Finnish Kalo () is a

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 ...

of the Romani language family (a subgroup of

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

) spoken by

Finnish Kale The Finnish Kale ( rom, Kàlo; sv, Kalé; fi, Kaale, also ''Suomen romanit'' — "Finnish Romani") are a group of the Romani people who live primarily in Finland and Sweden. Their main languages are Finnish, Swedish and Finnish Romani. Hi ...

. The language is related to but not mutually intelligible with Scandoromani or Angloromani. Finnish Kalo has 6,000–10,000 speakers and many young people do not know the language. The majority of speakers are from older generations and about two-thirds of the Romanis in Finland still speak the language. There have been some revival efforts. Dictionaries and grammar books have been produced and some universities offer Finnish Kalo. Finnish Kalo has some similarities with the Romani languages in Hungary where stress is placed on the first syllable of the word. This may be related to the fact that both Finnish and Hungarian words have fixed word-initial stress, a feature that would have diffused to the Romani languages. Finnish Kalo has been taught in schools since the late 1980s and some courses were available in the 1970s.

Current situation

In 2012 only 30% of the 13,000 Romanis in Finland spoke Kalo fluently but about 50% could understand it. It is now uncommon for Kalo speakers to pass the language to children although there have been efforts made to revive it in recent years. There are

language nest A language nest is an immersion-based approach to language revitalization in early-childhood education. Language nests originated in New Zealand in the 1980s, as a part of the Māori-language revival in that country. The term "language nest" is ...

s in Rovaniemi, and in Helsinki, Romani courses were established. In Finland, the municipalities can establish Romani courses if there is enough demand, though there have been problems due to a lack of resources. Finnish Romani in Sweden have a right to Kalo and Finnish education.

Phonology

Finnish Kalo has 8 pairs of long and short vowels. Vowel length can be phonemic as in ''bur'' 'through' versus ''buur'' 'boor' or allophonic as in ''baaro''/''baro'' 'big'. Finnish Kalo has 9 closing

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

s and 3 opening diphthongs. Finnish Kalo has the following consonant phonemes:

Alphabet

Notes

References

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External links