Talk:Romani alphabets

Not a bad article, it could use a bit of a going-over by an educated person to remove repetition. Also I'm not sure what this phrase means--

with a contemporary utilization less than Latin.

Latin script I'm guessing? It could be made a bit clearer. Dan Carkner 13:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Latin characters

The 46 characters are not exactly an alphabet, but a collection of letters used in different writing conventions. For example different variants choose either a diacritic or another. So it is pointless to say that a certain dialect does not use them all, none use them all. Probably the author(s) of the article they were imported from thought that all of them are used together in a simultaneous writing convention. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 23:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Devanagari

I was just wondering if someone could clarify what the following sentence means: "It does not yet have a tradition of use, the same as do the other writing sytems employed for Romani." Is it saying that the other writing systems also do not have a tradition of use, or is it saying that the other writing systems do have a tradition of use? The wording here is highly weird.

Also, could someone who knows give some dates for when Devanagari started to be used by modern Roma? It'd also be interesting to see how common it is in general- how many publications use Devanagari, is it common in the EU, where is it being taught and so on. Dewrad 04:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It is the first meaning: "the other writing systems also do not have a tradition of use". About the beginning of use of Devanagari, there are not yet some thoroughgoing studies to gather all the valuable informations, the same as for most of the aspects of the Romani culture. From what it is known now, its use may be dated at the beginning of the 20th century. In her book "Bury me standing" Isabel Fonseca writes about a Rom soldier in the army of the Ottoman Empire who spent some time as prisoner in India during the 1st World War. Coming back in what is now contemporary Macedonia, he brought the knowledge of the similarities between the Romani and Hindi and between the culture of the Roma and other South Asians.

About the tradition of use, I don't think Devanagari should be singled out, since I don't know a single publication in other writing systems to be done by Roma and to earn some popularity. Almost all are organized by non-Roma who learned Romani, eventually with some Roma contributors. They have limited circulation, since nobody is interested in them, because they are not done from the point of view of the Romani culture. This does not mean Romani is not used in writting. Until now, there are used the writing systems which are convenient, a kind of a code-switching for best results in communication (see the switching between Latin, Cyrillic, Devanagari and Greek writing systems in Southeastern Europe or the endless variants of writing conventions for Romani in Latin and Cyrillic). --Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 14:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

So you don't know when it began and you can't provide sources attesting its use? :/ Are there at least scholarly articles which record the use of Devanagari for Romani? Anything aside from this article and its mirrors? Dewrad 13:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You may write it, if you know when it began. Again, I don't know why to single out only Devanagari. You may write too when it began the use of other writing systems, if you know it. This article was validated as NPOV, as recording what it is known by now about Romani writing systems, by admins with experience in NPOV issues. If there are any news in this field, you may add them. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 15:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

No, in fact, it seems so far that no Roma besides Desiphral has ever used Devanagri to write their language. Desiphral has argued against many other Roma on the Wikipedia he runs, where they have complained because he uses many words borrowed from Hindi that aren't actually used in Romani and are not understandable to most speakers of the language. The fact is, there are many magazines and other publications in Romani, by Roma, and every single one of them uses Latin or Cyrillic alphabet (most use Latin alphabet). Not a single one uses Devanagri alphabet. However, they are all limited in scope, as first-language literacy is very low in almost every community of Roma (I won't discuss second-language literacy as that's not particularly relevant here, although those who are literate in a second language but not in Romani may attempt to write Romani according to the orthographical rules of their second language), although this has been improving in certain areas of Central and Eastern Europe where Romani medium education is provided, and most of the publications are of a national or subnational scope (such as a magazine for Roma in Italy). Further complicating the matter is the linguistic diversity of Romani, which has many diverse dialects that are often mutually unintelligible (Desiphral insists this is not true, however reality is not on his side). --Node 08:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

