Sunday, October 28, 2007

The language, relationships, variety, Romani - information

Romani, as spoken by the Vlachs, is becoming a language of literature. See //romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/ethn/groupscz/cz-vlax.en.xml

This is an excellent site for the interrelationships between groups of Gypsies, the ambiguities, their trades, commerce, the admiration for the beauty of the Vlach, the reasons for trade as a profession being admired, but physical work for others not so much.

Much in this area of Gypsy culture is unfirm. One site makes a clear statement. Another makes another. As to the Vlachs themselves (Vlax), one site includes them as Gypsy, see the tie to Romanian gypsies of Wallachia and Moldavia to the Hungarian Vlachs at ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary.html. The site notes the history of enslavement of gypsies during medieval times.

This other source, "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and their Journey," by Isabel Fonseca, however, documents records that show 16,000 were brought in as slaves by the father of Vlad the Impaler in the 1400's, and a further 11,000 were awarded to Stefan the Great (am checking for the precise pages for these, bear with me) by a Pope, bringing the south-of-the-Danube dark-skinned slave group to a high number for the times. If so, the Vlachs are not "gypsy" if they were there with the Roman Legions. The word "gypsy" can mean slave, however. Anyone enslaved could be called Gypsy.

So: If we can clear up what language the Vlachs speak, we may be able to clue whether they are an indigenous nomadic group, speaking a vernacular Latin; or Romani. Romanian does use the western alphabet, with many words recognizable from Latin roots, and the Cyrillic alphabet, or Greek, are not seen.

No comments: