Romani

[linguoboy]

In Romani, when it immediately precedes and modifies a noun

Did you mean "governs"? I'm not aware of a theory that considers this a form of modification.

[vijayjohn]

I guess. I think I've seen modify used so much (with no definition) in phrasebooks and such that I overuse it.

[cHr0mChIk]

I am wondering about the etymology of the word "ake" / "akhe".
I guess it could be translated something like "here/lo/behold" (like "вот" in Russian);
or rather "so" (like "так")...
Even "yet/already" in some contexts, I guess...

Could anyone help me with the etymology of it?
Whether it's originally an Indic word, or actually an European borrowing...

Also, does anyone have a Romani etymological dictionary? Does such a thing even exist? It would be very useful.
Thank you in advance!

[vijayjohn]

Could anyone help me with the etymology of it?
Whether it's originally an Indic word, or actually an European borrowing...

It's Indic. I've never been entirely sure of where it comes from myself, though.

Also, does anyone have a Romani etymological dictionary? Does such a thing even exist? It would be very useful.
Thank you in advance!

I think it's fair to say I have at least a partially complete etymological dictionary, and I have a few different materials having to do with the etymologies of Romani words. None of these are actual books, though. (At least, none of the ones I'm thinking of right now).

Anyone up for a Romani study group? (Note, however, that I plan to start up a study group for Tamil later today, too).

[cHr0mChIk]

I think it's fair to say I have at least a partially complete
etymological dictionary, and I have a few different materials having to do with the etymologies of Romani words. None of these are actual books, though. (At least, none of the ones I'm thinking of right now).

Would you be able to share these?

Anyone up for a Romani study group? (Note, however, that I plan to start up a study group for Tamil later today, too).

What actually does a study group signify? I mean like, what does it mean? What does it consist of? I've never taken part in any so far, I don't know what it means. Perhaps I'd like to join in

[vijayjohn]

Would you be able to share these?

I only have them in paper format, sorry. I'll let you know if I ever find any online links for them, though. (I think I might have found some in the past, but I haven't worked on Romani in a long time!).

What actually does a study group signify? I mean like, what does it mean? What does it consist of? I've never taken part in any so far, I don't know what it means. Perhaps I'd like to join in

That's actually a good question for Romani. The way I normally see a study group working is that people try to go through a learning resource for the language, but in this case, it might make more sense if I just share some notes that I have for the variety of Vlax Romani I'm most familiar with. You could also tell me about (the variety of) Serbian Romani that you're familiar with, and maybe we can compare the varieties that we know of.

I do have access to some other resources for a few different varieties of Romani, mostly grammars. Please PM me if you're interested.

[cHr0mChIk]

Oh, interesting!

So, as for the study group, you mean it's something we do like privately or is it something for which a thread is opened, etc. ?

As for the variety of Romani which I speak, my story with Romani is a little longer.. and I am not sure whether it's a Serbian Romani even... If you would be interested I could explain it in a post, how I learned it, but it might be a longer post.

I could write it tonight when I reach my apartment.. I'm traveling at the moment.. I've been home for the holidays... And it's a 6 hour trip so I'm kinda bored in the bus lol

[vijayjohn]

So, as for the study group, you mean it's something we do like privately or is it something for which a thread is opened, etc. ?

It's something we could even use this thread for, especially given that not much else is happening here at the moment.

As for the variety of Romani which I speak, my story with Romani is a little longer.. and I am not sure whether it's a Serbian Romani even... If you would be interested I could explain it in a post, how I learned it, but it might be a longer post.

I could write it tonight when I reach my apartment.. I'm traveling at the moment.. I've been home for the holidays... And it's a 6 hour trip so I'm kinda bored in the bus lol

I am interested, so please do whenever you'd like!

My own story is pretty simple. I was Ian Hancock's last graduate student. I've been pretty interested in the Roma since childhood partly because I had such a hard time finding information on them and partly because, a bit like most Roma, I'm of Indian descent and was born and raised somewhere in the West.

[cHr0mChIk]

Ok so, as for my story... (I've just finished writing this and realized it's really really long... I am sorry in advance )

I was born and lived until college in a place where Serbian-Slovak-Hungarian-Romanian and Gypsy were the main spoken languages. So I've had contact with them and a basic knowledge of them since I was very young.

I am very grateful for being so lucky to be born in such a multilingual environment, and having such a great opportunity.

So, since young I've had some knowledge of Romani, however it was really really basic.. SR, SK and HU languages I knew way batter then Romani (SR and SK I knew fluently). My knowledge of Romani was really basic, and, although I've known a few Romani songs at the time, just when I was in high school, I've had a band and there were periods when we played nothing but Romani songs, so at that time I've learnt a huge amount of songs, and also I never wanted to sing something which I don't understand, so my Romani knowledge improved vastly at that period.

The variety which I knew was not necessarily the one which was spoken in my area, but rather the one in which the vast majority of the songs were - and that's the one where the phonemes "gj" and "kj" exist... - and the past tense is conjugated like vakjergjum, dingjum, dikhljum, mangljum... and the verb "to be" copula is "me sijum, tu sijan, vov si..." etc. (I guess this might be Macedonian Romani.. I don't even know...)

Although my Romani knowledge improved a lot at that time, I couldn't really say for myself that I really "speak Romani" until summer last year when I went to Slovakia for work... I worked in an environment surrounded with so many Gypsies and then I just got an idea... Man.. I love languages... I love Romani... Why don't I take this opportunity and try to learn as much as I can from them.

So I tried to do it systematically... So, as you maybe are aware of the situation of our Gypsies, and that is that they mostly don't even finish Elementary school, and it's like common for them to have only 4 years of elementary school finished, and that's it... They are generally not really educated people (of course there are exceptions, as everywhere)... so how could I ask such a person to conjugate me a verb.. or to ask him about whether verbal aspects or grammatical cases,... etc. exist in their language?

So.. I had to be clever about this.. You cannot ask them something like that, but you could ask them to translate you a particular word or a sentence.. So I asked them for such, and wrote all in my little notebook, making my own little dictionary... then, as for all of the aspects of grammar I had to do it in a way... for example.. when I wanted to learn about grammatical cases, I asked them to translate for me sentences which have in them every possible grammatical case I could think of, even the ones which don't exist in my language.. like for example "The sun is shining = O kham sijil"; "I am moving away from the sun = Me našav taro khamehtar..." etc.

Same thing I did for verbal tenses like... "me vaćarav; me ka vaćarav; me vaćarđom" etc.

(the gypsies which I worked with were Bosnian, Serbian, Albanian, Slovak and Hungarian Gypsies... however the ones I mostly spoke with were the Bosnian Gypsies.. we became good friends... as for the rest.. I asked sometimes the Serbian Gypsy about the same things just to compare but we didn't speak that much... and as for the Slovak and Hungarian ones, with them I spoke really really rarely)

I noticed some differences from each one of their varieties and also the variety which I've known so far...
I was saying gj and kj in place where they were saying đ and ć (both Serbian and Bosnian Gypsies)
Also Serbian Gypsies (and me) had a "s" where the Bosnian Gypsies had "h" - "he is" = "vov hi" / "vov si"
"khamehtar" / "khamestar" etc.
Even the verb "to be" conjugation was different than how I was saying it:
(me sem, tu san, vov hi - Bosnian Gypsies;
me sem, tu san, vov si - Serbian Gypsies;
me som, tu sal, vov hi - Slovak/Hungarian Gypsies)

Also, I've noticed a lot of phonetic differences like metathesis and additional vowels in the beginnings of the words as differences between the different varieties they spoke and the one I've known so far.
(for example "to listen/hear" I was saying "šunel", but they all had an "a" in the beginning - "ašunel"

Anyway.. I've done kind of a "speed learning" of the language at the time... because I've really learned a lot in such a short time.. by focusing on the right things... I don't know if I could say that I speak it 100% fluent, but I believe I'm pretty good at Romani...

Then, when I've returned from Slovakia back home, I've decided to retype on my computer what I've been writing in my little messy notebook, and structuralize it better.. then I also found some sources on the internet (such as a very good book about Romani in Slovenian language; then, also the Romani Projekt Graz helped me a lot as well... and I was checking the Dunđerski Romani-Serbian dictionary regularly as well...) ... and read about more different varieties on the internet and compared to what I've known so far...

However, that's not even the end of my story... this Ramadan, I was actually, for a period of time, an Imam in a Masjid where 99,9% of the people in the Jam3ah were Gypsies... so I've gotten an excellent opportunity to speak it again and learn some more things about it.

I've actually learned that in my city there are 2 separate groups of Gypsies.. they call themselves "Muslim Gypsies" and "Serbian Gypsies"... as the way they call themselves implies, their religion is different, but also the variety of Romani that they speak is also completely different...
Muslim Gypsies from my city were having a completely different verb "to be" conjugation which I saw for the first time there:
"me injum, tu injan, vov isi..."
(although the Serbian Gypsies from my city were saying me sem, tu san... etc.)

So.. the reason why I don't know what is the variety which I speak is because I didn't learn Romani mostly from books, but from actual people, and the people were from all the different places... Although they've all been teaching me.. I've always tried to stick to my original variety which I spoke since high school (the one with gj.. vakjergjom, sijum, etc...)...

From what I've experienced so far is that the Romani grammar is the same everywhere (with the exception of the future tense, which is formed differently in the Balkan Sprachbund), but the rest was the same... (from what I've learned so far) the main differences were in phonetics and vocabulary. So, I tried to stick to the variant I've known from the beginning, in terms of phonetics, and mostly learned more and more vocabulary from different people as time passed... So, vocabulary-wise, I'm not sure if I belong to a single variety.. also I gotta note that a huge part of the Romani vocabulary is actually loanwords (mostly from the languages of the countries they live in)...

