Indo-Aryan language
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...
, spoken by
Dom people
The Dom (also called Domi; ar, دومي / ALA-LC: ', / , Ḍom / or , or sometimes also called Doms) are descendants of the Dom with origins in the Indian subcontinent which through ancient migrations are found scattered across Middle East, ...
scattered across the
Middle East and North Africa
MENA, an acronym in the English language, refers to a grouping of countries situated in and around the Middle East and North Africa. It is also known as WANA, SWANA, or NAWA, which alternatively refers to the Middle East as Western Asia (or a ...
. The language is reported to be spoken as far north as Azerbaijan and as far south as central Sudan, in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Syria and Lebanon. Based on the systematicity of sound changes, it is known with a fair degree of certainty that the names ''Domari'' and ''
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
'' derive from the Indo-Aryan word ''ḍom''. However, the Domari and
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
languages do not derive from the same ancestor idiom. Domari derives from an Indo-Aryan language. The Arabs referred to them as '' Nawar'' as they were a nomadic people that originally immigrated to the Middle East from the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
.
Domari is also known as "Middle Eastern Romani", "Tsigene", "Luti", or "Mehtar". There is no standard written form. In the
Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
, it is occasionally written using the
Arabic script
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
and has many
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
loanwords. Descriptive work was done by Yaron Matras, who published a comprehensive grammar of the language along with a historical and dialectological evaluation of secondary sources (Matras 2012).
Domari is an endangered language, as there is currently pressure to shift away from it in younger generations, according to Yaron Matras. In certain areas such as Jerusalem, only about 20% of these Dom people, known as “Middle Eastern Gypsies”, speak the Domari language in everyday interactions. The language is mainly spoken by the elderly in the Jerusalem community. The younger generation are more influenced by Arabic, therefore most only know basic words and phrases. The modern-day community of Doms in Jerusalem was established by the nomadic people deciding to settle inside the Old City from 1940 until it came under Israeli administration in 1967 (Matras 1999).
Dialects
The best-known variety of Domari is Palestinian Domari, also known as "Syrian Gypsy", the dialect of the Dom community of
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, which was described by R.A. S. Macalister in the 1910s. Palestinian Domari is an endangered language, with fewer than 200 speakers, the majority of the 1,200 members of the Jerusalem Domari community being native speakers of Palestinian Arabic.
Other dialects include:
*
Nawari
Nawar is an Arabic term for several nomad communities used primarily in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. The term, regarded as derogatory, is used by Arabs for several diverse ethnic groups. They have historically been called "Gyp ...
in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
,
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
,
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
,
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
and
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
.
*Kurbati in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
*Helebi in Egypt,
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
,
Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
*Halab/Ghajar in
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
.
*
Karachi
Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...
(
Garachi
The Garachi ( az, Qaraçı; ku, Qereçî; russian: Карачи), also spelled Karachi or Karaci, are a group of the Dom people living in Azerbaijan and Turkey, mostly in the Citys Diyarbakır, Niğde and Birecik. Little research has been done ...
) in northern
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, northern
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and the Caucasus
*Marashi in Turkey
*Barake in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
Some dialects may be highly divergent and not mutually intelligible. Published sources often lump together dialects of Domari and the various unrelated in-group vocabularies of diverse peripatetic populations in the Middle East. Thus, the
Ghorbati
Ghorbati (self-designations also Mugat and Hadurgar) is an ethnic group, an originally nomadic community in Iran and Afghanistan, as well as Central Asia where they are part of the various communities termed Lyuli. They are widespread in Iran, from ...
and
Lyuli
The Lyuli, Jughi (self-name - ''Mugat'' and Ghorbati) or Jugi are a branch of the Ghorbati people living in Central Asia, primarily Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and southern Kyrgyzstan; also, related groups can be found in Turkey, Crimea, ...
were previously thought to speak a dialect of Domari. There is also no obvious connection between Domari and the vocabulary used by the Helebi of Egypt (see discussion in Matras 2012, chapter 1).
