Romani in Britain: The Afterlife of a Language
Yaron Matras
Abstract
Romani is one of Britain's oldest and most established minority languages. Brought to the country by Romani immigrants from continental Europe in the sixteenth century or even earlier, it was spoken in its old, inflected form as a family and community language until the second half of the nineteenth century, when it yielded to English. But even after its decline as the everyday language of English and Welsh Gypsies, Romani continues to survive in the form of a vocabulary that is used to express an ‘emotive mode’ of communication among group members. This book examines British Romani in its his ... More
Keywords: Romani, minority languages, immigrants, continental Europe, sixteenth century, community language, Gypsies, Romani vocabulary, Angloromani, language revitalization
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 | Print ISBN-13: 9780748639045 |
| Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: September 2012 | DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748639045.001.0001 |
