Andrew Smith inquires:
> > > ... I'm off to Transcarpathian Ruthenia (Uzhorod via Kosice in
> > > Slovakia) on family vacation in a couple of month's time. ......
> > > Slovakian friends seem to regard East Slovakia as the middle of
nowhere,
> > > populated by hated Romanies . ....
Marcus Prometheus responds:
> >Romanies ???
> >Do you mean ROMS (= Gypsies) ?
> >or Romanians ?
Andrew returns:
> I intended to write "Romanies" but maybe that doesn't mean what I thought
it
> meant. My intended meaning was ROMS (=gypsies) and not Romanians. I'm not
> aware of Romanian minorities in Transcarpathian Ruthenia but I'll keep my
> eyes open!
Hello Andrew and welcome to the confusion. Perhaps your family expedition
can shed some light on many issues. It would not surprise me if you found
elements of both groups. I am curious as to any
claim to Dacian, Geto-Dacian or Thracian vocabulary elements in any dialect
you discover, whether or not it is survivng in a Danubian Latin dialect.
Now, at a risk of confusing you further....let me try to sort out Roms,
Romani, and Romanians for you. Gypsies here in Romania, of Bulgarian
origin, refer to themselves as Rom. They maintain their own Bulgarian
dialect, but most now also speak Romaneste as well. In Romaneste, they are
called Tigan (Tigani = pl). Those that migrated west are sometimes
refered to locally as Romani, which is a plural in origin, and gets confused
as Romanies. To really toss a wrench, the Latinized Geto-Daci that spread
from the Eastern Danube much earlier, following the Roman withdrawal ca 271
AD called themselves_Aromani_ , and could also still have small group
presence and identity pockets most anywhere in eastern Europe. The Slavs
are accustomed to referring to anyone from the region as Volochs or
Vlachs...the real origins of which are obscure.
I hope I have contributed, rather than complicated the issue, and wish you
good luck in your travel.
La Revedere;
Rex H. McTyeire
Bucharest, Romania
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rexbo@...>