Romani

[Alejo]

Hello!

Anyone want to learn Romani?

Well, I'll give a bit of info.

Romani is a Central Zone language of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family. It is spoken in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. It is characterized by it's unique inventory of vocabulary, which has words that have originated from Persian, Armenian, Turkish, Byzantine Greek, Georgian, Ossetic, Slavic languages, and well as Hungarian and Romanian.

The dialect her is Kalderash, a member of the Vlax-Romani group of dialects. This dialect is the most spoken by far,having evolved in central Europe, it has since spread throughout the world.


Sounds

Unfortunately for the student and native speaker, Romani has no official or uniform script per se. There have been efforts, but many have been denied. However, one you have gotten a feel for the language, it should be easy to recognize a word, much like seeing facile in italian and then facil in spanish.

a-like the spanish a in padre, similar enough to the a in the english father
â-roughly like the short a in the english hat
ã-the aw sound in english awful
e-like how one pronounces A in ABC, or the ay in okay
ê-like the e in bet
o-like the spanish o or the o in the english home
ô-like the o in english got or not, or the spanish hombre, similar but different than a
u-like the oo in fool or u in flute
û-like the uh in duh, or u in butter
i-like the ee in english seem
î-like the i in english tin or in
y-when used as a vowel, like i

ei-rarely used, but when so, like the ey in hey
ai-like the english word eye
oi-like boy or goyem
ui-hard for most english speakers, like the ouille in ratatouille in french.

b-close to english
ch-close to english
d-close to english
dj-like the j in Jack
f-close to english
g-always hard like in got
h-close to english
j-like in the y in yak or the y in young, but never like in judge. This won't be used though here.
k-close to english
kh-aspirated, meaning like above but with a slight puff of air
l-close to english, closer to the l in glue than lend
ly-hard to put to terms in english. If one uses the consonant in million, or those two ls, it will suffice. Same sound as gl in itallian and ll in Spanish.
m-close to english
n-close to english
ng-when n and g are put together, they are represented as ng. This is one sound, not like in man go, but mang o.
ny-like the ni in onion.
p-close to english
ph-close to english with a puff of air
r-like the spanish r in Pedro. This one is not rolled but is like a tap against the front teeth
rr-like the spanish double r. It is rolled.
s-close to english, never like z or zh
sh-close to english
t-close to english
th-close to english with a puff of air
ts-like the ts in cats
v-soft, but pronouncing it like in love will be good enough
w-like in english witch
x-the kh in hebrew or ch in scottish english or german.
y-like in yeti, close to english
z-close to english
zh-like the s in pleasure or in treasure.

Grammar

The Present Tense

As in Spanish, personal pronouns are not normally used in sentences unless for emphasis or clarity.

For example:

Mangav xabe.

I want (some) food.

Me mangav xabe.

I want food or It is I that wants food.

Another charm of Romani is the lack of infinitive , so I will give verbs in one of its conjugated forms in the present tense, mostly in the third person singular that is the standard.

To conjugate a verb, first you need the stem root

mang-(Verb stem or root)

(me) mangav I want
(tu) manges You want
(wo) mangel He wants
(woi) mangel She wants
(o Rrôm)mangelThe Rom wants
(ame) mangas We want
(tume)mangen You want(plural)
(won) mangen They want

Notice that <en> has two meanings, and usually the subject will be clear from the situation, however, if this is not the case use tume or won.

Practice:

Now, conjugate these verbs:

1)besh- Conjugate in the second person singular

2)lashar- Conjugate in the first person plural

3)phag- Conjugate in the third person singular

Akana mukhav tut le devlesa ( Now I leave you to God )

-Alex

PS: What did anybody think? If you are interest please say so![/i][/b][/u]

[Sisyphe]

Si m sèlmen ta gen tan pou m aprann lang sa a...Men m pa gen... M kontan anpil wè ou isit Alejo, ak m espere tout bagay anfom ak ou nan aprentisaj Romani ou.

If only I had the time...but I dont... It is good to see you here though Alejo; I wish you success with learning Romani.

[Lisa]

I would like to learn Romani. I think your lesson is fascinating.

