Also Known As:
Romani, Vlax, Romany, Romenes, Rom, "Gypsy", Tsigene, Romanese, Vlax Romany, Danubian, Zigeuner, European Romany, Rroma
Dialects & Varieties
- Central Vlax Romani
- South Albanian
- Lovari
- Ukraine-Moldavia
- Machvano
- Ghagar
- Serbo-Bosnian
- Sedentary Romania
- Grekurja
- Churari
- Southern Vlax Romani
- Kalderash
- Eastern
- Sedentary Bulgaria
- Ukrainian Vlax Romani
- North Albanian
- Southern Vlax
- Zagundzi
A Handbook of Vlax Romani
Hancock, Ian. 1995. "A Handbook of Vlax Romani." Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers.
Safe
20 percent certain, based on the evidence available
Domains of Use
Domain Of Use -1
Used in most domains, including official ones such as government, mass media, education, etc.
-1
Speakers
Native or fluent speakers:
No results found.
Second-language speakers and learners
No results found.
Semi-speakers or rememberers
No results found.
Children:
No results found.
Young adults
No results found.
Older adults
No results found.
Elders
No results found.
Ethnic or community population
No results found.
Year information was gathered
No results found.
Comments on speakers
"As it is spoken in the United States and Canada, Vlax adopts items from English very freely, as well as borrowing constructions and translating idioms from that language... The codification of a constructed, standardized dialect is currently in progress by members of the Linguistic Commission of the International Romani Union."
Location and Context
Countries
No results found.
Location Description
No results found.
Government Support
No results found.
Institutional Support
No results found.
Speakers' Attitude
No results found.
Other Languages Used By The Community
None
Number of Other Language Speakers:
None
Domains of Other Languages:
None
Writing Systems
Standard orthography:
No results found.
Writing system:
Numerous systems used by different speakers
Other writing systems used:
Cyrillic-based, Pan-Vlax (Roman-based), English-Based, International Standard (Roman-based)
Comments on writing systems:
"It is a commonly-repeated fallacy that Romani is not a written language. It has, in fact, been written for over a century... the practice [of writing Romani], when it is written by people who speak it, as opposed to outsiders who study it, has usually been to employ the only spelling known to them, namely that of the principal language of the country in which the speakers live... The policy of the International Romani Union is to have one standard spelling so that any Romani speaker anywhere in the world can learn and use it... But this can only happen once the creation of a standard dialect, with a more or less agreed-upon pronunciation, has been completed. The Linguistics Commission of the International Romani Union is developing such a dialect, and has already created a standardized phonemic orthography."
Recent Resources
ROMLEX documents the Romani lexicon.
