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Linguistic Atlas of Central Romani

Project


The Linguistic Atlas of Central Romani is a three-year project funded by the Czech Science Foundation / Grantová agentura České republiky (2011–13). The research team is based at the Charles University in Prague. 

Central Romani remains one of the last idioms of East Central Europe and one of the last major dialect groups of Romani that lack a comprehensive description of their cross-dialectal variability, whether in form of a dialectological atlas or a comprehensive dialectological overview. 

This contrasts with the availability of dialectological atlases and overviews of most languages of East Central Europe (e.g. ČJA 1992–2005 for Czech, ASJ 1968–1984 for Slovak, MNyA 1968–1980 for Hungarian, MAGP 1957–1970 and AGP 1998–2002 for Polish, Stieber 1956–1963 for Rusyn, LCAJ 1992–2000 for Yiddish, and more) and of individual dialect groups of Romani (e.g. Boretzky 1999a and 2000 for two groups of Balkan Romani and Boretzky 2003 for Vlax Romani). A dialectological atlas of Romani in general (Boretzky & Igla 2004), which draws almost exclusively on published sources, represents Central Romani by less than a dozen of regional varieties. The few existing publications on the cross-dialectal variability within Central Romani (Lípa 1965, Boretzky 1999, Elšík et al. 1999, Červenka 2006) are likewise seriously limited in their coverage and sources of data. 

In contrast to these publications, the planned Linguistic Atlas of Central Romani will draw on systematic documentation of a great number of local varieties of Central Romani, and thus provide a comprehensive and representative account of interdialect variation within Central Romani. The resulting publication, which will have a printed and an on-line version, will contain several hundred maps and comment chapters on lexical, phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic variables within Central Romani. 

The project aims to fill in a serious gap in the description of both the linguistic diversity in Central Europe and the cross-dialectal variability within the Romani language. The project’s methodology is based on fieldwork, employing methods of linguistic elicitation, as well as on linguistic analysis of existing sources.

 

References

 

  • AGP 1998–2002 = Atlas gwar polskich. 4 vols. Warszawa.
  • ASJ 1968–1984 = Atlas slovenského jazyka. 4 vols. Bratislava: Vydavateľstvo SAV / Veda.
  • Boretzky, Norbert. 1999a. Die Verwandschaftbeziehungen zwischen den Südbalkanischen Romani-Dialekten. Mit einem Kartenanhang. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
  • Boretzky, Norbert. 1999b. Die Gliederung der Zentralen Dialekte und die Beziehungen zwischen Südlichen Zentralen Dialekten (Romungro) und Südbalkanischen Romani- Dialekten. In: Halwachs, Dieter W. – Florian Menz (eds.) Die Sprache der Roma. Perspektiven der Romani-Forschung in Österreich im interdisziplinären und internazionalen Kontext. Klagenfurt: Drava. 210–276.
  • Boretzky, Norbert. 2000. South Balkan II as a Romani dialect branch: Bugurdži, Drindari, and Kalajdži. Romani Studies, V:10, 105–183.
  • Boretzky, Norbert. 2003. Die Vlach-Dialekte des Romani. Strukturen, Sprachgeschichte, Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse, Dialektkarten. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
  • Boretzky, Norbert – Igla, Birgit. 2004. Kommentierter Dialektatlas des Romani. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
  • Červenka, Jan. 2006. Dialektní specifika severocentrální romštiny ve středoslovenských oblastech Kysuce, Turiec a Liptov. Praha: Signeta.
  • ČJA 1992–2005 = Český jazykový atlas. 5 vols. Praha: Academia.
  • Elšík, Viktor. 2003. Interdialect contact of Czech (and Slovak) Romani varieties. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 162, 41–62.
  • Elšík, Viktor – Hübschmannová, Milena – Šebková, Hana. 1999. The Southern Central (ahi-imperfect) romani dialects of Slovakia and Northern Hungary. In: Halwachs, Dieter W. – Florian Menz (eds.) Die Sprache der Roma. Perspektiven der Romani-Forschung in Österreich im interdisziplinären und internazionalen Kontext. Klagenfurt: Drava. 277–390.
  • LCAAJ 1992–2000 = The language and culture atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry. 3 vols. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer.
  • Lípa, Jiří. 1965. Cikánština v jazykovém prostředí slovenském a českém. K otázkám starých a novějších složek v její gramatice a lexiku. Praha: Nakladatelství Československé akademie věd.
  • MAGP 1957–1970 = Mały atlas gwar polskich. 13 vols. Wratislaw & Kraków.
  • Matras, Yaron. 2002. Romani: A linguistic introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Matras, Yaron. 2005. The classification of Romani dialects: a geographic–historical perspective. In: Schrammel, Barbara, Dieter W. Halwachs & Gerd Ambrosch (eds.) General and applied Romani linguistics: Proceedings from the 6th International Conference on Romani Linguistics. Munich: Lincom Europa. 7–22.
  • MNyA 1968–1980 = A magyar nyelvjárások atlasza. 7 vols. Budapest: Akadémi Kiadó.
  • Stieber, Zdzisław. 1956–1963. Atlas językowy dawnej Łemkowszczyzny. Łódz: Ossolineum.

 

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    Department of Linguistics

    Charles University, Faculty of Arts

     

 

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