[ego]

There are like 2.000 Romani speakers in my town, so I have been exposed to it since my childhood but it never interested me. Sounds ugly and precipitous to me. Btw I am sure the dialects of this language must be very numerous and quite different from each other since the Romas have been living in spread isolated communities for so many centuries. Yet I was surprised to see that Italy Romas use the Greek words for the numerals. Another impressing thing is that they have adapted many Greek words for new terms without changing them at all in pronunciation. So when I listen to them speaking I hear many untouched Greek words in their speech

[Rikita]

oh cool! i was considering to start a thread about romani... i don't know much of it yet, i took a semester at the university in bucharest once, but my university back home (berlin) unfortunately doesn't offer any courses so i couldn't continue... well i hope to see more of it here! t'aves baxtaló... (hehe one of the very few phrases i can remember)

[Alejo]

Hehe

Well
Trying to revive this poor thread on this wonderful language.

I will post another lesson soon ^_^

If interested please show your support!

[Rikita]

well i for one am looking forward to your next lesson! what kind of support would you want? if it's something i can do, i will...

[Alejo]

Ah, I just wanted to know if anyone really was interested. Ill be sure to post the next in the week!

[kalemiye]

Here in Spain i don't think there are any romani speakers, though there are many gypsies. When i hear them speak hey speak spanish with some strange words which could be this romani or just slang. Is this true or am i wrong?

[il mare]

yes, in spain are many gypses, some of them speak romaní, but many of them speaks spanish with few romaní words. my father speaks a few words because he grew up with gipsy neighbourgs. I'll talk to him for some words, like: No hi nikeles pels klises: you don't see (it) by the eyes.
see you

[Alejo]

Working on the lesson. Its more extensive so far.

Just a cultural note, the word gypsy is seen as very offensive. It is the same as the english word n*gger or ch*nk. Roma is the preferred word for the Roma, know colloquially as gypsies in many areas of the world. Especially if one is in the slums in Romania, one may be in a very hostile situation if they use the word gypsy. But moreover, it is seen as a word of offesnive and past and present persecution.

NOW YOU KNOW !

Rrôma- Roma people
Shav-Young Romani boy
Shey-Young Romani Girl
Rôm- Romani Male
Rômni- Romani female

The last two words can also mean a Romani husband or wife.

Foreigners are know as Gazhe.
Males are Gazho
and females are Gazhi.

[kalemiye]

Thanks for your replies!

I heard the clisos word more than once, i had a friend who was half Romni and she knew that kind of words but i wasn't sure if it was romani or just pure slang. Also, they speak spanish with a bit of an accent, i don't know how to explain it.

The Gazhi thing for girls, isn't it the same as the spanish "gachí" ? (which may be taken from romani)

[dorenda]

I only recently discovered that there are also threads here that are not in a language-specific forum.

I'm interested in Romani! I'm not planning to really study it, but I like to do a lesson every now and then.
I have a CD with a few songs in Romani on it, so it would be nice if I can understand a bit what they sing. I have some sort of translation, but I it seems rather unaccurate.

@Alejo - What do the verbs in the exercise mean?

By the way, I remember having heard or read somewhere that some Roma are offended when gazhe speak their language. Is that true?

[brokenFiddle]

Alejo!

I am very interested - I have yet to find any Rom in my local community (in Melbourne we have many people from the Balkans, but they have been quite heavily oppressed, and so many Rom represent themselves as "regular" Macedonian, Greek or Turkish)

I've been studying from Ronald Lee's book, but it would be excellent to speak to a human.

Thanks,
Jorge[/b]

[gothwolf]

in Melbourne we have many people from the Balkans, but they have been quite heavily oppressed, and so many Rom represent themselves as "regular" Macedonian, Greek or Turkish)

Eerm, here, in Bulgaria, there're a lot of them and they represent themselves as Bulgarian, too. But most of them don't have computers becaus they're poor so it would be very difficult to find someone on Internet who speaks Romani as mother tongue.

[Alejo]

Sorry for my absence!

@renata

Gachi probably is from Caló, and a direct loanword from Romani.

@Dorenda

The verb roots mean sit, break, and fix, respectively.

Some Roma in the poor areas of Romania might be offended, but honestly with them, they need more help than not speaking Romani can give. It's best to avoid them.

[Alejo]

Lesson 2

The Article and Gender

Much like Spanish and the much closer related Hindi, Romani has only two genders.

For masculine nouns, the article o is used. For feminine, e.

O manrro the bread
O lil the letter
E ryat the night
E shib the language, tongue

A general rule is that nouns ending in o are masculine, such as balo (pig); nouns in i are generally feminine, such as bali (sow). Thus:

O balo tha e bali
The big and the sow

Nouns ending in consonants are trickier. They have to be memorized as you come across them. Examples are e yag and o grast, the fire and the horse.