Oh my God.. this post is way to long.. I better end it now... haha... Good night

[vijayjohn]

Ok so, as for my story... (I've just finished writing this and realized it's really really long... I am sorry in advance )

No worries! I just finished reading it, and it's really interesting stuff!

I was born and lived until college in a place where Serbian-Slovak-Hungarian-Romanian and Gypsy were the main spoken languages. So I've had contact with them and a basic knowledge of them since I was very young.

In Vojvodina, right?

SR, SK and HU languages I knew way batter then Romani (SR and SK I knew fluently).

Are you by any chance Slovak?

The variety which I knew was not necessarily the one which was spoken in my area, but rather the one in which the vast majority of the songs were - and that's the one where the phonemes "gj" and "kj" exist... - and the past tense is conjugated like vakjergjum, dingjum, dikhljum, mangljum... and the verb "to be" copula is "me sijum, tu sijan, vov si..." etc. (I guess this might be Macedonian Romani.. I don't even know...)

I've seen something like this before, and sijum especially reminds me of the song "Ederlezi avela" in Dom za vešanje. Maybe that's just common in Balkan Romani.

So I tried to do it systematically... So, as you maybe are aware of the situation of our Gypsies, and that is that they mostly don't even finish Elementary school, and it's like common for them to have only 4 years of elementary school finished, and that's it...

I didn't really know that, actually, but I'm unfortunately not surprised.

They are generally not really educated people (of course there are exceptions, as everywhere)... so how could I ask such a person to conjugate me a verb.. or to ask him about whether verbal aspects or grammatical cases,... etc. exist in their language?

So basically, you had to face the same situation a documentary linguist does, except without being a trained documentary linguist, right? I feel this is how it is when we try to learn any language that has relatively small numbers of speakers, even if it isn't necessarily endangered.

Also Serbian Gypsies (and me) had a "s" where the Bosnian Gypsies had "h" - "he is" = "vov hi" / "vov si"
"khamehtar" / "khamestar" etc.
Even the verb "to be" conjugation was different than how I was saying it:
(me sem, tu san, vov hi - Bosnian Gypsies;
me sem, tu san, vov si - Serbian Gypsies;
me som, tu sal, vov hi - Slovak/Hungarian Gypsies)

Sinti is well known for having "h" in words like this (they also say things like me hom instead of me sem/som/sim IIRC), so I wonder whether this could be due to contact with Sinti.

Also, I've noticed a lot of phonetic differences like metathesis and additional vowels in the beginnings of the words as differences between the different varieties they spoke and the one I've known so far.
(for example "to listen/hear" I was saying "šunel", but they all had an "a" in the beginning - "ašunel"

Yep, ašunel is how they say it in Kalderash and Lovari, too, I'm pretty sure.

Muslim Gypsies from my city were having a completely different verb "to be" conjugation which I saw for the first time there:
"me injum, tu injan, vov isi..."

Maybe this is one of those Arli Romani varieties. I'm not sure.

It's tricky, isn't it? There's so much dialect mixing among Roma, and it's not too difficult IME to come across people who speak very different varieties of Romani. But yeah, I love learning it, too. I really think that Romani Studies needs to do a better job of taking all this dialect variation into account when trying to determine the origin of Romani.

[cHr0mChIk]

No worries! I just finished reading it, and it's really interesting stuff!

Thank you very much!

In Vojvodina, right?

Yeah! In Vojvodina, generally, even more languages are spoken in different places, but I was talking about my hometown and my environment specifically. I lived in different places, though... Born in the Banat, and lived there until college... then lived in Bačka for 3 years, and now I'm living in Sandžak...

Are you by any chance Slovak?

Yep! From my paternal side (my mother is Serbian)

I've seen something like this before, and sijum especially reminds me of the song "Ederlezi avela" in Dom za vešanje. Maybe that's just common in Balkan Romani.

Yeah... Although I'm not sure whether it's sijum or sijom... you can't really tell clearly from the pronunciation, since the vowels are not as clear here... Actually I believe perhaps sijom would be the way it would be officially written.. I just hear sijum, I guess.. and I've been pronouncing it that way

So basically, you had to face the same situation a documentary linguist does, except without being a trained documentary linguist, right? I feel this is how it is when we try to learn any language that has relatively small numbers of speakers, even if it isn't necessarily endangered.

Exactly! Although I've liked to call myself a "linguist" in the past... especially when I was younger... I am not trained for such things at all... But I have to say, it was really fun, and an excellent challenge. Learning French, German or Spanish is a totally different experience and is something easily accessible to everybody.. you have literally myriads of materials available on a click of your finger... But Romani and languages like this are a big challenge to learn, which is perhaps what makes them really really fun.

I noticed some differences from each one of their varieties and also the variety which I've known so far...

Oh, another interesting difference which I've noticed while I was learning Romani (in the period while I was in Slovakia, specifically), was that Slovak/Hungarian Gypsies had "š" and "ž" instead of our "č" and "dž"... like "čhaj/čhav" - "šhaj/šhav" - "džanav" - "žanav"... etc.
That was the another thing I wanted to mention.

Sinti is well known for having "h" in words like this (they also say things like me hom instead of me sem/som/sim IIRC), so I wonder whether this could be due to contact with Sinti.

Sinti? me hom, tu hal, vov hi? - that sounds awfully similar to Urdu...

Maybe this is one of those Arli Romani varieties. I'm not sure.

Hmm.. I really am not sure... but they speak completely different varieties... Muslims and Christians... But I know that our Muslim Gypsies have ć đ... they say me vaćerđom... so ćere? etc... are these characteristics of the Arli varieties as well? I really don't know the full story...

It's tricky, isn't it? There's so much dialect mixing among Roma, and it's not too difficult IME to come across people who speak very different varieties of Romani. But yeah, I love learning it, too. I really think that Romani Studies needs to do a better job of taking all this dialect variation into account when trying to determine the origin of Romani.

I agree... also I'd like to see more Romani studies and it becoming more popular...

Anyway, you've said you speak the Vlax Romani variant, is that correct?
Could you, just for a tiny sake of comparison, write how you'd say all the words I've mentioned in the text?


1. Verb "to be" conjugation

2. Present tense (do you use the -s suffix in 2nd person singular? or do you make it end with -eja? I've heard Serbian Gypsies say things like "sar vikineja tu?")

3. Past tense - examples: vakjergjom/vaćerđom; dingjum/dinđum; dikhljum; mangljum,... (you don't have to
conjugate it, 1st person singular would be enough)

4. Future tense - do you say it the Balkan way (with "ka")?

5. phonetic differences - "s" or "h", in words:
khamehtar/khamestar?
vov hi/si?

phonetic differences - "ć/đ" or "kj/gj"
vaćarav / vakjarav?
ćerav / kerav?
đilabav / giljabav?

phonetic differences - "č/dž" or "š/ž"
čhav / šhav?
džanav / žanav?

phonetic differences - "o" or "e" in past tense
is it "kerđom" or "kerđem" (because I think I've seen some varieties say it with e as well)... like in the song "dželjem, dželjem" or however it's said, the anthem of Gypsies

phonetic - vowel additions at the beginning of words:
name: anav or nav
to listen/hear: ašunel or šunel
night: irat or rat
something "is": isi or si

How do you say "exists" in your variety?
also the word "star"? and "chair", "stomach"... hmm how do you say these?

hehe... sorry for many questions, I'm just very curious haha

[vijayjohn]

Thank you very much!

Np

In Vojvodina, right?

Yeah! In Vojvodina, generally, even more languages are spoken in different places, but I was talking about my hometown and my environment specifically. I lived in different places, though... Born in the Banat, and lived there until college... then lived in Bačka for 3 years, and now I'm living in Sandžak...

Are you by any chance Slovak?

Yep! From my paternal side (my mother is Serbian)

Oh, interesting!

Yeah... Although I'm not sure whether it's sijum or sijom... you can't really tell clearly from the pronunciation, since the vowels are not as clear here... Actually I believe perhaps sijom would be the way it would be officially written.. I just hear sijum, I guess.. and I've been pronouncing it that way

Oh, yeah, in that song it's sijom. But I figure sijum is probably common in the Balkans, too.

Exactly! Although I've liked to call myself a "linguist" in the past... especially when I was younger... I am not trained for such things at all... But I have to say, it was really fun, and an excellent challenge. Learning French, German or Spanish is a totally different experience and is something easily accessible to everybody.. you have literally myriads of materials available on a click of your finger... But Romani and languages like this are a big challenge to learn, which is perhaps what makes them really really fun.

This is actually the same experience I had trying to relearn Malayalam because I lost it at a young age.

Oh, another interesting difference which I've noticed while I was learning Romani (in the period while I was in Slovakia, specifically), was that Slovak/Hungarian Gypsies had "š" and "ž" instead of our "č" and "dž"... like "čhaj/čhav" - "šhaj/šhav" - "džanav" - "žanav"... etc.
That was the another thing I wanted to mention.

In the variety I speak (I guess Kalderash), čh is always pronounced [ʂ], and dž is always pronounced [ʐ], i.e. they're both retroflex. However, š and ž are still [ʃ] and [ʒ]. So I'd say [ʂaˈʋo] for '(Romani) boy' and [ʐaˈnaʋ] for 'I know'. '(Romani) girl' in this variety of Romani is [ʂej].

Sinti? me hom, tu hal, vov hi? - that sounds awfully similar to Urdu...

