Contrary to what many would expect from the archetypal “traveller” Romanes is rather sparse in terms of travel and terms concerning nature – especially for plants, animals and so on. On the other hand, the vocabulary for everyday rural and sedentary life is rather extensive. This literally says that it is easier to describe a farm and farming, house and housing with vocabulary from the common trunk than describing nomadic way of life. In the case of semi-nomadic Roma, many of those terms are later acquisitions though some of these terms are older, dating from the Indian exodus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A tent, cerha (tsera, tsahra, katuna, \u0161atra<\/em> in various Roma dialects) is not of Indian origins. Neither is the word vurdon<\/em> (vurden, verdan, vordin,<\/em> vardo<\/em>) [a carriage]. It actually stems from an old Persian word. The list of words of Indian origins referring to village life is long: kher<\/em> [house], gav<\/em> [village], giv<\/em> [wheat], d\u017eov<\/em> [oats], phabaj<\/em> [apple], drakh<\/em> [grapes], guruv<\/em> [ox, bull], bakro<\/em> [sheep], balo<\/em> [pig], khajni\/kahni<\/em> [hen] and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps as surprising a fact for many readers, Romanes is a “language of verbs”. It contains proportionally more verbs than many Indo-European languages. Several of these verbs can be substantivised to increase the pool of nouns. Using khelav<\/em> [to play, to dance], one can construct depending on the dialect khelipe<\/em>, khelimos<\/em> or khelipen<\/em> meaning a game or a dance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n New words are often created in Romanes, a fact which has a long tradition as it is the source of the dialect creation. Many such words are simply local words to which a greek ending is added. Nowadays, Roma will use vonungo<\/em> in german speaking lands to denote their apartment (from the German Wohnung) or fernsevo<\/em> in German speaking countries or its alternative tevevo<\/em> in latin speaking lands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Others are the result of a direct translation into Romanes or false interpretations of the meaning of a word in the local language. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Manouches in France sometimes say \u0161op nakeskro<\/em> for cinema [lit. it of the six noses from the French shortened version “cin\u00e9” which is pronounced as “six nez” – six noses]. The Sinti in Germany sometimes call N\u00fcrenberg Bukengero Foro<\/em> meaning the city of kidneys as in some Southern German dialects N\u00fcrenberg is deformed to “Nierenberg” – from the German Niere<\/em> [Kidney]. In Russia, the district administration is called baluni<\/em> [hairy] because its Russian name was Volostnoje Upravlenije,<\/em> close to volosnoje<\/em>, hairy in Russian. Among the Cale, instead of the first name Agosto, one sometimes uses querosto<\/em>, the one who did as the Spanish “hago” means I do [querelo in Calo]. The Carpathian Roma of the Austrian Burgenland use bangore<\/em> for potatoes, lit. the bent ones, from the local Hungarian krumpli<\/em> since krum<\/em> in German means bent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the vocabulary, especially the Indian one has remained pretty much unified among various Roma groups, the meaning has sometimes been deformed or some other use and signification has been added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the dialect spoken in Prizren (Kosovo) a\u0161unav<\/em> means both to hear and also to understand and sometimes even to learn. Among Sepet\u010dides of Izmir (originally from Northern Greece) akharav<\/em> means to carry while in most other dialects it means to call, to invite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Synonimics in Romanes sometimes consist of on the one hand the Romano word and on the other the equivalent word in the gad\u017eikano<\/em> language. That is, in the language of their country of origin, or rather in the country they have previously settled in. For example, for the French Manouche, it means German, for the Latvian Roma it means Polish, for the Kaldera\u0161a outside Romania it means Romanian and so on. The French Manouches use simultaneously zuna<\/em> [German: Sonne] and kham<\/em> for sun, erta<\/em> [German: Erde] and phup<\/em> for earth etc… The Latvian Roma sometime use simultaneously \u0161mer\u00e3<\/em> [Latvian: \u0161mier\u015b] and meripen<\/em> for death and the Kaldera\u0161a outside Romania use bala<\/em> [Romanian: boala] and nasvalimos<\/em> for illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Romanes may seem poor for an English speaker as it contains rather few lexems compared to that language. However, the finesse of Romanes lies in both the syntax as well as in the phraseology. This is perhaps the most difficult, although certainly the most fascinating part of Romanes. Nuances are sometimes difficult to translate and we hope that the following short presentation will render these usages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us start with the morphosyntax. Kaldera\u0161a say me dav tuke vast,<\/em> literally, I give you the hand, but this does not mean shaking hands and means helping out. Shaking hands is indicated by the use of the pronoun tu [you (sing)] in instrumental form: me dav tusa vast,<\/em> literally, I give the hand with you. In most Roma dialects, me lav vastestar<\/em> means I take (something) from the hand while me lav tut vastestar<\/em> means I catch you by your hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Phraseology, especially in the case of lav<\/em> [to take] and dav<\/em> [to give] is extensive. In Vlax dialects, dav anglal<\/em>, lit. I give ahead or give forward, means to answer while dav andre<\/em>, lit. give inside, means to enter. In Northern dialects, dav godli<\/em>, lit. give tears, means simply to cry but dav andre (gres)<\/em> means in those dialects to harness. In all dialects, one finds del bri\u0161ind<\/em>, lit. it gives rain that is, it rains. The list is almost infinite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The same is true with lav<\/em>: lav anglal<\/em>, lit. to give forward means to prevent. In Vlax dialects, lav pe mande<\/em>, lit. I take on me, means I dress myself. In those same dialects, one encounters lav sama<\/em> [to observe, to look] while sama<\/em> means attention, opinion and is used in the context of a share and due. In the case of lav pe murri sama<\/em> [I take my share or my due]. Pe sama Romani<\/em> means in simultaneously in the Gypsy way and for the Gypsy well being or prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the specific lexems are absent, Romanes uses periphrases. For example the Kaldera\u0161a me lem angla mande o foro<\/em>, lit. I took the city in front of me, which means I passed around the city (avoiding it). In the same dialect, \u010di len leske opre<\/em>, lit. they don’t take him up, means they don’t have respect for him. In Crimean Romanes, lel-pes sar o kham<\/em> [he (or she) takes himself (herself) as the sun] means he (or she) shines as the sun. Lovara use ande dem andi soba<\/em>, lit. I gave it inside the room, meaning I entered the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Village Life Contrary to what many would expect from the archetypal “traveller” Romanes is rather sparse in terms of travel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26192,"parent":80,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-781","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/vocabulary.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19330,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/781\/revisions\/19330"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/80"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Verbs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Evolution and Acquisitions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Shifts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Synonyms<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Syntax<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Periphrases<\/h3>\n\n\n\n