Prague
September
14–16, 2006
Romani in the Czech Republic:
a brief overview
Several Romani subethnic groups have been established in the territory of present-day Czech Republic. The subethnic composition of Czech Roms changed significantly due to the Nazi genocide and post-WW2 migration from Slovakia.
- In 1939, there were around 6,000 Sinti, ‘Bohemian’ and ‘Moravian’ Roma, and Kalderar Rrom. The ‘Bohemian’ Roms traditionally spoke a North Central dialect of Romani, closely related to the dialect of the ‘Moravian’ Roms, but they shared their socioeconomic profile with the Sinti: whereas the Sinti and the ‘Bohemian’ Roms were (semi-)itinerant, the ‘Moravian’ Roms were mostly sedentary. The Kalderar were the least numerous group, probably consisting only of a few extended families. Curiously, the ‘Bohemian’ Roms were referred to as ‘Hungarians’ by the Sinti and as ‘Poles’ by the Kalderar Rrom.
- In 1942-1944, 90% of the pre-WW2 Romani inhabitants of present-day Czechia died of maltreatment in the so-called ‘Gypsy camps’ of the protectorate Bohemia and Moravia or were murdered in Auschwitz. Only around 600 Czech Romani people saw the end of the Third Reich. Most communities of Czech Romanies were disintegrated, both socially and linguistically. The Romani dialect of the ‘Bohemian’ Roms is now considered to be extinct. Some of the Czech Sinti, who are called Lalere ‘Czechs’ (lit. ‘the mute ones’) by their kin in Germany and Austria, moved to Germany after WW2. It is unknown whether there are any speakers of Romani among the remaining Czech Sinti.
- Starting in late 1940’s, i.e. after the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia, Romani workers from Slovakia were recruited to settle in the depopulated borderland regions and industrial centres of Czechia. The subethnic and linguistic background of the Romani immigrants was not uniform: there were speakers of various (North and South) Central dialects, speakers of Lovari-type North Vlax dialects, as well as Roms who spoke Slovak or Hungarian natively. Most Vlax-speaking Rom, who are usually called Vlaxi by the other Roms and who do not use (or even know) the ethnonym Lovara, were forced to settle in 1959. The other Roma of Slovakia, who are called Rumungri by the Vlax speakers, have been sedentary for centuries. Among the Romani immigrants from Slovakia, Roms from the least developed, eastern, regions of Slovakia, who mostly spoke varieties of the East Slovak (North Central) dialect of Romani, clearly prevailed in number. The work-related migration of Roms from Slovakia has continued up to the present, and many Czech Roms still retain social ties with their kin in Slovakia.
The current number of Romani speakers in the Czech Republic is unknown. Estimates of the number of ethnic Roms, which usually range between 200 and 250 thousand, are based on counts carried out by the communist government, which mostly employed social criteria. In the 2001 (1991) census only 11,746 (32,903) inhabitants of the Czech Republic claimed Romani ethnicity (“nationality”) and 23,211 (24,294) indicated Romani as their native language (“mother tongue”). Interestingly, only 6,672 (16,630) people claimed both Romani ethnicity and Romani native language, which means that 28,285 (40,567) people claimed either. While Romani is a vital language of in-group communication among the ‘Vlax’ Roms, language shift to (mainstream or ethnolectal) Czech is widespread among the other Romani groups; adolescent acquisition of (some) competence in Romani is becoming a common pattern. It can be estimated that there are currently between 50 to 150 thousand of Romani speakers in Czechia, of which perhaps 70-80% speak a North Central (esp. the East Slovak Romani) dialect, 10-20% a North Vlax dialect, and ca. 10% a South Central dialect (sometimes misleadingly called ‘Hungarian’ Romani).
Use of Romani was discouraged during the Czechoslovakian communist regime and, with a few exceptions, publications in Romani and even on Romani were prohibited. After 1989, Romani started to be used, usually alongside Czech, in printed and electronic Romani massmedia and several fiction books by Romani authors have been published. The language of most Romani publications is based on varieties of East Slovak Romani. The orthography of the emerging Romani standard of Czechia (which is almost identical to the Romani standard of Slovakia) is based on, but distinct from, the Slovak orthography. Publications in the other Romani dialects are extremely rare or non-existent, and these dialects still remain largely undocumented.
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Last updated: September 13 2006, 02:00. Editor: Viktor Elšík. Webdesign & webmaster: Jan Křivan. Made with PSPad.