It does, doesn't it? But it seems to be a coincidence; s changing to h is a very common sound-change across languages after all.

But I know that our Muslim Gypsies have ć đ... they say me vaćerđom... so ćere? etc... are these characteristics of the Arli varieties as well? I really don't know the full story...

Yeah, I'm not really sure. I'm not very familiar with Arli, but it always seemed kind of weird to me somehow.

Anyway, you've said you speak the Vlax Romani variant, is that correct?

Well, yes, there are several varieties of Vlax Romani and I speak either one of them or a mixture of a few of them.

Could you, just for a tiny sake of comparison, write how you'd say all the words I've mentioned in the text?

Sure!

1. Verb "to be" conjugation

Me sim, ame sam, Tu/Tume san, vov/voj/von si.

Sim and si are pronounced [sɨm] and [sɨ], due to influence from Romanian, which has the vowel written in Romanian as <â>. A lot of other words in this variety of Romani have [ɨ] or [ə] as well, like ljùmja [ˈlʲɨmja] 'world', mùca [ˈmɨtsa] 'cat', kerav [kəˈɾaʋ] 'I do', and cìrra [ˈtsɨʁa] '(a) little (bit)'.

2. Present tense (do you use the -s suffix in 2nd person singular? or do you make it end with -eja? I've heard Serbian Gypsies say things like "sar vikineja tu?")

I'd just use -s. Me kerav, Tu keres, vov/voj kerel, ame keras, Tume/von keren. The vowel between the k and the r is [ə] for me in all of these forms.

3. Past tense - examples: vakjergjom/vaćerđom; dingjum/dinđum; dikhljum; mangljum,... (you don't have to
conjugate it, 1st person singular would be enough)

Vrakerdem, gindem (you mean 'I thought', right?), dikhlem, manglem

4. Future tense - do you say it the Balkan way (with "ka")?

Yep! For me, it's "kam-": kam-džav. But I'm also familiar with saying things like džava.

5. phonetic differences - "s" or "h", in words:
khamehtar/khamestar?
vov hi/si?

s: Khamestar, si
phonetic differences - "ć/đ" or "kj/gj"
vaćarav / vakjarav?
ćerav / kerav?
đilabav / giljabav?
I have k/g in all of these: vrakerav [ʋrakəˈɾaʋ], kerav, gilabav.

is it "kerđom" or "kerđem" (because I think I've seen some varieties say it with e as well)... like in the song "dželjem, dželjem" or however it's said, the anthem of Gypsies

For me, it's kerdem.

phonetic - vowel additions at the beginning of words:
name: anav or nav
to listen/hear: ašunel or šunel
night: irat or rat
something "is": isi or si

Nav, ašunel, rjat, si

How do you say "exists" in your variety?

Same as "is": si.

also the word "star"?

Čeran (the star = e čeran, so it's feminine)

and "chair",

Skamin (the chair = o skamin, so it's masculine)

"stomach"

(O) perr, pronounced [pəʁ].

hehe... sorry for many questions, I'm just very curious haha

Don't apologize! I think this might actually be a good way to start a collaborative learning thread, since that's pretty much what we're doing right now!

[cHr0mChIk]

In the variety I speak (I guess Kalderash), čh is always pronounced [ʂ], and dž is always pronounced [ʐ], i.e. they're both retroflex. However, š and ž are still [ʃ] and [ʒ]. So I'd say [ʂaˈʋo] for '(Romani) boy' and [ʐaˈnaʋ] for 'I know'. '(Romani) girl' in this variety of Romani is [ʂej].

Ohh, that's interesting. So how would it be written? Would you use ś and ź for these perhaps?

It does, doesn't it? But it seems to be a coincidence; s changing to h is a very common sound-change across languages after all.

Oh... hmm.. my initial thought was actually opposite. I thought that "h" became "s". I thought that h was older. Because the loss of "h" is extremely common in my area. Especially in Serbian language, in my area "h" was completely lost (of course young people nowadays use it... dialects are almost completely lost), but, for example, my grandparents don't use this letter at all, and also historically, here it's not used. Sometimes it's just lost, but sometimes (like for example when it's between two vowels) it's usually replaced with some other letter (most commonly "j" or "v").

Me sim, ame sam, Tu/Tume san, vov/voj/von si.

This actually looks the same as how the Serbian Gypsies I've worked with in Slovakia speak.

(...)due to influence from Romanian,(...)

When you mentioned this, I just remembered something. When I was in Slovakia, the Bosnian Gypsies had this expression which no other Gypsies knew nor understood. It was the verb "del vorba" (to talk about)...
me dav vorba, tu de vorba, etc.
They had regular verbs "to speak" (vaćarel) "to talk" (phenel)... also they used "vikinel" with the same meaning "speak/talk", although Serbian Gypsies used vikinel with a different meaning "to call".

But, when they wanted to say "to talk about (something)"... they'd say, for example... "[me] dav vorba e khameči" (I'm talking about the sun)

Vrakerdem

"Vrakerdem" means "I spoke", right? Hmm.. so in present is "me vrakerav?"... hmm very interesting.. so you add an "r" there? it's an addition?

gindem (you mean 'I thought', right?)

No, I actually meant the verb "to give"... me dingjum = I gave

Yep! For me, it's "kam-": kam-džav. But I'm also familiar with saying things like džava.

Oh, sure! Yeah I think I've seen the "kam" variant in literature.. it comes from the verb kamel anyway...
Yeah, I'm also familiar with the džava forms, that's how the Slovak/Magyar Gypsies speak... however, for us "džava" is still present... In here, džav and džava are used interchangeably as it seems, they often use forms with vowels in the end in songs, since it's more melodic. I always believed that there is no distinction between the forms with or without vowels (me džanav / džanava; tu džane / džaneja; vov džanel / džanela), however, Gypsies from my city told me that the forms with a are feminine forms... interesting...

Čeran (the star = e čeran, so it's feminine)

in my city, it's ćerenje... I've also heard "ćeren"... and the Dunđerski dictionary says "ćerain"
However, I've also stumbled upon the variant "ćerxain" in literature, which I believe is most likely the oldest.
That also was for me in favour of thinking how the h sounds have been lost...

Skamin (the chair = o skamin, so it's masculine)

All Gypsies which I've spoken with about it (Bosnian and Serbian Gypsies in Slovakia, and Muslim and Serbian Gypsies in my city - so 4 variants in total) - they all say "stolica" - and claim it's the only word (although it's Slavic).
I've seen skamin only in literature.. it's a Greek loanword if I remember well.
As for the pure Romani word for a chair.. I once read "bešaldi" somewhere, and I quite liked that word... it comes from the verb bešel and I think it's perfect for chair... Just a sentence "I'm sitting on a chair" would in that case sound a bit funny "bešav pe bešaldi"...

(O) perr, pronounced [pəʁ].

As for this one, I say "stomak", but I'm aware it's Serbo-Romani.. lol...
The Bosnian Gypsies told me stomach is "poh" in their dialect, and they also wrote it that way.. I'm not sure whether it's "h" or "x", though...
I think that Serbian Gypsies actually say [v]ođi... Dunđerski dictionary lists "ođi" as well, so...
Anyway, if I remember well, the Serbian Gypsy which I worked with in Slovakia said "por" or "poro"... something like that... hmm.. so that sounds kinda similar.

Also, I'm quite surprised by [ʁ].. I didn't know you had this phoneme? Sounds really foreign to me.. Is it common in your variant of Romani?

Another interesting thing I wanted to share, from the period in Slovakia.... The way I wanted to start my systematized and structuralized learning of Romani was by focusing on the most important things and trying to learn it as quickly, and be able to use it as soon as possible... So I started with learning the greetings and the most common phrases. All Gypsies with whom I spoke told me that Romani language doesn't have words "hello", "goodbye", "thank you", "yes", "no"... I was shocked... They all used Serbocroatian words for these.. like zdravo, hvala, da, ne, etc...

I was really surprised and thought this was really interesting... like an interesting fun-fact.. knowing there's a language which doesn't have such words, which seem to be the most commonly used words ever.

So, when I came home, I searched on the internet and found the noun "naisipe"... and the phrase "nais(i) tuke"... however, when I asked the Gypsies from my city about this, they've told me that doesn't exist.. they told me that's English not Gypsy I guess they just haven't heard of it...
Then, also I found the verb "palikerel" which means "to thank" and the phrase "[me] palikerav tut" for "thank you" (literally "I'm thanking you").. Gypsies from my city told me that sounds weird and they don't use this as well... they said that the way they say thank you is "ov sasto"... so it seems that Romani has this vocabulary after all just the varieties I've came in contact with initially, didn't have them.

As for hello and goodbye.. I found on the internet that "sastipe" is sometimes used like "hello"... (perhaps it's the Slavic influence of "zdravo")... However Bosnian and Serbian Gypsies with whom I worked told me it doesn't mean hello, it just means health, nothing else...
Gypsies in my city use only Selam Alejkum though... they say any other greeting wouldn't be Islamic...

As for Goodbye, I also found "ačh devlesa" and "dža devlesa" - and asked Gypsies from my city and they told me this is correct. They told me this is the Gypsy way of saying goodbye, however, they don't use it, because using Selam Alejkum for goodbye as well is more correct and good.

So, that's another thing I wanted to ask you. Does the variant which you speak have these words, or do they use Romanian words instead?
"hello", "goodbye", "thank you", etc. ?

Also the word "nothing" was different everywhere.....
Bosnian Gypsies were saying "niso" (which makes sense), and Serbian Gypsies were saying "khanči"
Muslim Gypsies from my city say "ništa" (like in Serbian) - and they told me that Serbian Gypsies from our city also use "khanči"... since, when I asked about "khanči" they said "that's how Serbian Gypsies speak".
How do you say "nothing"?

