Mixing languages


Implementation

There has never been any single, whether original or united, Gypsy language. Even at the time of the ancient migration from the Indian subcontinent, Gypsies most probably spoke several dialects. These dialects further developed in isolation as clans and extended families separated and interacted with different host societies' languages. It is in its vocabulary that Romany best reflects the wanderings of its speakers. The dialectal differences originated during the Gypsies' stay in the regions where these languages were spoken. While living in these regions they accepted many loanwords from the native languages and sometimes phonetic and even several grammatical features. The main foreign sources (apart from the original Indian stock) are Iranian (doshman "enemy," from Persian doshman), Armenian, Greek (drom "way"), Romanian (bolta "shop," from bolta), Hungarian (bino "sin," from bun), and the Slavic languages (glas "voice," rebniko "pond," grob "tomb," dosta "enough," ale "but"). Indo-Aryan words include bokh "hunger," from Hindi bhukh; bal "hair," from Sanskrit bala; gelo "gone," the past participle of za "go" (compare Bengali jawa, g‘lo); and rat "blood," from Prakrit ratta.


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