OK Node ue, it looks like here is your chance to strike back. For those who don't know all the saga, this user opposed the existence of the Romani Wikipedia, arguing that it does not exist such language, but rather a collection of mutually unintelligible dialects. He is well known in the Wikipedia environment for his propensity to set up Wikipedias in language variants with no popular support. He acts like the saviour of endangered species, but usually falls either into creating identity problems that stir passions enough to remain in the headlines of Wikipedia for months or, if there are not present here speakers of a certain language, to patronize pet Wikipedias, usually with a paternalistic attitude. Regarding the Romani Wikipedia, I describe his attitude as violent and intrusive. First, he did not find any Rom to support his plan to create dozens of Wikipeidas for every Romani dialect. This is because, among us, a speaker from a specific caste either would recognize the existence of other dialects also as Romani or would consider the personal dialect as the pure Romani (and the other supposedly are corrupt), thus refusing the communication with other castes. The identification as Rom is foremost, either by recognizing the existence of other castes or by stating that those from the personal caste are the true Roma. Knowing this, I told him that if there will be requests to set up Wikipedias in Romani dialects, then they should be forwarded, but this should not impede the existence of a Romani Wikipedia. Fearing that the potential Romani contributors would not be interested in creating dialect wikis, he upholded the banning of a Romani wiki, to determine us to go dialectally. Trying to prove the mutual unintelligibility of the dialects, he concocted a list of supposedly unintelligible variants of a word, a list that I proved it was really unserious (just a collection of synonimes and variants of pronunciation).

Now it seems you have found in this Devanagari issue new ammunition to continue your violence and you are still ready to compromise into upholding unserious statements in order to turn the debate on your side. Like saying that "many other Roma" opposed Devanagari in rmy.wp. As I said to an user that asked me politely what was the problem about, among us it is present all the range of opinions regarding the relation with the other South Asians, from acceptance without debate to rejection without debate and everything in between (the same as the other South Asians do, depending on how they think about the personal caste) and the talk page of the main entry at rmy.wp is just a debate among two persons, so it should not be considered as representative (it is yet to develop a community at rmy.wp). The "many other Roma" is just a person using IPs from Torino and environs. His/her behaviour may be described as trollish, because of the unpolite manner of debate, because he/she just criticized but gave no different solutions and made no attempt to contribute there. Also it seems he/she was more confortable writing in English rather than Romani. I suppose you would say now that our dialects were unitelligible and there were too many Indo-Aryan neologisms. As I replied there, I would rather point to his/her lack of respect for other dialects, when proposing that the Kalderashitsko dialect to be used as the true Romani (he/she self presented as the voice of the 99% of the Roma !?!) and also I would question that person's knowledge of Kalderashitsko, as I presented external links where Romani words that he/she complained were Indo-Aryan neologisms were in fact words used by Kalderashitsko speakers. Who knows which were the intentions of that person! The fact that there are few contributors by now at rmy.wp can give undue importance to such trolls. Otherwise, the wiki is running normally, there is freedom of expression for those who want to express themselves in Romani, there are already contributions in different dialects, for every entry there are recorded all the known variants, there was no ban until now, just reverts for the racist vandalisms, in order to promote the dialogue rather than confrontation, so I think it would deserve respect for its equilibrum, rather that disrespectfully naming it "the wiki I run". However, in order to have a dialogue, there are necessary also serious collocutors, not persons with paternalistic attitude ready to seize the opportunity of a minority having minimal representation in the public space in order to fulfill personal theories. Who knows, you may have good theoretical intentions, but you have to accord them with the reality, otherwise you just make situations worse. Another problem is a perceived tendency of some non-Roma to keep us and our culture under control, to set some limits for our expression, every time trying to divert us, to transforme us into something