Laiuse Romani was a Romani variety spoken in

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

. It was a

mixed language A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole or pidgin language in that, whereas creoles/pidgin ...

based on Romani and Estonian. The

Romani people The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...

first appeared in Estonia in the 17th century. According to rumors, they were first part of Swedish King

Charles XII Charles XII, sometimes Carl XII ( sv, Karl XII) or Carolus Rex (17 June 1682 – 30 November 1718 O.S.), was King of Sweden (including current Finland) from 1697 to 1718. He belonged to the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a branch line of ...

's Romani orchestra which he, after spending a winter in

Laiuse Laiuse (german: link=no, Lais) is a small borough (') in Estonia. It is located in Jõgeva County and is a part of Jõgeva Parish. As of 2011 census, the settlement's population was 371.Laiuse Middle Schoolis one of the oldest in Estonia, bein ...

, left behind. In 1841 all 44 Estonian Romani were collected and settled around

Parish. Their main stop was Raaduvere village, but they also lived in Rakvere,

Jõgeva Jõgeva (german: Laisholm) is a small town in Estonia with a population of around 5000 people. It is the capital of Jõgeva Parish and Jõgeva County. History Jõgeva was first mentioned in 1599 as ''Jagiwa'' manor, being established only rec ...

and its precincts. Before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

there were 60 Romani in Laiuse. Laiuse Romani became extinct in the German occupation, when all its speakers were killed by the Nazis during the

Porajmos The Romani Holocaust or the Romani genocide—also known as the ''Porajmos'' ( Romani pronunciation: , meaning "the Devouring"), the ''Pharrajimos'' meaning the hard times ("Cutting up", "Fragmentation", "Destruction"), and the ''Samudaripen'' ( ...

Linguistic features

Laiuse Romani shares a number of linguistic features with Finnish Kalo, such as palatalization of

velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive an ...

s before front vowels and initial

devoicing In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization. Most commo ...

Notes

References

* * Romani in Estonia Para-Romani Languages of Estonia Extinct languages of Europe Mixed languages Jõgeva Parish {{Romani-stub