Notes on the Phonology of Some Romance Loanwords into Romani

 

1. Introduction

 

Romani is an Indo-Aryan language that is spoken mainly in Europe and in the Americas. Throughout its European history, its speakers have been in contact with various language families, among which the most important are Hellenic, Slavic, Germanic and Romance. The aim of this article is to describe the most important aspects related to the phonology of Romance loanwords (mainly Romanian and Italian) that entered five Romani dialects: Kalderash Romani, Romanian Carpathian Romani, Ursari Romani, Polish Lovari Romani and Sinti Romani. As for the corpus, it is represented by the book entitled Life Stories in Different Romani Dialects, by Facebook conversations with a Mexican Kalderash informant, by the grammar books entitled A Handbook of Vlax Romani written by Ian Hancock, Das-Duma Romanes written by Ronald Lee, A Grammar of Lovari written by Tadeusz Pobożniak, Alexandru Ruja’s manuscript and Josef Vekerdi’s A Comparative Dictionary of Hungarian Gypsy Dialects.

 

1. A Brief  Sketch of the Romani Dialects under Discussion

Kalderash Romani is a Vlax-type Romani dialect belonging to the third layer of development, being therefore the most recent. It is widely spoken in Romania, in the USA, Canada and South America. Its most seminal characteristics are palatalisation of clusters, inflection dejotacization, a strong tendency towards analyticity, and a strong Romanian lexical influx.

 

Romanian Carpathian Romani is a Romani dialect belonging to the Central group, closely related to Sinti dialects. One of its main features is represented by the existence of h-forms, both in the verbal and the nominal, as opposed to those dialects that display s-forms only. The Romanian dialect shows both Hungarian and Romanian lexical influence. It is spoken in different parts of Transylvania.

 

Ursari Romani is a Romani dialect spoken on the territory of present-day Romania, in Moldova. It is closely related to other Romani dialects spoken in the Balkans, such as Arli. At the lexical level, one can notice South Slavic and Romanian influence.

Polish Lovari Romani is a Vlax-type Romani dialect spoken in Poland. Historically, their dialect was influenced by Romanian, experiencing a strong Hungarian influence in the nineteenth century. The dialect under discussion exhibits some Polish influence especially in the field of phonology.

 

Sinti Romani is an archaic Romani dialect spoken mainly in Germany, France and Italy. It is related to Central dialects, their main shared features being the h-forms. Although it generally shows German lexical influence, Sinti dialects also exhibit French, Italian and ti a lesser extent Greek loanwords.

 

2. The Phonology of Romance Loanwords

There are some important phonological characteristics that are seminal for the study of the phonology of Romance loanwords into Romani. They can be dealt with as follows:

 

1. Polish Lovari Romani:

• prothesis. This phenomenon is quite common in this dialect, serving the purpose of breaking down clusters that are not compatible with Romani phonotactic rules. E.g.: iskirin ‘they are writing’. Another interesting phenomenon that is resorted to is the emergence of an epenthetic vowel copy /i/ that breaks down the consonant cluster /kr/;
• aphesis. This phenomenon consists of dropping the initial unstressed vowel of a word. This process usually accompanies Romanian loanwords. Some examples that can be provided are glinda ‘mirror’, (the Romanian etymon being oglinda‘id.’) and lovina (‘beer’), whose Romanian etymon is olovina ‘id.’ Other examples featuring aphesis are fredjelo (‘drill’) and furšoj pe (‘to diminish, to wear out’). Their Romanian etyma are sfredel (‘id.’) and a se sfârși (‘to come to an end’);
• metathesis. Actually, this process relies on rearranging the sequencing of words or syllables within a word. Some examples found in the corpus are dulmut (‘ancient, of a bygone age’) and furmuntoj (‘to knead’). Their etyma are the Romanian lexemes demult(‘id.’) and a frământa (‘id.’). Another observation that should be made refers to regressive assimilation, which arose with the emergence of a vowel copy of the vowel /u/ encountered in the lexeme dulmut;
• reductionof the Romanian diphthong /o̯a/ to the vowel /a/. It takes place in the lexemes rota (<Rom. roată ‘wheel’) and broška (<Rom. broască ‘frog’).