that we are not. This includes also the constant minimization of the existence of our South Asian worldview, like the theory supported by some missionaries from some neo-protestant cults (hoping in easier conversions to Abrahamic religions) and also by some overenthusiatic Jews, namely that Roma are not Roma, but Jews from the ten lost tribes, which spent some time in the Indian Subcontinent. I know you are Jew, however I don't know your position regarding this issue, so I am stating that I don't want to imply that you support it. They bring to an unaware public such concocted "facts" that any Rom or other South Asian would know they are not true (see this site for exemplification). They try to present the Roma as Semits rather than Indo-Aryans (this theory made its way also in Wikipedia, see Talk:Sinti#Indo European?). This give way to a tendency to reject any South Asian feature, including this writing system. This position is supported also by people in Europe or America that simply do not want to see people writing like this in these continents. They do not want to recognize us as we are, thus they are blocking any chance for intercultural communication. And their prevalence in Wikipedia makes sure to question here the use of Devanagari, but to support the existence of their writing systems, in other cases where there are not also to much valuable informations. They have a malevolent tendency to divide us, in order to weaken us, presenting various theories like Sinti and Roma are different people, working to present a world of different Romani populations, hoping to keep us under control. As far as I know you, probably you will continue to present all kind of strange and unserious "facts" of the anti-Devanagari movement, until this talk page will get 1000 Kb long. Then maybe we will use it in the article as exemplification material for the opposition to writing in Devanagari by Roma. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 17:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Dude, paragraphs. I wasn't asking about this feud you have with node, I was asking for evidence that Devanagari is used by a number of Roma aside from yourself- otherwise it's being given undue weight here. Could you please do so? Dewrad 04:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You still did not explain your bias against Devanagari, why do you target only this writing system. Why do you find satisfactory only the sources about non-Devanagari writing systems, when in fact they all share the same informal use by Roma. Somebody with the same biased attitude, but against non-Devanagari writing systems, could argue, using your methode, agains their use too. Either you shold request more citations for all writing systems or be pleased with the external links available now. This is the ground reality, these are the available sources by now. You want more, search for them in an unbiased way. The fact that most of the available sources about Roma are written by non-Roma, usually with this kind of biased attitude that tends to transforme our image into what they would like us to be, this is totally reflected also in Wikipedia. Because Roma themselves are rejected by the mainstream society in the coutries we live, we can't produce academic sources to uphold the truth about us. I renounced to contribute some time ago in some articles about Romani people and culture because it looks like I am the only Rom active here and I could not cope with non-Romani mainstream that has a certain image about us and upholds it because it has the power to do so. They behave like Wikipedia is their fathers' domain. Like in real life, neither here is democracy working for us. It is a kind of a systemic bias, but in our case they feel they have the right to act with an imperative attitude to impose their view about us. Also, they do not have the same standards for requesting proofs when something is favouring their views, they do not request evidence that could clear all doubts. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 17:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no bias against Devanagari. I just haven't seen it referred to anywhere but here and I'd like evidence that it exists outside Wikipedia. Ian Hancock's "Handbook of Vlax Romani" (written by a Rom, note, not a gadžo) does not mention the use of Devanagari- he does refer to all the other writing systems cited in this article. Ronald Lee's "Learn Romani" (look, another Rom) does not mention the use of Devanagari either, but he does refer to the other writing systems here. The Romani project at the University of Manchester does not mention the use of Devanagari either. And, guess what, that project is led by a Rom as well. Put your persecution complex away- all of the sources I've just mentioned are written by Roma. None of them mention Devanagari.

