminal subcultures of Britain and the United States.
Romanichals are a Romani subgroup within the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world. There are an estimated 500,000 Romani in the United Kingdom; almost all live in England. Most Romanichal speak Angloromani, a mixed language that blends Romani vocabulary with English syntax.
Welsh Romani is a variety of the Romani language which was spoken fluently in Wales until at least 1950. It was spoken by the Kale group of the Romani people who arrived in Britain during the 16th century. The first record of Romani moving permanently into Wales comes from the 18th century. Welsh-Romani is one of the many Northern Romani dialects.
The languages of Scotland belong predominantly to the Germanic and Celtic language families. The classification of the Pictish language was once controversial, but it is now generally considered a Celtic language. Today, the main language spoken in Scotland is English, while Scots and Scottish Gaelic are minority languages. The dialect of English spoken in Scotland is referred to as Scottish English.
The Norwegian and Swedish Romanisæl Travellers are a group or branch of the Romani people who have been resident in Norway and Sweden for some 500 years. The estimated number of Romanisael Travellers in Sweden is 65,000, while in Norway, the number is probably about 10,000.
Scandoromani is a North Germanic based Para-Romani. It is spoken by the Scandinavian Romanisæl Travellers, a Romani minority community, in Norway, and formerly in Sweden.
Many languages are spoken, written and signed in Norway.
The Romani people have several distinct populations, the largest being the Roma and the Calé, who reached Anatolia and the Balkans in the early 12th century, from a migration out of the Indian subcontinent beginning about 1st century – 2nd century AD. They settled in the areas of present-day Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Hungary, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia, by order of volume, and Spain. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and, in the nineteenth and later centuries, to the Americas. The Roma population in the United States is estimated at more than one million.
Scottish Travellers, or the people in Scotland loosely termed Romani persons or travellers, consist of a number of diverse, unrelated communities that speak a variety of different languages and dialects that pertain to distinct customs, histories, and traditions.
The Kale are a group of Romani people in Wales. Many claim to be descendants of Abram Wood, who was the first Rom to reside permanently and exclusively in Wales in the early 18th century, although Romanichal Travellers have appeared in Wales since the 16th century. Welsh Kale are almost exclusively found in Northwest Wales, specifically the Welsh-speaking areas. Romanichal Travellers inhabit South Wales and North East Wales.
Para-Romani are various mixed languages of non-Indo-Aryan linguistic classification containing considerable admixture from the Romani language. They are spoken as the traditional vernacular of Romani communities, either in place of, or alongside, varieties of the Romani language. Some Para-Romani languages have no structural features of Romani at all, taking only the vocabulary from Romani.
There are a number of traditionally itinerant or travelling groups in Europe who are known as "Travellers" or "Gypsies". The origins of the indigenous itinerant groups are unclear. They have been assumed to have taken up the travelling lifestyle out of necessity at some point during the Early Modern period but to not be ethnically distinct from their source population. However, recent DNA testing has shown that the Irish Travellers are of Irish origin but are genetically distinct from their settled counterparts due to social isolation, and more groups are being studied.
Romani people have been recorded in the United Kingdom since at least the early 16th century. Records of Romani people in Scotland date to the early 16th century. Romani number around est. 225,000 in the UK. This includes the sizable population of Eastern European Roma, who immigrated into the UK in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and also after EU expansion in 2004.
Betsy Whyte, née Townsley (1919-1988), was a Scottish traveller. She was an accomplished singer and a noted virtuoso of traditional Scottish storytelling. Recordings of her performances are held in the permanent collection of the School of Scottish Studies, part of the University of Edinburgh. She wrote her autobiography in two parts: Yellow on the Broom, published in 1979, and its sequel, Red Rowans and Wild Honey, published posthumously in 1990.
References
- ↑ Scottish Cant at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- 1 2 3 4 5 Kirk, J. & Ó Baoill, D. Travellers and their Language (2002) Queen's University Belfast ISBN 0-85389-832-4
- ↑ Wilde 1889, cited in Not just lucky white heather and clothes pegs: putting European Gypsies and Traveller economic niches in context. In: Ethnicity and Economy:Race and class revisited. C. Clark (2002). Strathclyde University.
- ↑ "Tobar an Dualchais". Tobar an Dualchais. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ "Tobar an Dualchais". Tobar an Dualchais. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ "Tobar an Dualchais". Tobar an Dualchais. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ "Tobar an Dualchais". Tobar an Dualchais. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ "Tobar an Dualchais". Tobar an Dualchais. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ "Tobar an Dualchais". Tobar an Dualchais. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ "Tobar an Dualchais". Tobar an Dualchais. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ "Tobar an Dualchais". Tobar an Dualchais. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