The small Seb Seliyer language of Iran is distinctive in its core vocabulary.
Status
In the 1940s, the Dom began to abandon their nomadic culture and began settling and working in the local economy. This led to the next phenomenon; the assimilation of ''Dom'' children in the primary school system which marked the first generation to grow up in an academic environment alongside Arab children. Consequently, this 1940 generation do not fluently speak the Domari language. Arabic replaced their native Domari, and became the language of cross-generation communication. In Jerusalem, it is estimated there are about 600-900 members of the ''Dom'' population in Jerusalem. Less than 10% can effectively communicate in Jerusalem Domari.
Comparison with Romani
Domari was once thought to be the "sister language" of
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
, the two languages having split after the departure from the Indian subcontinent, but more recent research suggests that the differences between them are significant enough to treat them as two separate languages within the
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
( Hindustani) group of languages. The Dom and the Rom are most likely to be descendants of 2 different migration waves out of India, separated by several centuries. According to Matras:
There remain similarities between the two, aside from their shared
Central zone
The Central Indo-Aryan languages or Hindi languages are a group of related language varieties Spoken across North India and Central India. These language varieties form the central part of the Indo-Aryan language family, itself a part of the ...
Indic origin, indicating a period of shared history as itinerant populations in the Middle East. These include: shared archaisms, which have been lost in the Central Indo-Aryan languages over the millennia since Dom/Rom emigration, a series of innovations connecting them with the
Northwestern zone
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...
group, indicating their route of migration out of India, and a number of radical syntactical changes, due to superstrate influence of Middle Eastern languages, including
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
,
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and
Byzantine Greek
Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman co ...
.
Orthography
Since Domari is a minority Middle-Eastern language for a specific community of speakers, it did not have a standard orthography for many years; therefore many writers have used differing spelling systems (similarly to what happened with Ladino). Most Middle-Easterners used the Arabic script, while scholars made do with a modified Pan-Vlakh Latin-based alphabet.
Modified Pan-Vlakh orthography
In 2012, Yaron Matras used such a system in his recent publications on this subject where the Pan-Vlakh orthography served as a basis, with several modifications:
* Romani ''j'' changed to ''y''
* Romani ''c'' use limited to the accented form ''č'' for /tʃ/, the /dʒ/ counterpart being denoted by ''dž''
* Doubled vowel letters for long vowels (''aa ee ii oo uu'')
* Diphthongs denoted with vowel pairs (''ai au ei eu oi'' and so on ... )
* Additional letters in use for Semitic-derived words and names (''ḍ ḥ ṣ ṭ ẓ ġ q ‘ ’'' and so on ... )
Pan-Domari Alphabet
A new Semitic-flavored Latin-based pan-alphabet has recently been introduced by some scholars for the purpose of codifying written Domari.
The Pan-Domari Alphabet, which was invented in 2015, is a Semitic-flavored simplification of the previous Matras notation:
* ''Y'' is used for /j/, and ''w'' for /w/—like in English
* ''X'' is used for the sound /x/—the well-known guttural of Greek, Russian, and Middle Eastern languages
* ''Q'' stands for /q/, the uvular plosive sound heard in the Semitic languages
* Circumflexes are used to mark long vowels <â ê î ô û> and certain fricative/affricate consonants <ĉ ĝ ĵ ŝ ẑ> (=)
* Underdots under letters represent pharyngeal(-ized) consonants <ḍ ḥ ṣ ṭ ẓ> (IPA /d̪ˤ ħ sˤ t̪ˤ zˤ/)
* Other letters include ''þ'' (thorn) and ''ð'' (edh) for the interdental fricatives /θ ð/, the characters <ʾ> (''ʾalef/hamzaʾ''—IPA /ʔ/) and <ʿ> (''ʿayn''—IPA /ʕ/), and the letter <ə> for the vowel sound ''shəwaʾ''.
* The diphthongs are now denoted by vowel + approximant digraphs .
