There are independent groups currently working toward standardizing the

Romani language Romani (; also Romany, Romanes , Roma; rom, rromani ćhib, links=no) is an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities. According to '' Ethnologue'', seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their ...

, including groups in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

Where it is being pursued

A standardized form of Romani is used in

. In Serbia's autonomous province of Vojvodina, Romani is one of the officially recognized minority languages – having its own

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

s and news broadcasts. In

, the country with the largest identifiable Romani population, there is now a unified system for teaching the Romani language for all

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

s spoken in the country. This is primarily a result of the work of Gheorghe Sarău, who made Romani textbooks for teaching Romani children. Language standardization is presently also being pursued in the revival of the Romani language among various groups – in Spain,

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

and elsewhere – which have ceased to speak the language. In these cases, a specific dialect is not revived, but rather a standardized form derived from many dialects is developed. The Spanish politician Juan de Dios Ramírez Heredia promotes Romanò-Kalò, a variant of Standard Romani with the extant Caló words inserted back,
Unión Romaní imparte el primer curso de romanò-kalò
', 29 December 2006. aiming to both the Gitano tradition and communication with other Romani people.

Standardization approaches

Despite various efforts towards "universal" standardization, the overall trend in Romani

literacy Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...

is towards regional codification, with some degree of international orientation, in the choice of some graphemes as well as vocabulary. This international orientation allows Romani readers to appreciate texts composed in other countries. At the same time, this pluralistic approach to codification is representative of the dispersion of Romani communities, and the lack of a central governmental authority. 'Linguistic pluralism' of this kind has been embraced as a policy by the European Roma and Traveller Forum (the elected Romani representation at the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...

) in a statement on its website. It has also received the support of various leading

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

investigating Romani, such as the late Milena Hübschmannová, Dieter W. Halwachs, and Yaron Matras. The RomLex online Romani dictionary acknowledges pluralism by incorporating dialect variants, albeit in a consistent and unified spelling system.

Sarău's standardization

Gheorghe Sarău's standardized Romani, based largely on

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

an Romani dialects is a purified, mildly

prescriptive Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes infor ...

language, choosing vocabulary and

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...

elements traced back to the old language crystallized in Anatolia. The pronunciation is most similar to that of the dialects from the first

stratum In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...

. When there are more variants in the dialects, the variant that most closely resembles the oldest forms is chosen. For example, ''byav'' instead of ''abyav'', ''abyau'', ''akana'' instead of ''akanak'', ''shunav'' instead of ''ashunav'' or ''ashunau'', etc. An effort is also made to derive new words from the vocabulary already in use, ''i.e.'', ''xuryavno'' (airplane), ''vortorin'' ( slide rule), ''palpaledikhipnasko'' (retrospectively), ''pashnavni'' (adjective). There is an ever-changing set of borrowings from

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

as well, including such terms as ''vremea'' (

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

), ''primariya'' (

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

), ''frishka'' (

cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

), ''sfïnto'' (

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

, holy).

Neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

s taken from Hindi language, Hindi include ''bijli'' (bulb,

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

), ''misal'' (example), ''chitro'' (drawing, design), ''lekhipen'' (writing) and from English (''printisarel'', ''prezidento'').

References

External links

The Future of RomaniRomanò-Kalò (As promoted by Juan de Dios Ramírez Heredia)
{{Romani languages

Standardization Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...

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 ...

Where it is being pursued

Standardization approaches

Sarău's standardization

See also

References

External links