Also, the conjunction "and"...
When I asked them, they told me:
Bosnian Gypsies: thaj
Serbian Gypsies: te
Muslim Gypsies: em
I may be wrong with this one

Also, I wanted to ask about some words like
"good"
lačhe, mišto, šukar
how do you say these?

The neuter pronoun "it"...
Bosnian Gypsies said "guva"
However, the rest said "akava"

"How many/How much" ?
Kozom/Kobor - Serbian (including Muslim) Gypsies
Gači - Bosnian Gypsies
Kati/Kaci/Kači/Kaći - something like that - Slovak/Hungarian Gypsies

Do you know the words:
them / phuv / khali / lumja

How do you say the verb "to understand" ?

I'm also curious about bodyparts.. how do you say them in your variant?

"year"? is it "brš", "breš" or "berš" ?

How do you say words like "sky", "city", "shoes", "bread", "little", "big", "work", "word", "life", "death", ..

And do you have special words for month names, or you use international ones like us (januar, februar, mart, etc.)

Omg.. I've had a ton of questions again... halali mi brate haha

[vijayjohn]

In the variety I speak (I guess Kalderash), čh is always pronounced [ʂ], and dž is always pronounced [ʐ], i.e. they're both retroflex. However, š and ž are still [ʃ] and [ʒ]. So I'd say [ʂaˈʋo] for '(Romani) boy' and [ʐaˈnaʋ] for 'I know'. '(Romani) girl' in this variety of Romani is [ʂej].

Ohh, that's interesting. So how would it be written? Would you use ś and ź for these perhaps?

No, just čh and dž since those reflect the etymology better and they're still phonemically distinct from all the other sounds in the language.

Oh... hmm.. my initial thought was actually opposite. I thought that "h" became "s". I thought that h was older. Because the loss of "h" is extremely common in my area. Especially in Serbian language, in my area "h" was completely lost (of course young people nowadays use it... dialects are almost completely lost), but, for example, my grandparents don't use this letter at all, and also historically, here it's not used. Sometimes it's just lost, but sometimes (like for example when it's between two vowels) it's usually replaced with some other letter (most commonly "j" or "v").

Well, losing /h/ is also cross-linguistically common. And /j/ and /ʋ/ are glides, so it's not at all surprising that they might appear in intervocalic (and other) contexts.

When you mentioned this, I just remembered something. When I was in Slovakia, the Bosnian Gypsies had this expression which no other Gypsies knew nor understood. It was the verb "del vorba" (to talk about)...
me dav vorba, tu de vorba, etc.

For me, 'he speaks' is del dùma (or vrakerel).

They had regular verbs "to speak" (vaćarel) "to talk" (phenel)... also they used "vikinel" with the same meaning "speak/talk", although Serbian Gypsies used vikinel with a different meaning "to call".

For me:

(He/she/it) speaks = del dùma or vrakerel
Says = phenel
Sells = bikinel

"Vrakerdem" means "I spoke", right? Hmm.. so in present is "me vrakerav?"... hmm very interesting.. so you add an "r" there? it's an addition?

I think it might actually have a completely different etymology, but my memory is hazy on this. Hopefully I can get back to you on this someday (and also provide you those etymological materials!).

No, I actually meant the verb "to give"... me dingjum = I gave

Ahh! OK, for me, that would just be (me) dem.

however, for us "džava" is still present... In here, džav and džava are used interchangeably as it seems, they often use forms with vowels in the end in songs, since it's more melodic. I always believed that there is no distinction between the forms with or without vowels (me džanav / džanava; tu džane / džaneja; vov džanel / džanela),

Yeah, I'm familiar with those kinds of usage, too.

however, Gypsies from my city told me that the forms with a are feminine forms... interesting...

I've never heard that before, though.

Čeran (the star = e čeran, so it's feminine)

in my city, it's ćerenje... I've also heard "ćeren"... and the Dunđerski dictionary says "ćerain"
However, I've also stumbled upon the variant "ćerxain" in literature, which I believe is most likely the oldest.
That also was for me in favour of thinking how the h sounds have been lost...

Tbh I had to look up both 'star' and 'chair'. I wonder where this word comes from.

I've seen skamin only in literature.. it's a Greek loanword if I remember well.

Yep!

As for the pure Romani word for a chair.. I once read "bešaldi" somewhere, and I quite liked that word... it comes from the verb bešel and I think it's perfect for chair... Just a sentence "I'm sitting on a chair" would in that case sound a bit funny "bešav pe bešaldi"...

Yeah. I guess Roma themselves don't feel a great need to specifically share the word for 'chair' (I mean, you could probably rephrase a lot of sentences with 'chair' anyway ), so that might explain why the ones you know would consider stolica the only word for it.

I think that Serbian Gypsies actually say [v]ođi... Dunđerski dictionary lists "ođi" as well, so...

For 'stomach'? Interesting; for me, ogi means something more like 'soul'.

Anyway, if I remember well, the Serbian Gypsy which I worked with in Slovakia said "por" or "poro"... something like that... hmm.. so that sounds kinda similar.

Perr, por, etc. are related to the Hindi/Urdu word: [peʈ].

Also, I'm quite surprised by [ʁ].. I didn't know you had this phoneme? Sounds really foreign to me.. Is it common in your variant of Romani?

Yep, it's common in some varieties of Romani. There are some where that's the only rhotic/r-phoneme, like Manush. Then there are ones like mine where it contrasts with /r/ (Rrom for me is pronounced [ʁom], whereas for example I'd say [ɾaj] for raj). And of course there are others where there's only /r/. For me, <rr> is pronounced /ʁ/, and <r> is pronounced /r/.

Another interesting thing I wanted to share, from the period in Slovakia.... The way I wanted to start my systematized and structuralized learning of Romani was by focusing on the most important things and trying to learn it as quickly, and be able to use it as soon as possible... So I started with learning the greetings and the most common phrases. All Gypsies with whom I spoke told me that Romani language doesn't have words "hello", "goodbye", "thank you", "yes", "no"... I was shocked... They all used Serbocroatian words for these.. like zdravo, hvala, da, ne, etc...

I was really surprised and thought this was really interesting... like an interesting fun-fact.. knowing there's a language which doesn't have such words, which seem to be the most commonly used words ever.

Heh, Malayalam doesn't really have any of those, either. I mean, we sort of have 'goodbye', but for that, we say things that literally mean something like 'let it be!', 'shall I come?' or 'shall I go?'.

So, when I came home, I searched on the internet and found the noun "naisipe"... and the phrase "nais(i) tuke"... however, when I asked the Gypsies from my city about this, they've told me that doesn't exist.. they told me that's English not Gypsy I guess they just haven't heard of it...

Interesting, I hadn't heard naisipe, either. But I do know nais Tuke and have used it several times before.

As for hello and goodbye.. I found on the internet that "sastipe" is sometimes used like "hello"... (perhaps it's the Slavic influence of "zdravo")... However Bosnian and Serbian Gypsies with whom I worked told me it doesn't mean hello, it just means health, nothing else...
Gypsies in my city use only Selam Alejkum though... they say any other greeting wouldn't be Islamic...

Yeah, I've seen the same claim, I think, but I'm not sure how widely used it actually is. The greeting I'm most familiar
with is te aves baxtalo, literally something like 'may you be lucky', or t'a's baxtalo for short. ('Lucky' isn't really a good translation since baxt really refers to something more like spiritual auspiciousness).

As for Goodbye, I also found "ačh devlesa" and "dža devlesa" - and asked Gypsies from my city and they told me this is correct. They told me this is the Gypsy way of saying goodbye, however, they don't use it, because using Selam Alejkum for goodbye as well is more correct and good.

So, that's another thing I wanted to ask you. Does the variant which you speak have these words, or do they use Romanian words instead?
"hello", "goodbye", "thank you", etc. ?

Yep, I use ačh devlesa and dža devlesa, too.

Also the word "nothing" was different everywhere.....
Bosnian Gypsies were saying "niso" (which makes sense), and Serbian Gypsies were saying "khanči"
Muslim Gypsies from my city say "ništa" (like in Serbian) - and they told me that Serbian Gypsies from our city also use "khanči"... since, when I asked about "khanči" they said "that's how Serbian Gypsies speak".
How do you say "nothing"?

Khanči

Also, the conjunction "and"...
When I asked them, they told me:
Bosnian Gypsies: thaj
Serbian Gypsies: te
Muslim Gypsies: em
I may be wrong with this one

I say thaj.

Also, I wanted to ask about some words like
"good"
lačhe, mišto, šukar
how do you say these?

For me:

lačho [ɫaˈʂo] = good
mišto = great
šukar = beautiful (but I've also seen it used to mean 'good', at least in some varieties of Romani )

The neuter pronoun "it"...
Bosnian Gypsies said "guva"
However, the rest said "akava"

My variety doesn't have one. We just use the pronouns for 'he' and 'she', depending on whether the noun we're referring to is masculine or feminine. Kodo in my variety is the equivalent of taj in Serbian, and kudo is the equivalent of onaj.

"How many/How much" ?
Kozom/Kobor - Serbian (including Muslim) Gypsies
Gači - Bosnian Gypsies
Kati/Kaci/Kači/Kaći - something like that - Slovak/Hungarian Gypsies

For me, it's kade.

Do you know the words:
them / phuv / khali / lumja

Them = country
phuv = Earth, ground, land
kalo = black
ljùmja = world (I mentioned this in my last post )

How do you say the verb "to understand" ?

