In Romanes, words and reality are seldom far apart. Whenever one speaks about something bad, some illness, for example, one needs immediately to excuse oneself and say, for example, dur amendar – be this far from us.

All Roma groups share the belief that words can bring a bad omen and need to heeded against. It is deeply ingrained.

This extends to all aspects covering traditions, for example, when referring to things that may go against ritual cleanness rules (for example in the case of even simply saying I went barefoot, please excuse me).

This does not mean that curses don’t exist in Romanes. On the contrary, curses are much more real and serious due to the belief that words can actually make things happen. In fact, these are so serious that curses are almost an integral part of the kris, where the parties have to give oaths, sometimes terrible, to guarantee the truthfulness of their testimonies.