Related Research Articles
Romani is an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani people. 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.
The Sinti are a subgroup of Romani people. They are found mostly in Germany, France and Italy and Central Europe, numbering some 200,000 people. They were traditionally itinerant, but today only a small percentage of Sinti remain unsettled. In earlier times, they frequently lived on the outskirts of communities.
English is the most widely spoken and de facto official language of the United Kingdom. A number of regional and migrant languages are also spoken. Regional English variant languages include Scots and Ulster Scots, and indigenous Celtic languages include Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh. There are many non-native languages spoken by immigrants, including Polish, Hindi, and Urdu. British Sign Language is sometimes used as well as liturgical and hobby languages such as Latin and a revived form of Cornish.
Angloromani or Anglo-Romani is a Para-Romani dialect spoken by the Romanichal, a subgroup of the Romani people in the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world. It is characterised by the presence of Romani vocabulary and syntax in the English used by Romanichal.
The Romanichal are a Romani subgroup within the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world. Many Romanichal speak Angloromani, a mixed language that blends Romani vocabulary with English syntax. Romanichal residing in England, Scotland, and Wales are part of the Gypsy (Romani), Roma, and Traveller community.
The term English Travellers may refer to the following itinerant groups indigenous to England:
The Romanisael, are a Romani subgroup who have been resident in Sweden and Norway for some 500 years. The estimated number of Romanisael in Sweden is 65,000, while in Norway, the number is estimated to be around 10,000.
Scandoromani is a Para-Romani dialect spoken by the Romanisæl, a subgroup of the Romani people in Norway, and Sweden.
The Kaale are a Romani subgroup who live primarily in Finland but also in Sweden. Their main languages are Finnish, Swedish and Kalo.
The Romani diaspora refers to the presence and dispersion of Romani people across various parts of the world. Their migration out of the Indian subcontinent occurred in waves, with the first estimated to have taken place in the 6th century. They are believed to have first arrived in Europe sometime between the 9th and 14th centuries, via the Balkans. They settled in the areas of present-day Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Hungary, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia, by order of volume, and Spain. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and, in the 19th and later centuries, to the Americas. The Roma population in the United States is estimated at more than one million.
Scottish Romani are the Romani people of Scotland. This includes Romanichal and Lowland Romani.
Kalo, Kàlo or the Finnish Romani language is a variety of the Romani language spoken by the Kaale subgroup of the Romani people in Finland and Sweden. The language is related to but not mutually intelligible with Scandoromani or Angloromani.
The Kale are a Romani subgroup predominantly found in northwestern Wales, specifically in the Welsh-speaking areas. Romani have been present in Wales since the 16th century.
The languages of Wales include the Welsh language, which is an official language of Wales, and English, which is also considered an official language in Wales. The official languages of the Senedd are also Welsh and English. According to the 2021 census, the Welsh-speaking population of Wales aged three or older was 17.8% and nearly three quarters of the population in Wales said they had no Welsh language skills.
John Sampson (1862–1931) was an Irish linguist, literary scholar and librarian. As a scholar he is best known for The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales (1926), an authoritative grammar of the Welsh Romani language.
The Romani people are known by a variety of names, mostly as Gypsies, Roma, Romani, Tsinganoi, Bohémiens, and various linguistic variations of these names. There are also numerous subgroups and clans with their own self-designations, such as the Sinti, Kalderash, Boyash, Manouche, Lovari, Lăutari, Machvaya, Romanichal, Romanisael, Calé, Kale, Kaale, Xoraxai, Xaladytka, Romungro, Ursari and Sevlengere.
There are a number of traditionally itinerant or travelling groups in Europe who are known as Travellers or Gypsies.
Dora Esther Yates was a British bibliographer, linguist and Romani scholar. She understood every dialect of Romani and she became the de facto secretary of the Gypsy Lore Society in 1922.
Romani people have been recorded in the United Kingdom since at least the early 16th century. There are estimated to be around 225,000 Romani people residing in the UK. This includes the Romanichal, Kale, Scottish Lowland Romani and a sizeable population of Roma from Central and Eastern Europe, who immigrated into the UK in the late 1990s/early 2000s and after EU expansion in 2004. They are considered part of the Gypsy (Romani), Roma and Traveller (GRT) community.
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller is an umbrella term used in the United Kingdom to represent several diverse ethnic groups which have a shared history of nomadism.
References
- ↑ Norbert Boretzky: Kommentierter Dialektatlas des Romani. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004 p. 18
- ↑ John Sampson (1926) The dialect of the Gypsies of Wales, being the older form of British Romani preserved in the speech of the clan of Abram Wood, Oxford University Press, London.
- ↑ Sampson. J. (1926) The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales. Oxford. Clarendon Press.
- ↑ Bakker (1997) Review of McGowan, The Winchester Confessions. Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society. Fifth series, 7. (1): 49–50.