I understand = xatjarav.

I'm also curious about bodyparts.. how do you say them in your variant?

Well, I already told you about 'stomach'...
The head = o šèro [o ˈʃeɾo]
The hair = (l)e bal (o bal = one strand of hair)
The eye = e jakh
The nose = o nakh
The mouth = e muj
The lip = o vušt
The neck, throat = e korr
The hand, arm = o vast
The finger, nail, toe = o naj
The leg, foot = o punrro (I think this is pronounced [o pɨnˈʁo])

"year"? is it "brš", "breš" or "berš" ?

Berš.

How do you say words like "sky"

I'll probably have to look this one up. Maybe the same with 'shoes' and 'life'. As for the rest:

"city" ... "bread", "little", "big", "work", "word", "life", "death", ..

the city = o fòro [o ˈfoɾo]
the bread = o manrro
little = cino
the work = e butji
the word = o svàto [o ˈsʋat̪o]
the death = o merimos

And do you have special words for month names, or you use international ones like us (januar, februar, mart, etc.)

I don't really know; Vlax Romani has both. Either they use the month names from European languages or they use 'first month', 'second month', etc. (pèrvo čhon, dujto čhon, etc.).

Omg.. I've had a ton of questions again... halali mi brate haha

Nema na čemu, drago mi je!

[cHr0mChIk]

No, just čh and dž since those reflect the etymology better and they're still phonemically distinct from all the other sounds in the language.

Ohh, that's actually pretty convenient!

For me, 'he speaks' is del dùma (or vrakerel).

Wow.. that's interesting... "duma" most certainly comes from Slavic, innit? (Bulgarian: дума=word.. also dialectal Serbian and Macedonian). It's interesting how you use a Slavic word, and here they use a Romanian word..

(He/she/it) speaks = del dùma or vrakerel
Says = phenel
Sells = bikinel

Actually vikinel and bikinel are two different verbs with different etymologies. Vikinel most certainly comes from Slavic (Macedonan: вика; Serbian: викати).

I think it might actually have a completely different etymology, but my memory is hazy on this. Hopefully I can get back to you on this someday (and also provide you those etymological materials!).

I thought that the verb vakjerel/vaćerel came from Sanskrit:
वच् [vac] = speaking/uttering/saying
वक्ति [vakti] = to say/speak/utter/proclaim
वाचयति [vacayati] = to cause speaking (causal verb)
वचन [vacan] = word/utterance/speech/promise (this one is used in Hindi as well, I believe - وچن in Urdu)

Ahh! OK, for me, that would just be (me) dem.

Ohh, so an irregular verb... very cool. We have some irregular verbs as well. How do you say "I cried", "I slept".. ?

I've never heard that before, though.

Me too... that's why I found it strange as well...

Tbh I had to look up both 'star' and 'chair'. I wonder where this word comes from.

In Persian language, "چرخ" means "sky".

Yeah, I've seen the same claim, I think, but I'm not sure how widely used it actually is. The greeting I'm most familiar
with is te aves baxtalo, literally something like 'may you be lucky', or t'a's baxtalo for short. ('Lucky' isn't really a good translation since baxt really refers to something more like spiritual auspiciousness).

Yeah sure, I've heard this one as well, but I believe it's used more like "welcome". Here they use "baxt" with meaning of "luck" or "happiness". Like "sreća" in Serbian. So we say "baxtalo Bajrami", for example.

I say thaj.

Have you also heard of "hem" / "em" ? Is it maybe used with a different meaning?... hmm

My variety doesn't have one. We just use the pronouns for 'he' and 'she', depending on whether the noun we're referring to is masculine or feminine. Kodo in my variety is the equivalent of taj in Serbian, and kudo is the equivalent of onaj.

Ohh.. hmm.. I think that here: "akava" is "taj", and "okova" is "onaj"... hmm.. at least I believe so.. hehe

For me, it's kade.

Oh, interesting... how do you say "who?" then?
We say "koj". I think some other varieties say ko[n]. Reminds me of Hindi a lot as well.

Them = country
phuv = Earth, ground, land
kalo = black
ljùmja = world (I mentioned this in my last post )

Oh, I actually didn't mean "kalo". We also use kalo for black. I meant the word "khali" (with "kh"). It has a similar meaning as phuv and them. Here, "them" and "phuv" are considered synonyms because in Serbian, they're both translated as "zemlja". "Khali" is translated as zemlja as well.

I understand = xatjarav.

Oh cool, I actually thought so. Here, everybody (all 4 variants) were saying "razumil". However, Gypsies from here, although mostly using razumil as well, told me that the proper Gypsy way of saying "to understand" is "haljovel" (not sure whether it's with x or h... here Gypsies don't distinguish them in pronunciation)...

I've also seen the variant with "a" in the beginning - axajuvel...

Anyway, I have also seen "xaćarel" in literature. It's interesting. Seems that you have "tj" where we have "ć" as well:
xatjarel - xaćarel
butji - bući (Bosnian and Serbian Gypsies in Slovakia said bući, however Muslims in my city said "buti").

I've also heard that some dialects even say "rać" for night.. instead of "rat" (or "jrat / rjat / ratj" - the different varieties I've stumbled upon). I guess using a "j" in this word would be good, because it avoids the ambiguity (from confusing it with "blood" - which is also "rat").

Well, I already told you about 'stomach'...
The head = o šèro [o ˈʃeɾo]
The hair = (l)e bal (o bal = one strand of hair)
The eye = e jakh
The nose = o nakh
The mouth = e muj
The lip = o vušt
The neck, throat = e korr
The hand, arm = o vast
The finger, nail, toe = o naj
The leg, foot = o punrro (I think this is pronounced [o pɨnˈʁo])

Here:
head = šoro
hair = bal
eye = jakh
nose = nakh
mouth = muj (I've heard that some other dialects use this word to mean "face" and "image" too)
lip = vuš (also "vu" and "uš" - plural vušta or ušta)
neck/throat = /none/ - using Serbian words for these.. I could ask Gypsies from my city about these, though, when I'm back...
hand/arm = vas or va
leg/foot = prno (therefore, comes the word "prnali" as well - "footwear / shoes").

Berš.

We also say berš, and I say berš as well. However, Bosnian Gypsies said "brš", and Dunđerski dictionary also states "brš". Anyway, I've stumbled on "breš" in literature as well.

I'll probably have to look this one up. Maybe the same with 'shoes' and 'life'.

sky = ćeri / dela... Bosnian Gypsies said: oblakuri

shoes = I've already mentioned "prnali", there's also "menije", which sounds like a loanword to me.
Anyway, the "most" Gypsy word for it is "kundure" - that's also the one which is the most commonly used here.
There is also the variant "kundrave"...

I'm putting on shoes = [me] uravav kundure.
I'm wearing shoes = [me] iđarav kundure.

the city = o fòro [o ˈfoɾo]
the bread = o manrro
little = cino
the work = e butji
the word = o svàto [o ˈsʋat̪o]
the death = o merimos

city = foro / diz

bread = marno (this word is one of the words used as a sample for dialectal classification: https://romani.humanities.manchester.ac ... read.shtml)

little = cikno / tikno (I believe "t" is older)

work = bući / buti

word = lafe (hmm I've never heard of "svato"). Some also use "alav" as word. I'm not sure whether it comes from "lafe" with an additional "a" in the beginning (like in anav, ašunav, etc.), or whether it comes from "anav" (name), because I think I've heard people saying it as "alav" in some dialects... hmm

death = mulipe

life = životi / džuvdipe (I've also seen "trajo" in literature)
(to die = merel; to live = živinel (although Serbian Gypsy in Slovakia told me "užinel" - that sounds like a snack to me )

I don't really know; Vlax Romani has both. Either they use the month names from European languages or they use 'first month', 'second month', etc. (pèrvo čhon, dujto čhon, etc.).

Oh, that's interesting. Here we mostly use international month names, however, I've seen, in literature, the words "čarvalo" = April; "alidžun" = August... and the rest international (European, it is).

Same thing goes for the names of the week. In spoken language, pretty much all Gypsies I've spoken with, used Slavic week day names... However, on the website of our Vojvodinian Romani TV station, the week day names are written like this:
Monday = Luja
Tuesday = Marci
Wednesday = Tetrađi
Thursday = Žoja
Friday = Paraštuj
Saturday = Savato
Sunday = Kurko

Since "kurko" also means "week" (same as Serbian "nedelja"), they also use "purano kurko" to avoid ambiguity.
So, also, some use "palo kurko" for Monday.

Also, some actually use some other day names same as the tetrađi model:
Tuesday: dujtođi; Thursday: štartođi... etc.

How do you say the names of the week?

Also, I wanted to ask you about verb negation. How do you build it in your variant? Which prefix do you use?

I use "na", and Serbian and Muslim Gypsies use "na", I believe.
Bosnian Gypsies used "ni", though.
I think that in your variant, "či" is used. Am I correct?

Let's talk about question words, here:
What? = So?
How? = Sar?
Why? = Sose? (also soske? soće? sohke?)
Who? = Koj? / Ko[n]?
Where = Kaj?
When? = Kana? (now = akana)
How much = Kozom/Kobor?
Question particle = Dali? (Slavic borrowing) - "dali razumi man?" "dali šuneja?" "dali vakjare/džane romane?"
Do you have a question particle at all? Or you form questions same as in Italian, like a regular sentence, just with different intonation, and a question mark.

Could you write a short text in your variant of Romani? I'm curious of actually seeing it in a bigger picture, if you know what I mean - not just through individual words and talking about the grammar.

