Anastasiia Tambovtseva: I wanted not just to learn a language, but to do something socially useful

Anastasiia Tambovtseva is an ethnic Ukrainian who has been running a thematic blog dedicated to the Roma language for several years. Even at the beginning of her journey, she could not have imagined that a casual curiosity would develop into a permanent activity, firmly connecting her with the Roma public movement. Currently, Anastasiia is in Romania and continues to do her work from there. She studies and teaches Roma, creates teaching methods and develops a blog. About the unexpected choice, the reaction of others and plans for the future – find out in Djanes. 

I’ve decided that I should pick up only one area of study

The girl got her education at the National Transport University in the capital, but it seemed that she didn’t mean to devote herself to the specialization she got. She admits that she has been drawn to learning languages since childhood. She mastered German, English and Roma, and also Latin at the university.

“I have always liked teaching. As a child, all my toys were students, I put up my toys and created an improvised school, kept a report card for everyone. Over time, I started practicing with my younger brother, then with other acquaintances, and that's how my path in tutoring began. Gradually, I came up with the idea that this is my calling, I want to devote myself to it.”

Having combined her major with tutoring, the girl thought about the need to make a decision, because working in two directions was too difficult. Tutoring was a priority, because the classes were extremely fun.

“I had a burning desire to do something socially useful that has something to do with a new language”

At the end of 2018, Anastasiia decided that she wanted to do something socially useful and connected with learning a new language. The choice fell upon Roma, a language she had no idea about. She laughs, remembering that she first got into Google Translate to listen to the pronunciation and check out the vocabulary.

“I remember how I got into Google Translate and found absolutely nothing there. Of course, I was shocked, I did not understand how that was possible. Later, through mutual friends, I got to know the Roma people, who told me about dialects and various nuances, they were speakers of Vlach.”

Anastasiia’s friend studied the Bible with this Roma family and in a friendly conversation told her that there are many people who are illiterate. Thus, it is worth not just studying the Bible, but at least learning to read and write. Later, the girl got to know other Roma families. Having learnt about the critical situation among children and adults, she took up language lessons on a volunteer basis.

“I met a huge number of illiterate adults and children. Many children did not attend a school, but those who did simply hadn’t kept up with the curriculum. I have come across many cases where no discrimination was observed in the school, but the children simply find it difficult to study. The problem was that they didn't get a thing, and the teacher couldn't cover the individual needs of one child while leaving the rest of the class without attention. I decided that once a week I could work with one or two children and teach them to read and write.”

From the very first day, more than 5 children joined the class, and the next classes were held in small groups. Classes were held at Anastasiia's place, one of the rooms was equipped for a class. A new problem turned up - not all children had the opportunity to attend regular classes. Therefore, the next idea arose to make a recording of classes, which in the future should be posted on social networks.

“There was a little misunderstanding from others, but hatred awaited her in social networks”

After a while, the girl made a special workbook in which the Roma alphabet was written in Cyrillic. Specifically for this workbook Anastasiia created her first videos, which she posted on Tik-Tok. The idea was that the classes go first, and then the children in order not to forget anything watch short videos in their free time.

“I wanted to keep a blog, but in English and I directed all my efforts to that. When publishing the first videos, somewhere in my soul I had fear and thoughts like "I wish no one could see this", anyway I was surprised when I woke up the next morning to find that my videos had over 1000 views overnight.”.

After starting to learn the Roma language and starting a blog, the girl came across with some misunderstanding from others. No one condemned her, but it was unclear what that desire was connected with. In socials the situation was different, because hatred awaited her both in comments and DM.

“Threats were written to me in DM about the fact that I was teaching a foreign language. Some people thought that the Roma language was a secret. But there is a difference between secrecy and unpopularity. In fact, everything is in the open and some textbooks for learning Roma are more than a hundred years old. They believed that I was cooperating with some authorities, but everything ended up only with threats..”

 “The complexity of the Roma language in the variety of educational resources”

 Most of the time, Anastasiia looks for information about the language she learns. The biggest difficulty was to collect educational resources for the necessary topics in the chosen Vlach dialect.

“It happened that the topic I needed was perfectly explained in the textbook of the Kalderash dialect, but there was nothing about Vlach dialect. That is why I had to find out all nuances from Roma experts or acquaintances who speak the language.”

Nowadays, the girl has already mastered the Vlach dialect and can communicate freely at a slow pace. The Lack of constant practice primarily affects fluency in speech, but mostly she needs practice in writing. At the same time with the blog, Anastasiia writes educational stuff in Roma language.

“I believe that those Roma children, who mostly speak only Roma, should get the basics of the curriculum in their native language. In any case, the Ukrainian language is not their native language. Therefore, it is easier to explain the principles of reading, what a letter, a sound is, in their native language – the Roma language. This is equivalent to our learning a foreign language. You can teach a child to read in English first, but it is better first in Ukrainian, and then on this basis explain the rules of a foreign language.”

 The girl admits that there is a huge need for Roma teachers who are native speakers. These can be ordinary Roma women who use Roma in everyday life and have a perfect command of it. At the same time, the blogger only wants her resources to be used by other teachers in the future. Today, she does what she can do by herself.

“My colleagues and I were developing Roma writing system for Ukraine, but now the program is on hold”

Today, we have educational cards, a workbook, 350 copies of which were printed with the support of REYN Ukraine, and blogs in Ukrainian and English. Study notebooks were sent to educational centers and foundations in different parts of Ukraine to see how this workbook would function in practice. Unfortunately, it was not possible to collect feedback because of the full-scale war.

“I had an interesting experience of cooperation with the Council of Europe. The program was aimed at learning the Roma language for children in grades 1-2. Together with our colleagues, we had been developing the Roma writing system that would be used in Ukraine. We were supposed to present the programs on February 24, but due to the invasion, this did not happen and the program is currently on hold.”

 Anastasiia recalls her first experience of communication with Roma public activists. It was a conference organized by ARCA. At the event, there was a whole block devoted to development in social networks and media, which the girl finds interesting. There she met like-minded people personally and went home already inspired by communication.

“I’ve definitely loved the event, but most of all - interaction with like-minded people, with whom you do the same thing.  With this kind of spirit you feel that your efforts are worthwhile and you are needed”.

 The girl writes articles about the language for roma.ua and translates already existing materials for the publication, thus popularizing the Roma language. At the same time, she shoots videos, but most of his activity is concentrated in social networks. Plans for the future are also mostly related to the development of blogs, among the following is the development of writing in Latin, because abroad there is a big problem in this.