Romani: A Linguistic Introduction

by Yaron Matras

Romani is a language of Indo-Aryan origin which is spoken in Europe by the people known as "Gypsies"--who usually refer to themselves as Rom. There are more than 3.5 million speakers, and their language has attracted increasing interest from scholars as well as language planners in governments and other organizations during the past ten years. This book is the first comprehensive overview in English of Romani, its structure, history, typology and dialects. It will provide an indispensable reference work for all interested in this fascinating language.

308 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 1998

About the author

Yaron Matras is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manchester, and Editor of the journal Romani Studies. His involvement with Romani issues began in the advocacy and civil rights arena. Matras was media relations officer to the Roma National Congress from 1988-1995, and founding editor of RomNews, one of the very first advocacy information services on Romani issues. He has worked closely with the Open Society Institute's Roma programmes, is a founding member of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies, and has led several large-scale research projects on Romani language and culture, including an international research consortium on Romani migrations. He is the author of over a dozen books and numerous chapters and articles on Romani language and culture, and speaks the Romani language fluently.

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 2002, this survey by Yaron Matras is, at least for the time being, the English-language handbook on the dialects of the language spoken by the Roma ("Gypsies") of Europe. Like all entries in Cambridge University Press's "A Linguistic Introduction" series, this is not meant for those who want to learn the language for everyday use, but rather are meant for readers with a formal background in linguistics.

In giving a rigorous description of how Romani works as a linguistic system, Matras examines the language from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. The first couple of chapters are mainly diachronic, discussing the historical differences between the attested Romani dialects, and how Romani developed out of a Middle/New Indo-Aryan language in India. As a historical linguist with some familiarity with Sanskrit and Pali, I found the clearly listed innovations in phonology and morphology that produced Romani out of a common Indic basis quite fascinating. There is also a chapter on what Romani borrowed from the European languages (Greek first of all) with which it has long been in contact.

The remainder of the grammatical treatment, and the more ample part of the book, is a synchronic description. It is divided into chapters on Phonology, Nominal Forms and Categories, Verb Morphology and Syntactic Typology.

The book closes with two chapters on sociolinguistic issues. One, "Romani sociolinguistics", describes contexts of Romani language use, as well as the phenomenon of "Para-Romani" where Roma populations have switched to the majority language, but brought across hundreds of their own lexical items. The other chapter, "Language planning and codification", describes current efforts to increase use of Romani in written contexts and achieve literary forms intelligible across multiple dialects. Already by the time this book was written in the early millennium, the Internet was having an effect on Romani codification, and one hopes for a second edition to reflect further developments in the years since.

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the great good fortune to have Professor Matras as a lecturer when I was studying Linguistics at the University of Manchester - one of the courses I took with him was on Romani Linguistics, which is kind of why I read this book (set reading for the course).

Aside from being a ridiculously clever man (the number of languages this guy apparently speaks on at least a semi-fluent basis almost falls off being counted on both hands), but also what he had to say on the subjects he lectured on was really interesting and well worth listening to.

Though this module on Romani Linguistics was taken more for personal interest (and not to just fill up credits!), rather than for any particular wish to study it further academically, I am really glad I did take it!

Not only did Professor Matras have extensive knowledge of the variants of Romani, but I was also taken with the sympathy he had for the language's speakers. What was even cooler was he managed to bring in some of the people whom he had 'studied' so we got the chance to question them closely about their culture, their language and their lives.

This book is essentially an extension of what we learned during the course - but if you have an interest in historical linguistics (which I do), then you'll definitely find this a very good read (aside from the fact that it's also about as good an overview of Romani linguistics as you can find).

So big thumbs up for this book, and I would definitely recommend it. It may not be your first choice in reading material, but I still think it's important to read to open your mind and find out at least a smidgen more about a widely misunderstood people - and also from a source who has at least taken the time to understand Romani speakers!