1. Kalderash Romani:

• aphesis. It is usually encountered in some Romanian loanwords. One interesting example is koperìśo(‘roof’), whose Romanian etymon is acoperiș ‘id.’
• prothesis, which is the opposite  of aphesis, is a widely spread process. It consists in adding an extra vowel at the beginning of the word. We can talk about two basic types of prothesis:
• vowel prothesis. E.g.: asfàto ‘advice’  (<Rom. sfat‘id.’);
• consonant prothesis. E.g.:  vurrìto ‘disgusting’ (<Rom. urât ‘ugly’), vuloj ‘kerosene, petrol’(<Rom. ulei ‘oil’).
• reduction of the Romanian  diphthong /o̯a/ to the  vowel /o/. E.g.: rota‘wheel’ (<Rom. roată);
• labialization of Romanian close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/, because of labial attraction. This process also takes place in inherited lexemes. Some interesting examples are mutsa (‘female cat’) and murtano (‘tomcat’). Their Romanian etyma are mâță(‘id.’) and mârtan (‘id.’).
• fronting of Romanian mid central unrounded vowel /ə/ and close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/, especially in Kalderash communities that lost contact with speakers of Romanian. The outcome in the first case is /e/ or /a/, while in the latter it is /i. Some examples are  inke (‘still, yet’) and vatraš(‘camp leader’). Their Romanian etyma are încă (‘id.’) and vătraș (‘id.’).

 

1. Ursari  Romani:

 

• metathesis. This phonological process consists in reversing the order of sound sequences or syllables within a word. Generally speaking, metathesis is a highly frequent phenomenon in some Romance languages such as Spanish. The Ursari example found in the analysed corpus is a word displaying low frequency in Romanian i.e. logònda (‘engagement’), whose Romanian etymon is logodnă‘id.’;
• reduction of the Romanian diphthong /o̯a/ to the vowel /o/. This phenomenon takes place even in communities displaying permanent language contact with Romanian. Some examples are sòkra (‘mother-in-law’) and śkòla (‘school’). Their Romanian etyma soacră(‘id.’) and  școală (‘id.’);
• opening of Romanian mid central unrounded vowel /ə/ to the open central unrounded vowel /a/. Some interesting examples are matùśa(‘aunt’), nekaź- (‘to grieve’). Their Romanian etyma are mătușă (‘id.’) and a necăji (‘id.’);
• progressive assimilation, the next consonant becoming a copy of the previous one. An interesting example is śośètes (‘socks’), whose Romanian etymon is șosetă(‘sock’);

 

1. Romanian Carpathian Romani

• reduction of the Romanian dialectal diphthong /ja/ to the vowel /a/. E.g.: tràba (‘work, business’). Its Romanian etymon is treabă‘id.’;
• reduction of the Romanian voiced palato-alveolar affricate /dʒ/ to the voiced palato-alveolar sibilant fricative /ʒ/. E.g.: ïnceleźisar– (‘to understand’). Its Romanian etymon is a înțelege(‘id.’);
• As one can notice, this is a general feature of Romanian loanwords into Romani. E.g.: lejinaw(‘I choose’). Its Romanian etymon is a alege (‘id.’). In this lexeme, the vowel /a/ was dropped probably in order to better fit Romani phonotactic rules;
• opening to /ɛ/ of the Romanian mid front unrounded vowel /e/. E.g.: vräme (‘weather’). Its Romanian etymon is vreme(‘id.’)

 

1. Sinti Romani

• depalatalization of the Italian palatal nasal /ɲ/. E.g.: óni‘every’. Its Italian etymon is ogni ‘id.’, featuring a palatal nasal;
• closing of the Italian mid back rounded vowel /o/ to close back rounded vowel /u/. E.g.: dópu(‘after’). Its Italian etymon is dopo (‘after’);
• degemination of Italian geminate consonants. E.g.: nóna (‘grandmother’). Its Italian etymon is nonna (‘id.’), evincing a geminate consonant /n:/.

 

Conclusions

To sum up, there are some phonological processes that characterize the adaptation of Romance loanwords into Romani. The most important ones that have been dealt with are aphesis, diphthong reduction, fronting and prothesis. There are still some other aspects that need to be thoroughly tackled, but they are beyond the scope of this paper. They will be approached in future papers.

Bibliography:

1. Franzese, Sergio. 2002. Grammatica di Sinto Piemontese (Lingua Romani [zingara])[The Grammar of Piedmontese Sinti (Romani Language [Gypsy])]. Edizioni ‘O Vurdón’.
2. Hancock, Ian. 1995. A Handbook of Vlax Romani. Bloomington: Slavica Publishers.
3. Petrilă, Daniel, Medeleanu Luiza, Furtună Adrian (eds.). 2016. Life Stories in Different Romani Dialects. Bucharest: National Centre of Romani Culture Publishing House.
4. Pobożniak, Tadeusz. 1964. Grammar of the Lovari Dialect. Kraków: Drukarnia Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
5. Ruja-Gribussy, Alexandru, Corespondență Ruja-Sarău [Ruja-Sarău Correspondence] (unpublished manuscript).

 

 STELIAN-DRAGOȘ OLTEANU

(sursa foto: kalw.org)