Maybe I could try to translate that text to English then, and write how I'd say it in my variant. I think that'd be interesting to try.

That way I could also test my Romani knowledge...

Thank you again for participating in this

[vijayjohn]

No, just čh and dž since those reflect the etymology better and they're still phonemically distinct from all the other sounds in the language.

Ohh, that's actually pretty convenient!

For me, 'he speaks' is del dùma (or vrakerel).

Wow.. that's interesting... "duma" most certainly comes from Slavic, innit? (Bulgarian: дума=word.. also dialectal Serbian and Macedonian). It's interesting how you use a Slavic word, and here they use a Romanian word..

Yes to all of that. Apparently, every variety of Romani has a little bit of Romanian in it, and to be fair, there probably are some Romanian Roma who say something like vorbil or del vorba or something, too.

Actually vikinel and bikinel are two different verbs with different etymologies. Vikinel most certainly comes from Slavic (Macedonan: вика; Serbian: викати).

To scream?

This reminds me that when one of my cousins got married in Croatia to a Croatian lady, they had a party after the wedding with a Romani band (as people usually do on such occasions in the Balkans from what I understand). My dad got me to go and talk to them, and they were very happy to know that I spoke Romani, but my variety of Romani is so different from theirs that we ended up switching between something like five different languages just to communicate.

I thought that the verb vakjerel/vaćerel came from Sanskrit

I think both that and vrakerel come from Sanskrit, but I'm not sure whether they come from the same Sanskrit word/root/whatever.

Ohh, so an irregular verb... very cool.

No, it's regular. Me dem, Tu(me) djan, vov/voj dja, ame djam, von dine. (Mostly) just like me kerdem, Tu(me) kerdjan, vov/voj kerdja, ame kerdjam, von kerde.

We have some irregular verbs as well. How do you say "I cried", "I slept".. ?

Rujem and sutem.

In Persian language, "چرخ" means "sky".

Oh, I only knew it meant 'wheel'. Wiktionary seems to be saying it means 'sky' in poetry. But then how would Roma have come across it, I wonder?

Yeah sure, I've heard this one as well, but I believe it's used more like "welcome". Here they use "baxt" with meaning of "luck" or "happiness". Like "sreća" in Serbian. So we say "baxtalo Bajrami", for example.

I think I've heard that sort of thing, too.

Have you also heard of "hem" / "em" ? Is it maybe used with a different meaning?... hmm

Nope, never heard it before.

Oh, interesting... how do you say "who?" then?
We say "koj". I think some other varieties say ko[n]. Reminds me of Hindi a lot as well.

For me, it's kon, unless it's a relative pronoun or in oblique case. Then it's kaj. In Russian Kalderash, in oblique case, it can instead be kas.

Oh, I actually didn't mean "kalo". We also use kalo for black. I meant the word "khali" (with "kh"). It has a similar meaning as phuv and them. Here, "them" and "phuv" are considered synonyms because in Serbian, they're both translated as "zemlja". "Khali" is translated as zemlja as well.

Huh, okay, didn't know that word

Oh cool, I actually thought so. Here, everybody (all 4 variants) were saying "razumil". However, Gypsies from here, although mostly using razumil as well, told me that the proper Gypsy way of saying "to understand" is "haljovel" (not sure whether it's with x or h... here Gypsies don't distinguish them in pronunciation)...

I think I've seen xaljarav or something, too. Yeah, I'm often bad at distinguishing h vs. x.

Anyway, I have also seen "xaćarel" in literature. It's interesting. Seems that you have "tj" where we have "ć" as well:
xatjarel - xaćarel
butji - bući (Bosnian and Serbian Gypsies in Slovakia said bući, however Muslims in my city said "buti").

Well, I basically pronounce it like ć, though.
I've also heard that some dialects even say "rać" for night.. instead of "rat" (or "jrat / rjat / ratj" - the different varieties I've stumbled upon). I guess using a "j" in this word would be good, because it avoids the ambiguity (from confusing it with "blood" - which is also "rat").

city = foro / diz

Oh yeah, I forgot about diz! I've never seen that word used in context before, though, only in research papers because it probably doesn't occur much (or at all) in the varieties I'm most familiar with.

little = cikno / tikno (I believe "t" is older)

Yep, it is!

word = lafe (hmm I've never heard of "svato"). Some also use "alav" as word. I'm not sure whether it comes from "lafe" with an additional "a" in the beginning (like in anav, ašunav, etc.), or whether it comes from "anav" (name), because I think I've heard people saying it as "alav" in some dialects... hmm

Ah yeah, my Romani also has lav and lavo, and I've seen alav before. I'm pretty sure alav just comes from lav.

life = životi / džuvdipe (I've also seen "trajo" in literature)

Ah yes, I'm familiar with tràjo! But I'm not sure whether it can mean life in opposition to death.

(to die = merel; to live = živinel (although Serbian Gypsy in Slovakia told me "užinel" - that sounds like a snack to me )

Lol, yeah, we have merel, too.

Oh, that's interesting. Here we mostly use international month names, however, I've seen, in literature, the words "čarvalo" = April; "alidžun" = August... and the rest international (European, it is).

That's interesting.

Same thing goes for the names of the week. In spoken language, pretty much all Gypsies I've spoken with, used Slavic week day names... However, on the website of our Vojvodinian Romani TV station, the week day names are written like this:
Monday = Luja
Tuesday = Marci
Wednesday = Tetrađi
Thursday = Žoja
Friday = Paraštuj
Saturday = Savato
Sunday = Kurko

Those are the same forms Ian lists in his grammar of Vlax Romani with a few spelling changes. So those are the only forms I have in any of my resources for Romani.

Also, I wanted to ask you about verb negation. How do you build it in your variant? Which prefix do you use?

I use "na", and Serbian and Muslim Gypsies use "na", I believe.
Bosnian Gypsies used "ni", though.
I think that in your variant, "či" is used. Am I correct?

Yep!

Let's talk about question words, here:
What? = So?
How? = Sar?
Why? = Sose? (also soske? soće? sohke?)
Who? = Koj? / Ko[n]?
Where = Kaj?
When? = Kana? (now = akana)
How much = Kozom/Kobor?

I have all of these except of course the ones for 'who' and 'when'. And for 'why', I only have soske. I think I've also seen ànda soske or something like that.

Question particle = Dali? (Slavic borrowing) - "dali razumi man?" "dali šuneja?" "dali vakjare/džane romane?"
Do you have a question particle at all?

Nope!

Or you form questions same as in Italian, like a regular sentence, just with different intonation, and a question mark.

Yep!

Could you write a short text in your variant of Romani? I'm curious of actually seeing it in a bigger picture, if you know what I mean - not just through individual words and talking about the grammar.

Maybe I could try to translate that text to English then, and write how I'd say it in my variant. I think that'd be interesting to try.

That way I could also test my Romani knowledge...

Okay! Here's the beginning of a short story in the course packet for Ian's introductory Romani Studies course.

Le Trin Phrala

Trin phral sas, kaj tradine ande e ljùmja te šaj kerenas penge cìrra love. Kana sas te džantar, phendjas 'e kavrenge o maj phuro phral: "Ašunen, m'e phralale, džas sàko pe pesko drompe trin riga, thaj pa jekh berš te arakhàdjovas pe sa godo drom kaj sam akana!" Le kaver phrala dine pengo svàto te gadja si te keren.

Pàla jekh berš, arakhàdile pàle, pe sa godo drom. O maj phuro phral nerisardja ponjàva, o maškaruno glìnda, thaj o maj terno phral nerisardjas phabaj. Li-trin butja kaj nerisarde sas čudàci. O maj phuro phral pučhlja peske phralendar so von nerisarde, th'o maškaruno mothodja: "Nerisardem me jekh glìnda, 'aj ànde gadja glìnda šaj te dikhes sa so keren ande le aver thema!" Li-duj phral phende "Mišto!"

Thank you again for participating in this

No problem!

[cHr0mChIk]

For 'stomach'? Interesting; for me, ogi means something more like 'soul'.

Interesting... The variety of Romani spoken here uses words "duša" for soul and "srce" for heart. I use "vilo" for heart, though. I've used it since high school (learnt it from songs)... And, in Slovakia, the Bosnian and Serbian Gypsies told me "[v]ilo" is how they say heart. Is that how you say it as well?

As for soul, "duša" is the only word I know...

Perr, por, etc. are related to the Hindi/Urdu word: [peʈ].

Ohh so this seems to be the second instance from this conversation, where you have "e" and we have "o" (the first one being "head" - šoro / šero). I remember reading in literature that Romani dialects can be divided in 2 groups: the one with "e" vowel and the one with "o", however I thought this was only referring to the past tense (like kerđom / kerdem; etc.)... very nice. How do you say the verbs "to allow" and "to leave"?

Yep, it's common in some varieties of Romani. There are some where that's the only rhotic/r-phoneme, like Manush. Then there are ones like mine where it contrasts with /r/ (Rrom for me is pronounced [ʁom], whereas for example I'd say [ɾaj] for raj). And of course there are others where there's only /r/. For me, <rr> is pronounced /ʁ/, and <r> is pronounced /r/.

Oh, yeah... I've heard that there are 2 different "r sounds" in Romani (some like to write that second one with ř as well - řomani, poř, kořjarel, etc.). However, here, there is no distinction. The varieties of Romani spoken in here don't distinguish "x" from "h" and "ř" from "r"... So, excuse me if I mix them up sometimes, and please correct if you notice so Although we don't distinguish them in speaking, I believe it's very important to use them correctly in writing.

Omg.. I've had a ton of questions again... halali mi brate haha

Nema na čemu, drago mi je!

