Loanwords in Selice Romani, an Indo-Aryan language of Slovakia 1 ...

linguistic matter, which is less difficult to monitor and control. Nevertheless, there are
differences between individual Romani varieties with regard to the degree of contact
influences, which, in addition to length of contact with a particular contact language,
reflect differences in sociolinguistic situations. The long-settled Roms of Hungary and
the Hungarian regions of Slovakia have developed a strong orientation towards
Hungarian cultural models. While in most communities of Hungarian Roms this cultural
orientation has contributed to language shift from Romani to Hungarian, in the few
extant varieties of Hungarian Rumungro, including Selice Romani, it has facilitated the
propagation of Hungarian-induced linguistic innovations in Romani. The use of nonce
loanwords does not appear to be stigmatized in any way and the departing “old” words,
whose gradual replacement is observable across generations, are not mourned by the
speakers. The acceptance and introduction of lexical Hungarianisms appears to be an
overt expression of the amalgamated ethnic identity of the Hungarian Roms of Selice.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Ďusi, Ella, Béluši, Béluška, Adrika, and especially Alena for their
hospitability and tremendous and selfless help in my search for words and structures of
their language; Bodnár Zsu for helping me enthusiastically with the identification of
dialectal Hungarian source words; Michael Beníšek for enlightening discussions of the
non-Indo-Aryan element in Indo-Aryan, for providing me with some of the relevant
literature, and for comments on a draft of the paper; Victor A. Friedman for advice on
several South Slavic issues; Peter Bakker and Anthony P. Grant for detailed comments
and for corrections of my English. All responsibility for remaining mistakes is mine. I
would also like to thank the Roma Culture Initiative of the Open Society Institute,
Budapest, for their financial support of my research in Selice in 2001–2002.
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