Vlax Romani language


Vlax Romani is a dialect group of the Romani language. Vlax Romani varieties are spoken mainly in Southeastern Europe by Romani people. Vlax Romani can also be referred to as an independent language or as one dialect of the Romani language. Vlax Romani is the most widely spoken dialect subgroup of the Romani language worldwide.

Name

The language's name is derived from the "Vlachs", a medieval exonym referring to the Romanians, as all the Vlax dialects share an extensive influence from Romanian on vocabulary, phonology and morphology. There have been many waves of migration of Roma out of Romania, some of them being connected to the 19th century abolition of slavery in Romania. This name was coined by British scholar Bernard Gilliat-Smith in his 1915 study on Bulgarian Roma, in which he first divided Roma dialects into Vlax and non-Vlax.
The similarity of the words Romani and Romania is a coincidence, as they are not etymologically related. Vlachs are also a distinct ethnic group different from the “Vlax” classification of Roma.

Classification

Vlax Romani is classified in two groups: Vlax I, or Northern Vlax, and Vlax II, or Southern Vlax.
Elšík uses this classification and dialect examples :
Sub-groupDialectPlace
Ukrainian Vlax-Ukraine
Northern VlaxCerhariHungary
Hungarian LovariHungary
Hungarian LovariSlovakia
Austrian LovariAustria
Polish LovariPoland
Norwegian LovariNorway
Serbian KalderašSerbia
Italian KalderašItaly
Russian KalderašRussia
Taikon KalderašSweden
American VlaxUSA
Southern VlaxVallachianRomania
IhtimanBulgaria
GurbetSerbia and Bosnia
KorçaAlbania
Italian XoraxaneItaly
Ajia VarvaraGreece

Writing systems

Vlax Romani is written using the Romani orthography, predominantly using the Latin alphabet with several additional characters. In the area of the former Soviet Union, however, it can also be written in the Cyrillic script.