Just to clarify, "halali mi" means "forgive me / excuse me / I'm sorry" and it doesn't mean "thank you". I just wanted to clarify because I wasn't sure whether you understood me, based on your reply. But yeah, also, thank you very much haha Nais Tuke, hvala puno!

To scream?

Not really. It means "to call". In Macedonian and Southern Serbian "Како се викаш?" means "What's your name?". I believe that's most certainly where the "Sar vikineja tu?" phrase came from. However, also, if you wanna ask about a word, like "How is this and that said in [insert random language name here] language?" you would say it as "Како се вика...?"

Here in the North, we do use it with the meaning of "to yell" (not "to scream" - to scream is "vrištati"). Vikati is "to yell", here.

This reminds me that when one of my cousins got married in Croatia to a Croatian lady, they had a party after the wedding with a Romani band (as people usually do on such occasions in the Balkans from what I understand). My dad got me to go and talk to them, and they were very happy to know that I spoke Romani, but my variety of Romani is so different from theirs that we ended up switching between something like five different languages just to communicate.

Lol, yep, the situation would probably be the same with me if I'd come across other varieties of Romani... we'd most certainly have to switch to an another language...

I think both that and vrakerel come from Sanskrit, but I'm not sure whether they come from the same Sanskrit word/root/whatever.

Ohh.. I understand now.. interesting.. hmm

Rujem and sutem.

here it's:
rungjum/runđum
sukjum/sućum

although, in present tense:
me rovav; me sovav

Oh, I only knew it meant 'wheel'. Wiktionary seems to be saying it means 'sky' in poetry. But then how would Roma have come across it, I wonder?

I don't know. For me it isn't so surprising, known there are many words of Persian origin in Romani. Even "baxt" we mentioned before (بخت)... They say that these Persian words along with Armenian and Greek, belong to the pre-European lexicon, and are classified as "earlier" loanwords. These words can show us how and when the migrations of Roma have taken place, before they've settled here.

Oh yeah, I forgot about diz! I've never seen that word used in context before, though, only in research papers because it probably doesn't occur much (or at all) in the varieties I'm most familiar with.

Same, only seen it in literature. However, remembered it, and decided to include it.

Those are the same forms Ian lists in his grammar of Vlax Romani with a few spelling changes. So those are the only forms I have in any of my resources for Romani.

That's interesting. So yeah, I guess these may be the "literary Romani" words for the days of the week although, I've never seen nor heard any Roma actually using it.

I have all of these except of course the ones for 'who' and 'when'. And for 'why', I only have soske. I think I've also seen ànda soske or something like that.

How do you say "when?" then? :p I don't recall you mentioning it before in this thread
As for "soske?" yeah... I also use pretty much just that one (or "soste?") but I've encountered all the different forms...

Okay! Here's the beginning of a short story in the course packet for Ian's introductory Romani Studies course.

Le Trin Phrala

Trin phral sas, kaj tradine ande e ljùmja te šaj kerenas penge cìrra love. Kana sas te džantar, phendjas 'e kavrenge o maj phuro phral: "Ašunen, m'e phralale, džas sàko pe pesko drompe trin riga, thaj pa jekh berš te arakhàdjovas pe sa godo drom kaj sam akana!" Le kaver phrala dine pengo svàto te gadja si te keren.

Pàla jekh berš, arakhàdile pàle, pe sa godo drom. O maj phuro phral nerisardja ponjàva, o maškaruno glìnda, thaj o maj terno phral nerisardjas phabaj. Li-trin butja kaj nerisarde sas čudàci. O maj phuro phral pučhlja peske phralendar so von nerisarde, th'o maškaruno mothodja: "Nerisardem me jekh glìnda, 'aj ànde gadja glìnda šaj te dikhes sa so keren ande le aver thema!" Li-duj phral phende "Mišto!"

Oh boy... I expected something really short, like 2-3-4 sentences.. haha.. but, anyway, this is even better! Hmm.. let me see...

This is what I got out of it:

The Three Brothers

Three brothers were traveling around the world so that they can make some money for themselves. When they were to go, the oldest brother said to the rest: "Listen to me, my brothers, go, each on his own way, in three directions, and, in a year, let's meet in this road where we are now!" The other brothers gave their word (promise) that they will do this.

After a year, they met up on that road. The oldest brother brought a carpet, the middle one - a mirror, and the youngest one - an apple! The three works that they did were strange. The oldest brother asked his brothers what have they earned, and the middle brother replied: "I earned one mirror, and those mirrors that you could see all which did in other countries!" The second brother said "Great!

Omg this was really bad... can you please correct it... I don't get many sentences... they turned out very weird... xD

[vijayjohn]

Interesting... The variety of Romani spoken here uses words "duša" for soul and "srce" for heart. I use "vilo" for heart, though. I've used it since high school (learnt it from songs)... And, in Slovakia, the Bosnian and Serbian Gypsies told me "[v]ilo" is how they say heart. Is that how you say it as well?

Yep!

As for soul, "duša" is the only word I know...

For me, dji (or ogi in Kalderash, I think) is not really 'soul' but rather a spiritual concept; it might be translated better as 'spiritual energy'. When you do good things according to Romani law (Rromanipe), your dji increases; when you do bad things, it decreases.

Ohh so this seems to be the second instance from this conversation, where you have "e" and we have "o" (the first one being "head" - šoro / šero). I remember reading in literature that Romani dialects can be divided in 2 groups: the one with "e" vowel and the one with "o", however I thought this was only referring to the past tense (like kerđom / kerdem; etc.)... very nice. How do you say the verbs "to allow" and "to leave"?

Oh, that's an interesting question...I think 'he allows' might be something like mekel? And 'he leaves someone alone to do something' might be mukhel or something like that.

Although we don't distinguish them in speaking, I believe it's very important to use them correctly in writing.

I have trouble doing that with x and h, unfortunately. This sort of thing can be hard depending on what variety/ies you're most familiar with!

Omg.. I've had a ton of questions again... halali mi brate haha

Nema na čemu, drago mi je!

Just to clarify, "halali mi" means "forgive me / excuse me / I'm sorry" and it doesn't mean "thank you". I just wanted to clarify because I wasn't sure whether you understood me, based on your reply. But yeah, also, thank you very much haha Nais Tuke, hvala puno!

Oh yeah, I did understand what you meant (but I wasn't sure whether I did ). My brain was just being dumb about coming up with an appropriate reply in Serbian. I meant something like nema problema.

Not really. It means "to call". In Macedonian and Southern Serbian "Како се викаш?" means "What's your name?". I believe that's most certainly where the "Sar vikineja tu?" phrase came from. However, also, if you wanna ask about a word, like "How is this and that said in [insert random language name here] language?" you would say it as "Како се вика...?"

Here in the North, we do use it with the meaning of "to yell" (not "to scream" - to scream is "vrištati"). Vikati is "to yell", here.

Ahh, okay!

This reminds me that when one of my cousins got married in Croatia to a Croatian lady, they had a party after the wedding with a Romani band (as people usually do on such occasions in the Balkans from what I understand). My dad got me to go and talk to them, and they were very happy to know that I spoke Romani, but my variety of Romani is so different from theirs that we ended up switching between something like five different languages just to communicate.

Lol, yep, the situation would probably be the same with me if I'd come across other varieties of Romani... we'd most certainly have to switch to an another language...

I think I forgot to add that at one point, one of them asked me whether I was oženime. I'd never heard that word, so I was trying to figure it out, and I think the band leader finally repeated the same question in German. Then I understood he was asking me whether I was married. Only later did I manage to make sense of that word: o-žen-ime, similar to how South Slavic languages would refer to a man getting married.

here it's:
rungjum/runđum
sukjum/sućum

although, in present tense:
me rovav; me sovav

Oh OK, so the past tense is completely different, but the present tense forms are the same as for me.

I don't know. For me it isn't so surprising, known there are many words of Persian origin in Romani. Even "baxt" we mentioned before (بخت)... They say that these Persian words along with Armenian and Greek, belong to the pre-European lexicon, and are classified as "earlier" loanwords. These words can show us how and when the migrations of Roma have taken place, before they've settled here.

What I mean is, is it only used in poetry? If it's only used in poetry, how would the Roma come across it? Or was it perhaps used in this sense more widely about a thousand years ago?

Oh yeah, I forgot about diz! I've never seen that word used in context before, though, only in research papers because it probably doesn't occur much (or at all) in the varieties I'm most familiar with.

Same, only seen it in literature. However, remembered it, and decided to include it.

It's funny, too, because I once used it by mistake in the Turkish forum only to learn that in Turkish, diz means 'knee'.

How do you say "when?" then? :p I don't recall you mentioning it before in this thread

The same way as you: kana.

As for "soske?" yeah... I also use pretty much just that one (or "soste?") but I've encountered all the different forms...

Oh right, I think I'm familiar with soske and ànda soste.

Okay! Here's the beginning of a short story in the course packet for Ian's introductory Romani Studies course.

Le Trin Phrala

Trin phral sas, kaj tradine ande e ljùmja te šaj kerenas penge cìrra love. Kana sas te džantar, phendjas 'e kavrenge o maj phuro phral: "Ašunen, m'e phralale, džas sàko pe pesko drompe trin riga, thaj pa jekh berš te arakhàdjovas pe sa godo drom kaj sam akana!" Le kaver phrala dine pengo svàto te gadja si te keren.

