Vlax Romani is a
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 ...
group of 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 ...
. Vlax Romani varieties are spoken mainly in
Southeastern Europe
Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (al ...
by 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 ...
.
[Norbert Boretzky and Birgit Igla. Kommentierter Dialektatlas des Romani. Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz Verlag 2004. Teil 1: Vergleich der Dialekte.] Vlax Romani can also be referred to as an independent language
or as one dialect of 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 ...
. Vlax Romani is the second most widely spoken dialect subgroup of the Romani language worldwide, after
Balkan Romani.
Name
The language's name ''Vlax Romani'' was coined by British scholar Bernard Gilliat-Smith in his 1915 study on Bulgarian Romani, in which he first divided Romani dialects into ''Vlach'' and ''non-Vlach''.
The Vlax Roma, a subgroup of the Romani people that speak the Vlax Romani language, originate from the
former Roma slaves in the principalities of
Moldavia
Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...
and
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and so ...
(with the name "Vlax", which comes from "Vlach", coming from the latter), now
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 ...
.
All Vlax Romani Groups share
Vlachs
"Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Easter ...
Ancestry too
The words ''Romani'' and ''Romania'' are
false cognates, the former deriving from
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 ...
''rom'' – ultimately from Sanskrit word ḍoma/डोम, and the latter deriving 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 ...
''român'' – ultimately from Latin.
Classification
Vlax Romani is classified in two groups: Vlax I, or Northern Vlax (including
Kalderash
The Kalderash are a subgroup of the Romani people. They were traditionally coppersmiths and metal workers and speak a number of Romani dialects grouped together under the term Kalderash Romani, a sub-group of Vlax Romani.
The Kalderash of the ...
and
Lovari
Lovari ("horse-dealer", from Hungarian "ló", ''horse'') is a subgroup of the Romani people, who speak their own dialect, influenced by Hungarian and West Slavic dialects. They live predominantly throughout Central Europe (Hungary, Poland, Sl ...
), and Vlax II, or Southern Vlax.
Elšík uses this classification and dialect examples (geographical information from Matras
):
Writing systems
Vlax Romani is written using the
Romani orthography The Romani language has for most of its history been an entirely oral language, with no written form in common use. Although the first example of written Romani dates from 1542, it is not until the twentieth century that vernacular writing by native ...
, predominantly using the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
with several additional characters. In the area of the former
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, however, it can also be written in the
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...
.
References
Languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Languages of Romania
Languages of Slovenia
Romani in Albania
Romani in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Romani in Moldova
Romani in Romania
Romani in Slovenia
Dialects of Romani
Vlax
{{Language-stub