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

characterized by contact with a certain language or, more often, with a cluster of
languages that may be conveniently discussed together. Although we lack any direct
evidence, it is clear that at least after the out-migration of Romani speakers from the
Indian subcontinent, the speakers of the immediate contact languages of Romani were
overwhelmingly dominant numerically and politically with regard to the Roms.
Extrapolating from the similar current demographic and political conditions of Romani
in Europe, we may reasonably assume widespread bilingualism among the Roms during
their migrations (Section 3.4–6). As the current contact situation (Section 3.7) clearly
indicates, we must always allow for plurilingualism of the speakers rather than mere
bilingualism and for periods of overlap of contact with different languages.
3.1. Contact with non-Indo-European Central Asian languages
Being an Indo-Iranian language, Selice Romani inherits some of the loanwords into
Proto-Indo-Iranian that had been acquired before the Aryans arrived in the Indian
subcontinent. The source languages of these loanwords remain unidentified, although
some authors hypothesize that they mostly represent the non-Indo-European element of
ancient Central Asia, specifically the language (or languages) of the Bactria-Margiana
Archaeological Complex in the Amu Darya region (e.g. Witzel 1999a: 54; 2003: 52;
Lubotsky 2001). While the source forms of the suggested loanwords are unattested,
criteria such as irregularity with regard to the Indo-European phonological, phonotactic
and morphological patterns, together with the restricted distribution of the etyma within
Indo-European, are used in establishing their loanword status (cf. Lubotsky 2001: 301–
305).
Reviewing all Proto-Indo-Iranian words that are unattested elsewhere in Indo-
European, Lubotsky (2001) argues that many of them are likely to have been borrowed
in Central Asia. Of these probable loanwords, Proto-Indo-Iranian *matsi̯a- ‘fish’, *r̥ši-
‘seer’, *sūčī- ‘needle’, and *u̯r̥tka- ‘kidney’ have survived into Selice Romani (see
Appendix; note Proto-Indo-Iranian ‘seer’, ‘kidney’ > Selice Romani ‘priest’, ‘liver’). In
addition, the borrowed Proto-Indo-Iranian *u̯arā́jʰa- ‘wild boar’ might be reflected in
Selice Romani bálo ‘pig’, if Mānušs et al. (1997: 28) are correct in deriving the Romani
word from Old Indo-Aryan varāhá- ‘wild boar’ (cf. Turner 1962–1966: 520 and
Boretzky & Igla 1994: 19 for a different view). The Selice Romani verb khand- ‘to
smell’ is based on a lost noun (reconstructable for Early Romani) that continued the
borrowed Proto-Indo-Iranian noun *gandʰ/t- ‘smell’. A few more of Lubotsky’s
Elšík Loanwords in Selice Romani 5 of 65