Romani alphabets: Difference between revisions
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===Devanagari=== |
===Devanagari=== |
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The modern use of Devanagari appeared when [[Roma (people)|Roma]] individuals began to study the Romani language and culture in the Indo-Aryan context, either as self-educated persons or in the higher education available in Romani (mostly in central and southeastern Europe), with a contemporary utilization less than of the Latin alphabet. Devanagari has a certain appeal since its graphemes are suited for the Indo-Aryan sound system (the [[Aspiration (phonetics)|aspirated phonemes]], for example, have distinct letters or the presence of the sound noted by व्, something between ''v'' and ''u'' in the Latin alphabet). It also possesses a simple and organized structure based on phonology. The evolution of the language from Sanskrit to modern Indo-Aryan languages brought into use few new phonemes as the script evolved from Brahmi to Devanagari. Then, in the last centuries, since Devanagari gained a stable form, there has been only one diacritic for new sounds, [[nukta]], applied to a letter marking a close sound. It is much easier to know the pronunciation of a Romani word if it is written in Devanagari |
The modern use of Devanagari appeared when [[Roma (people)|Roma]] individuals began to study the Romani language and culture in the Indo-Aryan context, either as self-educated persons or in the higher education available in Romani (mostly in central and southeastern Europe), with a contemporary utilization less than of the Latin alphabet. Devanagari has a certain appeal since its graphemes are suited for the Indo-Aryan sound system (the [[Aspiration (phonetics)|aspirated phonemes]], for example, have distinct letters or the presence of the sound noted by व्, something between ''v'' and ''u'' in the Latin alphabet). It also possesses a simple and organized structure based on phonology. The evolution of the language from Sanskrit to modern Indo-Aryan languages brought into use few new phonemes as the script evolved from Brahmi to Devanagari. Then, in the last centuries, since Devanagari gained a stable form, there has been only one diacritic for new sounds, [[nukta]], applied to a letter marking a close sound. It is much easier to know the pronunciation of a Romani word if it is written in Devanagari. |
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Devanagari is, likewise, the vehicle of a cultural area similar to that of the Romani people, giving important tools for creativity. It does not yet have a tradition of use, the same as do the other writing sytems employed for Romani. |
Devanagari is, likewise, the vehicle of a cultural area similar to that of the Romani people, giving important tools for creativity. It does not yet have a tradition of use, the same as do the other writing sytems employed for Romani. |
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Revision as of 17:25, 7 February 2007
Writing systems known to be used for the Romani language are Latin, Devanāgarī, Cyrillic, Greek and Arabic. However, until now, the writing of Romani with any of these scripts might be considered sporadic, none of these has gained enough popularity among people in order to develop a certain tradition. Now there are contemporary standardization attempts for the Latin and Devanagari writing systems.
Early history
It is likely that the Romani language appeared in the 11th - 12th centuries AD in Eastern Anatolia as a lingua franca used by people (recently immigrated from the Indian subcontinent, fleeing from the Muslim invasions) speaking more Indo-Aryan languages and dialects. The lack of some thoroughgoing studies renders uncertain the exact languages/dialects that participated in the creation of Romani and also whether among them there was the pre-eminence of a certain proto-Romani language. Preliminary studies indicate only that Romani is closer to the Central Indo-Aryan languages. As for the ancestors themselves, again there are only preliminary researches [11] [12] that show they might have been part of the ethnic groups that were on process of constituting the Rajputic people in the time of the 11th century Muslim invasions in the Northern Subcontinent.
The study of the Romani language reveals that the proto-Roma were followers of Dharmic religions, as the basic religious vocabulary is Sanskrit. For example, in Romani, राशाइ/rashai (priest) comes from ऋषि/ṛṣi, in Sanskrit, or देवेल/devel (God) comes from Sanskritic देवा/devā. The Roma respect the purity rules followed by the Hindu high-castes, codified in Manusmrti (The Laws of Manu), for example those from V.85, 132, 135 regarding the ritual distinction between the upper and lower parts of the human body.