Pàla jekh berš, arakhàdile pàle, pe sa godo drom. O maj phuro phral nerisardja ponjàva, o maškaruno glìnda, thaj o maj terno phral nerisardjas phabaj. Li-trin butja kaj nerisarde sas čudàci. O maj phuro phral pučhlja peske phralendar so von nerisarde, th'o maškaruno mothodja: "Nerisardem me jekh glìnda, 'aj ànde gadja glìnda šaj te dikhes sa so keren ande le aver thema!" Li-duj phral phende "Mišto!"

Oh boy... I expected something really short, like 2-3-4 sentences.. haha.. but, anyway, this is even better! Hmm.. let me see...

This is what I got out of it:

The Three Brothers

Three brothers were traveling around the world so that they can make some money for themselves. When they were to go, the oldest brother said to the rest: "Listen to me, my brothers, go, each on his own way, in three directions, and, in a year, let's meet in this road where we are now!" The other brothers gave their word (promise) that they will do this.

After a year, they met up on that road. The oldest brother brought a carpet, the middle one - a mirror, and the youngest one - an apple! The three works that they did were strange. The oldest brother asked his brothers what have they earned, and the middle brother replied: "I earned one mirror, and those mirrors that you could see all which did in other countries!" The second brother said "Great!

Omg this was really bad... can you please correct it... I don't get many sentences... they turned out very weird... xD

Sorry about that!

There were three brothers who went out into the world to be able to make themselves a little bit of money. When they were to go away, the oldest brother said to the others/rest: "Listen to me, my brothers; let's each go our own way (literally 'on our own way three directions'), and in a year, let's meet on the same road where we are now!" The other brothers gave their word that they would do this.

After a year/one year later, they met again on the same road. The oldest brother got/obtained a carpet; the middle one, a mirror; and the youngest, an apple. All three things they obtained were strange. The oldest brother asked his brothers what they obtained, and the middle one told (them): "I got a mirror, and in this mirror, you can see everything they're doing in other countries!" The two (other) brothers said, "Great!"

[cHr0mChIk]

For me, dji (or ogi in Kalderash, I think) is not really 'soul' but rather a spiritual concept; it might be translated better as 'spiritual energy'. When you do good things according to Romani law (Rromanipe), your dji increases; when you do bad things, it decreases.

What is "Romani law"? I've never heard of it.

Oh, that's an interesting question...I think 'he allows' might be something like mekel? And 'he leaves someone alone to do something' might be mukhel or something like that.

Exactly! mekel and mukhel for me as well. Anyway, I've seen them used interchangeably, (since both "allow" and "leave" are one word in Serbian: "pustiti" - like: "puštam te da dođeš" [I allow you to come]; but also "pusti me na miru!" [leave me alone!]; or "devojka me napustila" [my girlfriend left me]).. that's why I thought that this is actually the same word (gypsies here, in written form, never write "kh", they always write just "k", although they pronounce it as "kh" - dikel, mukel, etc.). I've seen Gypsies often use mekel and mukel interchangeably, even in songs, sometimes they'd exchange the two when singing. That's why I thought that this might be the same word and an another example of the "e" vs "o/u" (like in šoro, poro, etc.)... hmm...

Oh yeah, I did understand what you meant (but I wasn't sure whether I did ). My brain was just being dumb about coming up with an appropriate reply in Serbian. I meant something like nema problema.

The used reply for "halali mi" (forgive me) is "may it be forgiven" (actually, literally "may it be 7alal"): "halal olsun" / "halal bilo"...

I think I forgot to add that at one point, one of them asked me whether I was oženime. I'd never heard that word, so I was trying to figure it out, and I think the band leader finally repeated the same question in German. Then I understood he was asking me whether I was married. Only later did I manage to make sense of that word: o-žen-ime, similar to how South Slavic languages would refer to a man getting married.

haha yeah.. in Serbo-Croatian (if I may call it that way - I hope I wouldn't trigger someone with this ) - "to get married" is "oženiti"

The same way as you: kana.

Ok, I'm confused now since in the previous post you said:

I have all of these except of course the ones for 'who' and 'when'.

There were three brothers who went out into the world to be able to make themselves a little bit of money. When they were to go away, the oldest brother said to the others/rest: "Listen to me, my brothers; let's each go our own way (literally 'on our own way three directions'), and in a year, let's meet on the same road where we are now!" The other brothers gave their word that they would do this.

After a year/one year later, they met again on the same road. The oldest brother got/obtained a carpet; the middle one, a mirror; and the youngest, an apple. All three things they obtained were strange. The oldest brother asked his brothers what they obtained, and the middle one told (them): "I got a mirror, and in this mirror, you can see everything they're doing in other countries!" The two (other) brothers said, "Great!"

Oh wow! I was quite close! haha


So the only problems were:

"tradine" = it means "to go out" ? I haven't heard it before.. lol so I just figured it might mean "to travel" for some reason

Also, I know that "nerisarel" meant "to earn", but I didn't know how to fit it in the sentence.. "he earned a carpet" I wanted to say initially... but just changed it to "brought" for some reason.. hmm... I'd just say zaradil though

"čudaci"??? that literally means "weirdos" and it's like.. used for people... hmm very interesting - that sentence confused me completely

"thaj ande gađa glinda šaj te dikhes sa so keren ande le aver thema" - I don't know why this sentence confused the *** outta me

How could I not figure out that "LI DUJ" was referring to the plural :/

Trin phral sas, kaj tradine ande e ljùmja te šaj kerenas penge cìrra love. Kana sas te džantar, phendjas 'e kavrenge o maj phuro phral: "Ašunen, m'e phralale, džas sàko pe pesko drompe trin riga, thaj pa jekh berš te arakhàdjovas pe sa godo drom kaj sam akana!" Le kaver phrala dine pengo svàto te gadja si te keren. Pàla jekh berš, arakhàdile pàle, pe sa godo drom. O maj phuro phral nerisardja ponjàva, o maškaruno glìnda, thaj o maj terno phral nerisardjas phabaj. Li-trin butja kaj nerisarde sas čudàci. O maj phuro phral pučhlja peske phralendar so von nerisarde, th'o maškaruno mothodja: "Nerisardem me jekh glìnda, 'aj ànde gadja glìnda šaj te dikhes sa so keren ande le aver thema!" Li-duj phral phende "Mišto!"

Trin phrala sas, kaj tradine (džalje?) ande e lumja te šaj ćerena penge cikna love. Kana sas te džantar, phenđa e kavrenge o najphuro phral: "Šunen, m'e phralale, dža svako po pesko drom pe trin riga, hem pa jekh brš te arakhljam (I don't think we use pluperfect ever) pe sa akava drom kaj sijam akana!" Le kaver phrala dinđe pengo lafe te akava si te ćeren. Palo jekh brš, arakhlje pale, pe sa akava drom. O najphuro phral zaradinđa ćilim, o maškaruno dikhlo, hem o najterno phral zaradinđa jabuka. Li trin stvari kaj zaradinđe sas bhut čudni. O najphuro phral pučhlja peske phralendar so von zaradinđe, hem o maškaruno mothođa: "Zaradinđum me jekh dikhlo, hem ande akava dikhlo šaj te dikhe sae so ćeren ande le aver država!" Li duj phrala phenđe: "Šuži!"

I gave it a try I think that's something like how we would say... hmm.. at least close
anyway, here's a little bonus from me https://vocaroo.com/i/s1lOELvu9inV

Now... Would you also like me to write a text of my own which is in my own variant?

[vijayjohn]

What is "Romani law"? I've never heard of it.

I'm not really explaining this well, so I think I'll defer to my advisor, Ian! From p. 75 of his book We are the Romani people/Ame sam e Rromane džene:

We [Roma] believe in one god, o Devel or o Del, and the devil, o Beng, and we believe that there is a constant struggle between them for dominance over our lives. To live properly is to abide by a set of behaviours collectively called Rromanipen, Rromipe or Rromanija, and this entails maintaining spiritual balance. This Ayurvedic concept, called karma in India (and in Romani kintala, or in some dialects kintari or kintujmos) is fundamental to the Romani worldview.

I've seen Gypsies often use mekel and mukel interchangeably, even in songs, sometimes they'd exchange the two when singing. That's why I thought that this might be the same word and an another example of the "e" vs "o/u" (like in šoro, poro, etc.)... hmm...

Oh, maybe. I never checked.

The used reply for "halali mi" (forgive me) is "may it be forgiven" (actually, literally "may it be 7alal"): "halal olsun" / "halal bilo"...

Hvala!

Ok, I'm confused now since in the previous post you said:

I have all of these except of course the ones for 'who' and 'when'.

Oh, sorry! I meant 'who' and 'how much'.

Oh wow! I was quite close! haha

Yep!

So the only problems were:

"tradine" = it means "to go out" ? I haven't heard it before.. lol so I just figured it might mean "to travel" for some reason

Oh, sorry, you're right. It does mean 'to travel', so that's a better translation.

Also, I know that "nerisarel" meant "to earn", but I didn't know how to fit it in the sentence.. "he earned a carpet" I wanted to say initially... but just changed it to "brought" for some reason.. hmm... I'd just say zaradil though

Makes sense. It's an athematic word anyway, i.e. a loanword (maybe from Romanian?).

"čudaci"??? that literally means "weirdos" and it's like.. used for people... hmm very interesting - that sentence confused me completely

Čudàci here is the plural form of čudàto 'weird'.

I gave it a try I think that's something like how we would say... hmm.. at least close
anyway, here's a little bonus from me https://vocaroo.com/i/s1lOELvu9inV

This comparison with your variety is really interesting, thanks! To me, you kind of sound like an imam when you're reading the story.

Now... Would you also like me to write a text of my own which is in my own variant?

Sure! I'll probably be three times as confused by it as you were by my text, but it's worth a try anyway.