Romani lacks an indefinate article. Grast may mean a horse or simply, horse. Ekh may be used for a or an sometimes, although it more literally means one.

Also, you will come to see that the definite article is used in places English speakers wouldn't be accustomed to. One spot is in front of names.

E Joan avel. Joan is coming.
O Steven avel. Steven is coming.
Kon avel? Who is coming?

Questions

Questions can be formed with a rising intonation, such as in Spanish, or reforming the sentence, like in English.

O shavó avel? Is the boy coming?
or
Avel o shavó? Is the boy coming?

Vocabulary

ages today
ánde into, in
avel he, she, it comes
beshel he, she, it sits
chi not, do not(negative particle, such as chi zhav, I am not going)
doháno tobacco
Gazhi Non Rom woman
Gazho Non Rom man
grasni mare
grast horse
kerel he, she, it makes, does
kon? who?
lasharel he, she, it fixes, repairs
lil(m) letter
mangel he, she, it wants
manrro bread
na no(to a question)
phagel he, she, it breaks
phandel he, she, it closes, ties
phutrel he, she, it opens
piyel he, she, it drinks( or piyav doháno, I smoke tobacco, notice the similar cultural comparison to drinking and smoking as in Hindi 'phūṅkanā' and Turkish 'içmek')
rakli non Romani girl
raklo non Romani boy
ryat(f) night
Rrôm Romani man, husband if Roma
Rrômní Romani woman, wife if Roma
shávo Romani boy
shey Romani girl
so? what?
sóba room, not a noodle
tehára tomorrow
wudar(m) door
ya yes(to a question)

Translate:

O grasni avel.

Me chi piyav doháno.

Ya, wo phutrel o wudar.

[Levo]

Lesson 2

The Article and Gender

Much like Spanish and the much closer related Hindi, Romani has only two genders.

For masculine nouns, the article o is used. For feminine, e.

O manrro the bread
O lil the letter
E ryat the night
E shib the language, tongue

A general rule is that nouns ending in o are masculine, such as balo (pig); nouns in i are generally feminine, such as bali (sow). Thus:

O balo tha e bali
The big and the sow

Nouns ending in consonants are trickier. They have to be memorized as you come across them. Examples are e yag and o grast, the fire and the horse.

Romani lacks an indefinate article. Grast may mean a horse or simply, horse. Ekh may be used for a or an sometimes, although it more literally means one.

Also, you will come to see that the definite article is used in places English speakers wouldn't be accustomed to. One spot is in front of names.

E Joan avel. Joan is coming.
O Steven avel. Steven is coming.
Kon avel? Who is coming?

Questions

Questions can be formed with a rising intonation, such as in Spanish, or reforming the sentence, like in English.

O shavó avel? Is the boy coming?
or
Avel o shavó? Is the boy coming?

Vocabulary

ages today
ánde into, in
avel he, she, it comes
beshel he, she, it sits
chi not, do not(negative particle, such as chi zhav, I am not going)
doháno tobacco
Gazhi Non Rom woman
Gazho Non Rom man
grasni mare
grast horse
kerel he, she, it makes, does
kon? who?
lasharel he, she, it fixes, repairs
lil(m) letter
mangel he, she, it wants
manrro bread
na no(to a question)
phagel he, she, it breaks
phandel he, she, it closes, ties
phutrel he, she, it opens
piyel he, she, it drinks( or piyav doháno, I smoke tobacco, notice the similar cultural comparison to drinking and smoking as in Hindi 'phūṅkanā' and Turkish 'içmek')
rakli non Romani girl
raklo non Romani boy
ryat(f) night
Rrôm Romani man, husband if Roma
Rrômní Romani woman, wife if Roma
shávo Romani boy
shey Romani girl
so? what?
sóba room, not a noodle
tehára tomorrow
wudar(m) door
ya yes(to a question)

Translate:

O grasni avel.

Me chi piyav doháno.

Ya, wo phutrel o wudar.

sóba=room, wow, in my language it is szoba (sz=like English s in pronouncation)

[Alejo]

Well this dialect is Kalderash, so one can recognize many traces of Hungarian, Romanian, and some Slavic languages do to where this dialect is spoken !

[D39]

Te traeles bahtalo, praleo! Kaj si tu?