They were integrated in the organization of the state(s) from those times and also in their broad society. In Romani, थागार/thagar (king) has the Hindi correspondent ठाकुर/ṭhakur (lord, honorific title) and राय/rai (Mister) or रानी/rani (Lady) are words found in both Romani and Hindi. The society from the Northen Subcontinent use abugida-type writing systems from the Brahmic family. These evolved from Brāhmī (earliest known use: 5th or 6th century BC) to contemporary Devanagari, Gurmukhi, Bengali, Gujarati and many others sharing some common characteristics and certain resemblances of the graphemes.
Standardization
Since the Roma left the Subcontinent (11th century AD) they wrote little, and with different scripts. Usually, these were the writing systems found in the countries they settled: the Latin, the Cyrillic, the Arabic and the Greek. Their use might be considered sporadic, and no firm tradition for writing Romani in any of these alphabets emerged. Romani writers have had a tendency to use whatever script was prevalent among the surrounding people and to use code-switching between more writing systems when necessary to facilitate the communication.
Latin
In 1990, a Commission for the standardization of the language of the World Romani Congress made an attempt at standardization, supporting the Latin alphabet proposed by Marcel Courthiade. However, it has yet to gain strong support among Romani; choosing the ideal Latin letter for some Romani sounds has been an issue, and Romani's postpositions have also posed a problem.
Variants of Latin graphemes
The phonemes that have more variants are those that did not exist originally in the Latin alphabet, later being employed diacritics on older letters or simply groups of letters to write them. For example, there are three possible ways to write four Romani sounds using the Latin alphabet:
| IPA pronunciation | 1st modality | 2nd modality | 3rd modality | Devanagari |
| /ʃ/ | š | ś | sh | श |
| /ʒ/ | ž | ź | zh | श़ |
| /c/ | č | ć | c, ch | च |
| /cʰ/ | čh | ćh | ch, chh | छ |
The first style of writing, with caron, is used in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Yugoslavia (maybe other countries, usually Slavic) [1][2][3]. The second, with acute accent (the variant proposed by Marcel Courthiade), is used in Poland and Romania [4]. The third is used in Hungary [5][6][7] and also in all the other countries from Central Europe enumerated above. This is used by the Roma in other parts of Europe [8][9], and in other continents, [10][11]. Also it is the most used on Internet by users, because diacritics are not easy to find on-line. There are also other Romani phonemes with more Latin variants.
Postpositions
Because Romani is an Indo-Aryan language, it uses postpositions attached to the nouns in oblique case. The alphabet proposed in 1990 employs different graphemes when the sound is the first consonant from a postposition. These graphemes would cover the difference between, usually, voiceless (at singular) and voiced (at plural) consonants. For example: avreske- आव्रेस्के (to the other) and avrenge- आव्रेन्गे (to the others) would be written avresqe and avrenqe. There was also the hope to cover some minor dialectal differences of pronunciation (in this case: avresce- आव्रेस्चे and avrenje- आव्रेन्जे). The other graphemes are:
- avresθe/θar (at/from, by the other) and avrenθe/θar (at/from, by the others), pronounced avreste/tar-आव्रेस्ते/तार and avrende/dar-आव्रेन्दे/दार;
- avreça (with the other) and avrença (with the others), pronounced avresa-आव्रेसा and avrentsa-आव्रेन्त्सा.
Up to now, they have not gained much popularity, although they are used in the Romani education system in Romania.
Letters
All known variants of writing Romani with the Latin alphabet (there may be others also) have 49 characters (out of which ç and θ are used only with lowercase forms). None of the variants of the spelling conventions use all these letters. The 47 uppercase forms are:
A Ǎ Ä B C Ć Č D Ď E Ê F G Ǧ H I Î J K Ǩ L Ľ M N Ň O Ö P P̌ Q R Ŕ Ř S Ś Š T Ť U Ü V W X Y Z Ź Ž
and the 49 lowercase forms are:
a ǎ ä b c ć č ç d ď e ê f g ǧ h i î j k ǩ l ľ m n ň o ö p p̌ q r ŕ ř s ś š t ť u ü v w x y z ź ž θ.
