vijayjohn wrote: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 wrote:In Romani, when it immediately precedes and modifies a noun
cHr0mChIk wrote: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 wrote: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).
vijayjohn wrote:Anyone up for a Romani study group? (Note, however, that I plan to start up a study group for Tamil later today, too).
cHr0mChIk wrote:Would you be able to share these?
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
cHr0mChIk wrote: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
cHr0mChIk wrote: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.
SR, SK and HU languages I knew way batter then Romani (SR and SK I knew fluently).
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...)
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?
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"
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..."
vijayjohn wrote:No worries! I just finished reading it, and it's really interesting stuff!
vijayjohn wrote:In Vojvodina, right?
vijayjohn wrote:Are you by any chance Slovak?
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote: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.
cHr0mChIk wrote:I noticed some differences from each one of their varieties and also the variety which I've known so far...
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote:Maybe this is one of those Arli Romani varieties. I'm not sure.
vijayjohn wrote: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 wrote:Thank you very much!
vijayjohn wrote: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...vijayjohn wrote:Are you by any chance Slovak?
Yep! From my paternal side (my mother is Serbian)
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
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.
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? me hom, tu hal, vov hi? - that sounds awfully similar to Urdu...
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...
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?
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"
hehe... sorry for many questions, I'm just very curious haha
vijayjohn wrote: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].
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote:Me sim, ame sam, Tu/Tume san, vov/voj/von si.
vijayjohn wrote:(...)due to influence from Romanian,(...)
vijayjohn wrote:Vrakerdem
vijayjohn wrote:gindem (you mean 'I thought', right?)
vijayjohn wrote:Yep! For me, it's "kam-": kam-džav. But I'm also familiar with saying things like džava.
vijayjohn wrote:Čeran (the star = e čeran, so it's feminine)
vijayjohn wrote:Skamin (the chair = o skamin, so it's masculine)
vijayjohn wrote:(O) perr, pronounced [pəʁ].
cHr0mChIk wrote:vijayjohn wrote: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?
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").
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".
"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?
No, I actually meant the verb "to give"... me dingjum = I gave
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...
vijayjohn wrote: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...
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"...
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...
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" ... "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 wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote:For me, 'he speaks' is del dùma (or vrakerel).
vijayjohn wrote:(He/she/it) speaks = del dùma or vrakerel
Says = phenel
Sells = bikinel
vijayjohn wrote: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!).
vijayjohn wrote:Ahh! OK, for me, that would just be (me) dem.
vijayjohn wrote:I've never heard that before, though.
vijayjohn wrote:Tbh I had to look up both 'star' and 'chair'. I wonder where this word comes from.
vijayjohn wrote: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).
vijayjohn wrote:I say thaj.
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote:For me, it's kade.
vijayjohn wrote:Them = country
phuv = Earth, ground, land
kalo = black
ljùmja = world (I mentioned this in my last post )
vijayjohn wrote:I understand = xatjarav.
vijayjohn wrote: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])
vijayjohn wrote:Berš.
vijayjohn wrote:I'll probably have to look this one up. Maybe the same with 'shoes' and 'life'.
vijayjohn wrote: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
vijayjohn wrote: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.).
cHr0mChIk wrote:vijayjohn wrote: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!vijayjohn wrote: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..
Actually vikinel and bikinel are two different verbs with different etymologies. Vikinel most certainly comes from Slavic (Macedonan: вика; Serbian: викати).
I thought that the verb vakjerel/vaćerel came from Sanskrit
Ohh, so an irregular verb... very cool.
We have some irregular verbs as well. How do you say "I cried", "I slept".. ?
In Persian language, "چرخ" means "sky".
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.
Have you also heard of "hem" / "em" ? Is it maybe used with a different meaning?... hmm
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.
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.
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)...
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").
city = foro / diz
little = cikno / tikno (I believe "t" is older)
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
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 )
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
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 wrote:For 'stomach'? Interesting; for me, ogi means something more like 'soul'.
vijayjohn wrote:Perr, por, etc. are related to the Hindi/Urdu word: [peʈ].
vijayjohn wrote: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/.
vijayjohn wrote:Omg.. I've had a ton of questions again... halali mi brate haha
Nema na čemu, drago mi je!
vijayjohn wrote:To scream?
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote:I think both that and vrakerel come from Sanskrit, but I'm not sure whether they come from the same Sanskrit word/root/whatever.
vijayjohn wrote:Rujem and sutem.
vijayjohn wrote: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?
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote: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!"
cHr0mChIk wrote: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...
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"?
Although we don't distinguish them in speaking, I believe it's very important to use them correctly in writing.
vijayjohn wrote: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!
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.
vijayjohn wrote: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...
here it's:
rungjum/runđum
sukjum/sućum
although, in present tense:
me rovav; me sovav
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.
vijayjohn wrote: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.
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...
vijayjohn wrote: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 wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote: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.
vijayjohn wrote:The same way as you: kana.
vijayjohn wrote:I have all of these except of course the ones for 'who' and 'when'.
vijayjohn wrote: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!"
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!" |
cHr0mChIk wrote:What is "Romani law"? I've never heard of it.
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...
The used reply for "halali mi" (forgive me) is "may it be forgiven" (actually, literally "may it be 7alal"): "halal olsun" / "halal bilo"...
Ok, I'm confused now since in the previous post you said:vijayjohn wrote:I have all of these except of course the ones for 'who' and 'when'.
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
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?
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