Now, can you provide some citations for the use of Devanagari to write Romani outside wikipedia? Or are you just going to claim that I'm being unfair in asking you to cite your sources? And, while you're at it, you need to justify your claim that it's much easier to know the pronunciation of a word when it's written in Devanagari. None of the other sections make this claim about their scripts- what evidence and reasoning do you have to say that Devanagari is superior in this regard? And do not remove requests for citations. Dewrad 18:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, most, probably all of the contemporary well-known Romani authors are from western Europe or USA/Canada (however, still most of the contemporary public information about Roma is organized by non-Roma). Probably the only well-known Romani writer from southeastern and central Europe is Rajko Djuric, but he also wrote most of his work and became known when he emigrated to Germany. This is because they have relatively more chances to produce an academic work in those countries and also, very important, they do not experience the rampant discrimination problems from southeastern and central Europe. And in the article it is said that the use of Devanagari, as far as it is known, can be attested only in southeastern and central Europe, where live about 70% of the Romani population. We are not different people in east or west, but the contemporary differences in lifestyle produce also some relative differences of approach, that need to be debated in order to produce a common voice. And there is the external link that attests the use in southeastern and central Europe, a kind of source that I saw it is accepted in many articles of Wikipedia.

All southeastern and central European Romani publication I know of use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet. How is it that the most disadvantaged and discriminated against of the Roma would be the ones who have the desire, time, and educational opportunities to learn the (more complicated than Latin) writing system from the other side of the world?

These are prejudices. What if we are disadvantaged? Maybe even this is the reason. And neutral opinions consider Devnagari easier that Latin, better organized and logic. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 10:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

NO! These are not prejudices. These are the things that YOU implied.

Whose neuteral opinion considers Devanagari easier than Latin? For what? For Whom?

Devanagari is a non-western syllablic script. How could it be easier for individuals who already know, use, and are surrounded by the Latin script to use a script they do not know, never before used, have no meaningful (if any) exposure to.

You say things with an air of authority, even when those things go against all common sense and have no citable basis in reality.

Of course... whether Devanagari is easier for Roma who know the Latin script (and it obviously isn't) is not the point. The point is that you are using the wikipedia for language planning, because your writing certainly does not reflect reality... which is the purpose of any encyclopedia, including this one.

--74.12.142.117 03:24, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Your suggestion seems to utterly go against all common sense, and all sources, publications, and everything known or visible in Academia or outside it, material by Roma and by Gadje appears to contradict it.

--74.12.168.164 03:44, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

About the clarity of pronunciation in Romani, as recorded when written in Devanagari, the reasons are presented already in the article: the corespondence one sound - one letter (because Devanagari has letters for all the Indo-Aryan specific sounds) and for the new sounds appeared in time all NIA (New Indo-Aryan) languages, including Romani, use only one diacritic, nukta. The result is that there is no doubt about how to write something in Romani with Devanagari. Waiting for reply, Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 20:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

That is what the International Phonetic Alphabet is for. It is what is used by people around the world, including Indians when they wish to disclose the pronunciation of words with scientific accuracy. Devanagari has *no place* in this article as a pronunciation aid.

--74.12.168.164 03:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I want to stress that I don't want to imply a generalizaton, that all non-Roma are biased, every person should be judged only for the personal deeds. Personally, I consider that the intercutural dialogue is the only viable alternative to the contemporary state of affairs.Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 13:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Descriptive or Perscriptive

Desiphral is yet to give any indication or source that Devangari is in fact use anywhere at all by Roma organizations or publications. In fact, all signs, (including Desiphral's subtle accusations of racism against detractors) suggests that Devangari is the pet-project of Desiphral or some group he is affiliated with. Even on the Romani language wikipedia, one gets the same impression reading Desiphral's posts.

I am not opposed to mentioning Devangari on this page... but if it's a pet project/cultural revival from a single/handful of Roma, let it be clearly stated. At this point, considering it on par with other Romani writing systems feels like a gross misrepresentation of facts.

--74.12.170.121 18:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The article presents the area of use, the modality of acquirement, the contemporary limited use. Labelling something related to the standardization of Romani and its use in writing as "pet" is a step that implies all the other things related to these processes, since all the others may be also labelled as "pet". Unfortunately, there are not yet, by now, some initiatives of this kind to gain popularity among the Romani people. So, in this context, the article shows what is achieved by now. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 19:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Desiphral... let me ask point-blank:

Are there people who are not personal acquaintances of yours that use Devangari for writing Romani?

Is there any objective evidence or record, other than things you wrote on wikipedia, that show that Devangari is used for writing Romani?

Lastly, you are not the sole arbiter of whether or not sources need to be cited, or whether factual accuracy disputes are resolved. Your regular removals of notices on the main page seem little more than purposeful vandalism.

As far as I am concerned, the factual accuracy of the Devangari portions of this article are **highly** suspect. Wikipedia is not a tool for language planning... and that is exactly what you seem to be using it for, both here and with even more impunity in the Romani wikipedia.

--74.12.170.121 21:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Another question. (Presumably) you wrote, "Now there are contemporary standardization attempts for the Latin and Devanagari writing systems."

I know who are involved in the Latin standardization attempts. *WHO* are involved in the Devangari standardization attempts, other than a handful of anonymous internet users like you?

