We are so pleased to announce that  'Romanes with Rahela',  our beginners to Kaldarash Romanes textbook is out, co -written by our very own project coordinator Rahela!      

-  Welcome to Romanes with Rahela; a tailor-made Romano Lav introductory language class that will have you striking up conversations with your Romani friends and neighbours before you know it!

My name is Rahela Cirpaci and I will be your instructor for this course. I am going to teach you to speak my language, Romanes. Romanes is the Romani language; the language of the Roma people. It is beautiful, complex, rich, and varied: it is estimated that it is spoken in over 100 dialects alone all over the world, varying through time and geographical location.

Romanes, fascinatingly, originated in South Asia and is in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.

Its grammar and core vocabulary is related to Sanskrit and other Indic languages like Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi.

We have a lot of similar words for example; Bal/hair, Nak/Nose, Yaka/ Eyes.

The dialect that you will learn in ‘Romanes with Rahela’ is Kalderash. Kalderash is a Romanian dialect of Romanes and one of the most commonly spoken throughout the world, which is handy if you are based locally in Govanhill, as this is the most widely spoken dialect amongst the local Romanian Roma community!

The Romanes language is mostly spoken and not a written language,

It is written phonetically and I usually spell it the way I say it and hear it.

We hope you enjoy your journey into Romanes with us and look forward to meeting you in class! Good luck! Or should I say - Bach!

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Link to textbook here - http://bitly.ws/jmQL

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