22 of the 49 characters are accented, namely:
- versions with a caron on the letters A, C, D, G, K, L, N, P, R, S, T and Z,
- umlauted versions of the letters A, O and U,
- E and I with circumflexes,
- C, R, S and Z with acute accents, and
- c with cedilla (lowercase only).
Devanagari
The modern use of Devanagari appeared when Roma individuals began to study the Romani language and culture in the Indo-Aryan context, either as self-educated persons or in the higher education available in Romani (mostly in central and southeastern Europe), with a contemporary utilization less than of the Latin alphabet. Devanagari has a certain appeal since its graphemes are suited for the Indo-Aryan sound system (the aspirated phonemes, for example, have distinct letters or the presence of the sound noted by व्, something between v and u in the Latin alphabet). It also possesses a simple and organized structure based on phonology. The evolution of the language from Sanskrit to modern Indo-Aryan languages brought into use few new phonemes as the script evolved from Brahmi to Devanagari. Then, in the last centuries, since Devanagari gained a stable form, there has been only one diacritic for new sounds, nukta, applied to a letter marking a close sound. It is much easier to know the pronunciation of a Romani word if it is written in Devanagari.
Devanagari is, likewise, the vehicle of a cultural area similar to that of the Romani people, giving important tools for creativity. It does not yet have a tradition of use, the same as do the other writing sytems employed for Romani.
Table of correspondences
Below is the table of correspondences between Devanāgarī and Latin writing systems (there might be also other Latin variants in use):
| Devǎnagǎrī letter | Example | Latin letter | IPA pronunciation | Example |
| अ | अल | ǎ; ä | /ə/ or /ä/ | ǎl |
| आ (ा) | आकाना | a | /äː/ | akana |
| इ (ि) | इवेन्द | i | /i/ | ivend |
| ई (ी) | लुलुदी | ī; ee | /iː/ | luludī |
| उ (ु) | उदार | u | /u/ | udar |
| ए (े) | एन्या | e | /eː/ | enya |
| ओ | ओप्र | o | /οː/ | opre |
| क | कुर्को | k | /k/ | kurko |
| ख | खाम | kh | /kʰ/ | kham |
| ख़ | ख़ाबेन | khh; x | /x/ | xaben |
| ग | गुग्लो | g | /g/ | guglo |
| च | चाचिपेन | c; ch; ć; č | /c/ | cacipen |
| छ | छावो | ch; chh; ćh | /cʰ/ | chavo |
| ज | जुकेल | j; dj; dž | /ɟ/ | jukel |
| ज़ | ज़ोरालो | z | /z/ | zoralo |
| त | तोवेर | t | /t̪/ | tover |
| थ | थेम | th | /t̪ʰ/ | them |
| द | दान्द | d | /d̪/ | dand |
| न | नाखेल | n | /n/ | nakhel |
| प | पाशाल | p | /p/ | pashal |
| फ | फुव | ph | /pʰ/ | phuv |
| क़ | क़ोरो | f | /f/ | foro |
| ब | बाराबार | b | /b/ | barabar |
| म | मानुश | m | /m/ | manush |
| य | याग | y | /j/ | yag |
| र | रुप | r | /ɾ/ | rup |
| ल | लोशालो | l | /l/ | loshalo |
| व | वास्त | v | /ʋ/ | vast |
| श | शोप्नी | sh; ś; š | /ʃ/ | shopnī |
| श़ | श़ाम्बा | zh; ź | /ʒ/ | zhamba |
| स | सुनो | s | /s/ | suno |
| ह | होतेलो | h | /ɦ/ | hotelo |