Language workshop - Boyash language - Romani language

Research centre of Romology

Department of Roma Studies and Educational Sociology of the University of Pécs Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is the first institution of higher education in our country, where the two Hungarian Roma languages (romani and boyash) have been continuously taught.

This period brought much experience both for the students and the teachers.

1. The process of language change can be observed among the speakers of both language communities, consequently these languages, as mother tongues and the means of everyday communication are only used by the older generation, the medium and young generation mostly speaks the Hungarian language.  We can rarely meet a student who speaks any dialect of Boyash or Romani language at a native level. This fact itself extends the reproduction period of education.

2. Literacy is a special trouble in addition to using of the gypsy language as the mother tongue. Mother tongue competence does not mean automatic knowledge of the system of these languages, so conscious use of the language and getting familiar with the grammar system and recognition of the regularities make up a separate learning process. Due to the fact that most of the students meet gypsy languages only at the university, we can build on preliminary knowledge only in case of a few students.

3. We have been contacted several times in the past period, asking for help in translating a title, a name of an institute, websites, abstracts or many pages of professional texts.  Due to the bilingualism of the Roma languages this task raises several professional issues. Due to the separation of language use as per the functions, using of them in formal situations involves difficulties because they have mostly informal vocabulary.
4. Achievement of equality of these languages became a frequent expectation in the past period, as well as the establishment of the conditions making their use appropriate in more and more language use functions.

THE TARGET OF ESTABLISHING THE LANGUAGE WORKSHOP:

• completion of the corpus planning tasks by which these languages become suitable for exact and sophisticated expression
• determination of language planning and language reforming strategies for development of a linguistic permanence in the field of spelling, grammar and pronunciation rules.
• conscious and intentional forming of the Boyash and Romani languages, enrichment of the vocabulary and decision on the ways of expansion.