Romani language standardization

There are independent groups currently working toward standardizing the Romani language, including groups in Romania, Serbia, the United States and Sweden.

Where it is being pursued

A standardized form of Romani is used in

radio stations

and news broadcasts.

In Romania, the country with the largest identifiable Romani population, there is now a unified system for teaching the Romani language for all dialects spoken in the country. This is primarily a result of the work of Gheorghe Sarău, who made Romani textbooks for teaching Romani children.

Language standardization is presently also being pursued in the revival of the Romani language among various groups – in Spain,

Gitano

tradition and communication with other Romani people.

Standardization approaches

Despite various efforts towards "universal" standardization, the overall trend in Romani literacy is towards regional codification, with some degree of international orientation, in the choice of some graphemes as well as vocabulary.

This international orientation allows Romani readers to appreciate texts composed in other countries. At the same time, this pluralistic approach to codification is representative of the dispersion of Romani communities, and the lack of a central governmental authority. 'Linguistic pluralism' of this kind has been embraced as a policy by the European Roma and Traveller Forum (the elected Romani representation at the Council of Europe) in a statement on its website. It has also received the support of various leading linguists investigating Romani, such as the late Milena Hübschmannová, Dieter W. Halwachs, and Yaron Matras. The RomLex online Romani dictionary acknowledges pluralism by incorporating dialect variants, albeit in a consistent and unified spelling system.

Sarău's standardization

prescriptive language, choosing vocabulary and grammatical elements traced back to the old language crystallized in Anatolia

.

The pronunciation is most similar to that of the dialects from the first stratum. When there are more variants in the dialects, the variant that most closely resembles the oldest forms is chosen. For example, byav instead of abyav, abyau, akana instead of akanak, shunav instead of ashunav or ashunau, etc.

An effort is also made to derive new words from the vocabulary already in use, i.e., xuryavno (airplane), vortorin (

Hindi include bijli (bulb, electricity

), misal (example), chitro (drawing, design), lekhipen (writing) and from English (printisarel, prezidento).