The Pan-Domari Alphabet is shown in this table:
''NOTES''
§ Spelling alternates are shown for certain of these sounds (i.e.: when typing on an ASCII or typewriter keyboard, or when/where computers cannot show the proper accented Domari letters); these alternates are also used on the KURI's ''Learn Domari'' article series.
1 The letter ''fe'' may be sounded either as a labiodental /f/ or a bilabial fricative, depending on the context, or origin of a given word/name.
2 The letter ''ĝe'' usually represents a voiced velar fricative /ɣ/, but may be sounded as a velarolaryngeal in words/names derived from
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
before the letters ''g ĝ k q x'', but as a palatal before the letters ''ĉ ĵ y''.
4 The letter ''re'' represents a flapped or a trilled rhotative resonant continuant, depending on the position within a word/name, and whether it appears singly or doubly.
5 The letter ''ve'' shows up mainly in words and names derived from foreign loans, and may represent either a voiced labiodental /v/ or a voiced bilabial fricative.
6 The letter ''xe'' (pronounced as ''KHEH'') usually represents a voiceless velar fricative /x/, but usually is sounded as a velarolaryngeal /χ/ one in scores of loan words/loan names which are derived from
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
it may vary in the direction of either a higher-mid or a fronted lower-mid one, depending on the dialect spoken.
**: The plain (unaccented) letters ''c'' and ''j'' are only found in foreign loan words and loan names, as shown in the above table.
Keyboard Layout
A ''Pan-Domari Alphabet'' ASDF keyboard layout is to be made available for MS-Windows users, which is based on the ''United States English'' layout, albeit with C, J, and some punctuation signs being reassigned to /ALTGR>, to make room for needed Domari characters.
Phonology
Vowels
There are five main vowel sounds, however this inventory shows the variation and quantity of short vowels. Most are interchangeable with a vowel sound next to it, however all of the sounds produced above are identical to the local Palestinian Arabic (Matras 1999).
Consonants
Most of these consonants are influenced by Palestinian Arabic such as gemination; however, consonants such as ʃand are not found in the local dialect. There is speculation among linguists that these sounds are considered a part of the pre-Arabic component. Alveopalatal affricates such as ʃand ʒare also consonants that differ in sound from Arabic.
Stress
The biggest difference in expression of language between Arabic and Domari is where the stress is placed. Arabic has phoneme-level stress while Domari is a language of word-level stress. The Domari language emphasizes stress on the final syllable, as well as grammatical markers for gender and number. Most nouns, besides proper nouns, adopted from Arabic sound distinct because of the unique stresses in Domari (Matras 1999). Domari is thought to have borrowed a lot of words and grammatical structure from Arabic; however, this is not entirely true. Complex verbs and most core prepositions did not transfer into the realms of grammar of the Domari language. The syntactic typology remains independent of Arabic influence. It also important to note that the numerals used by the ''Doms'' were inherited from Kurdish. Even though Domari was influenced by local Arabic, the language also felt the impacts of Kurdish and certain dialects of Iranian in the grammar of the language.
Numerals
Here is a table of the numerals (1-10, 20, and 100) in
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
,
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
, Domari,
Lomavren
Lomavren ( hy, Լոմավրեն ') is a nearly extinct mixed language spoken by the Lom people, that arose from language contact between a language related to Romani and Domari and the Armenian language.
Names
The language is also known as ' ...
, Kurdish and
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
for comparison.
References
Further reading
*Herin, B. (2012). "The Domari language of Aleppo (Syria)" ''Linguistic Discovery'' 10 (2), 1-52.
*Herin, B. (2014). "The Northern Dialects of Domari," ''Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft'' 164 (2): 407–450.
*Matras, Y. (1999). "The state of present-day Domari in Jerusalem." ''Mediterranean Language Review'' 11, 1–58.
*Matras, Y. (2002). ''Romani: a linguistic introduction''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Matras, Y. (2012). ''A grammar of Domari''. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton (Mouton Grammar Library).
Language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...