What you write is mostly fine. But the *way* you write it gives the impression that Devangari is somehow a swap-in alternative to the Latin writing systems. The fact is, no Roma grew up learning/using Devangari for writing Romani and its users are negligable (how many Roma use Devangari, Desiphral?? More than 10?), whereas nearly all literate Roma use the Latin or the Cyrillic script for their language.

--74.12.170.121 21:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I already explained the causes for the scarcity of written sources, a problem that I am confronting in many other cases when I want to give more presence for Romani people at Wikipedia (otherwise the place doesn't remain empty, it tends to be filled with Gypsist stuff). Regarding the weight of Devanagari in this article, I have in mind a balanced presence of all groups and opinions in the Romani communities and I'm trying my best for the accuracy. As you may see, the article gathers quite many informations about the Romani writing systems. I don't consider correct to question the weight of Devanagari, but to add more informations about the other writing systems. Indeed, most of the article is organized by me and consequently it stops where it stops also my knowledge. I agree that others may see differences in the expression that need to be debated for reaching a concord of all contemporary points of view. In this sense, I agree with the last change of expression as being much closer to reality than the radical measures proposed before. I don't consider at all propagandistic the quantity of informations about Devanagari here (again, I invite more quality informations about other writing systems), they are valuable and in the scope of Wikipedia, of gathering the knowledge about the world.

You using Devanagari left right and centre when in fact there is no record of it being used for the language outside of internet material leading back to you is a bit like if I were to fill the German language article with stuff about how German can be written with cyrillic. It's possible. It might make for a neater one-to-one correspondence between written symbols and pronunciation... but nobody uses it, and it has no relevance for the german article.

The case with Devanagari is just barely different. I accept that there might be Roma who try to use it for their language... they are however clearly exceedingly few (you are the only one I know of, in fact, Desiphral) and do not represent a movement or a meaningful grouping within the Roma. An objective version of this article would note that attempts have been made by some Roma to use Devanagari for their language, and the table of letter/pronunciation correspondence is fine too. Anything else really has no place in this article.

Why is the Romani writing system article filled with information about the least important writing system that practically no Roma use, and no Roma ever used historically (after arrival into Europe, anyways)? There is no sensible reason.

Regarding the "impression of swap-in alternative": there are presented the positive conclusions of those who use Devanagari as solving many problems of the standardization, but they are not used purposely to cast a bad image on other writing systems. It is obvious it is necessary also the knowledge of the Latin script in the contemporary state of affairs. Again, if there are misunderstandings of expression, do let me know. Regarding the use of Devanagari in Wikipedia outside this article: by now I am almost alone here, but when others will want to contribute on Romani language topics, in an Wikipedia environment that supposes as much comprehension as possible, they will confront too those well known challenges of writing's standardization not yet fully addressed. For example, recently I had to include in English Wikipedia the Romani word that I chose to write in Latin alphabet as chavo (I considered this as the best choice of about 10 possibilities I knew). To clarify its pronunciation, I added the IPA writing and the Devanagari (since there are no doubts about how to write an Indo-Aryan language in this writing system). Is this live language planning at Wikipedia? No, there are necessary some choices of the best options from those already existing, in order to facilitate the presentation of some informations. Any other ideas are most welcomed and needed, but by additions or improvements of what already exists, not by suppressions or impositions of one view. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 00:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Devanagari does not help anybody other than Devanagari writing system users (Indians--not the Roma, not the other Gadje). It's inclusion is completely pointless, and once again gives the impression that Devanagari has some status with or some importance to the Devanagari language. You may think so, Desiphral... there is no evidence that any meaningfully large number, or any coherent group of Roma think so. That is why it is propaganda and/or language planning.

The IPA is all that is required for clarity of pronunciation. Devanagari adds nothing of substance. I would appreciate some wikipedia veterans or old-timers chiming in on this topic... as I said, Desiphral's contributions are rarely wholly wrong, but thoroughly give the false impression of Devanagari being something to the Romani language that it has never been demonstrated to be by anyone. In fact, internet searches will make it clear that any mention of Devanagari in relation to the Romani language leads back to Desiphral's wikipedia work either here or more likely on the Romani wikipedia.

--74.12.168.164 03:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)