Between Expulsion and Acceptance: Valerii Sukhomlyniv discusses the history of the Roma people

Culture

In this episode of the podcast «Ai Tu Jianes. Did you know that?», we continue our conversation with Valerii Sukhomlyniv, a historian, a linguist, and a co-chair of the Ukrainian Roma Association. How did the attitude towards Roma people change over time? Why is it that their language has split into dozens of dialects? Is it even possible to create a single, unified Romani language which everyone could comprehend?

In the first part of our interview, Valerii Sukhomlyniv shared his own personal experience and told us about his roots. This time, we proceed to discuss the centuries-old history of Roma people and their place in our world.

Valerii Sukhomlyniv who grew up in Truskavets got interested in Roma culture and language. He was particularly interested in the Romani language—especially in the enormous difference between its dialects. Over time, he has been gathering and recording words from different dialects, studying the origin of those words, and this is when he realised that most Romani dialects have undergone drastic changes as they were impacted by the languages of their host countries. Some of these dialects retained very few Indian roots indeed whereas their native speakers sometimes spoke a mixed language (a sort of a Roma surzhyk/pidgin combining elements of a number of European languages).

«One should preserve dialects as they are the soil on which folk lore strives. I think, however, that the language of inter-dialect communication is the language of the future. It must be taught from scratch, from one’s early days», — says Sukhomlyniv.

In order to create a unified language for inter-dialect communication, Valerii Sukhomlyniv created a concentrated mix of all of the Roma dialects by selecting words that would reminisce about the ancient language of the Roma.

«I have gathered words from all dialects and have created a certain concentrate, a koine of sorts. This can actually be referred to as an artificial language, yet it has a logic and a basis of its own. It is comprised of words of Indian origin only—or mostly, with some Persian loanwords—in the form which been all but not affected by changes and which is nearest to the modern-day Indian languages or even to Sanskrit. Thus Indians understand me quite well whereas native speakers of traditional dialects of the Romani language are, as a rule, practically not understood by Indians at all»

Unfortunately, the textbook prepared by Valerii Sukhomlyniv has not been published yet; nonetheless, he hopes that one day, this project will be of good use to the younger generation of the Roma people who strive to recover their language and identity.

«I reckon that I may well not live to see the day, yet I home that Roma people from different countries are going to meet some day and understand each other», — says the linguist.

The language is not merely a means of communication; it is also the key to self-identification and preservation of one’s culture. So why do Roma people have to change their language, nay even hide their ethnic origin?

«There is a great saying among Ukrainian Roma people: a forest defines rabbits, a village defines Gypsies. That is, a certain community’s attitude towards Roma people determines the way that Roma community is going to function. Negative stereotypes are, as a rule, created by those who had a single negative experience, not by those who have been actually acquainted with the Roma environment. Those who live next to Roma families that are pursuing tradecraft or are otherwise employed do not consider Roma to be «bad people»; they make friends, hang out together, their children grow up side by side», — so says Valerii Sukhomlyniv with certainty.

You can listen to the full version of this podcast by opening the audio file attached.