shakespeare

I want to share a response to my first post, which I think is an excellent point. A facebook friend of my husband, Petra Gelbart, wrote:

"My only comment is that Romani most definitely is a written language - or rather, a group of written languages -- and has been used by Roma for about a century, maybe longer. There are many newspapers, poems, published story collections and other materials available in Romani today. People have also translated everything from government documents to Shakespeare plays into Romani. That said, it's true that it's not a single standardized language, and that most Romani people in the world don't make use of its written form. But even as there are fewer Romani speakers, there are more Romani writers. (Also, Romani is all over facebook and youtube :-)"

And it's true, although I didn't know about the Shakespeare plays. I would love to see those! So, to clarify, it is a written language, just not a standardized one. Which makes instructional grammar books rare, either for children or adults. I would love to get my hands on one. Or write one myself (in the distant future when I have it mastered).

In the mean time, I am learning without the books. We talk to my Gypsy man's family on Skype at least once a week, and I do just fine speaking Italian with them, but with each other they more naturally speak Romani. I do my best to listen carefully and chime in, stringing together unfamiliar sounds and syntax. The basic principle of learning another language is being willing to take risks, or in other words, to sound like an idiot. I have more than once unintentionally elicited a room full of laughter. You want examples do you? Well, the other day my mother in law asked me whether our baby was starting to dance on her own, but she unexpectedly said it in Italian when I was expecting Romani, so instead of understanding balla ("dances") I heard bala ("hair" in Romani)and thinking she was commenting on my new haircut, touched my bangs and said something inane like "Oh, my hair?" I also have at least once confused the word bala with bul, which means buttocks, so you can imagine that was all too easy to laugh at.

Oh there is so much more I could say about this subject! I am envisioning many related future posts...