Linguistic ties despite 500 years of divorce – Swedish Dagbladet

J ag opens Thom Lundbergs acclaimed debut novel about traveling people, “For what grief and pain” (reported in Svenska Dagbladet on February 6.) Even the first page I read: “Amandus let go and let his oldest drag voddringen alone. The grejj they bought up in the Boras neighborhood, a Norwegian dølehest, [...] had Amandus had to bikkna again a few mil north of Varberg. Loverna needed family … “Thus, the Swedish passenger Romani finally emancipated themselves as literary languages! Glossary is not given, nor glossary at the end. Anyone who does not understand the importance of context must go to the fine “Dictionary of Swedish Romani” from 2008 by Lenny Lindell and Kenth Torbjörnsson-Djerf.

So it should be, just as it does not require glossary when for example, a figure in a Hjalmar Bergman’s novel exclaims “Elle est charmante, la petite!” Travelling People Romani has been spoken in Sweden since the 1500s, almost 400 years before any other Romani; there is an equally important part of the Swedish language history as the former upper class French phrases. But so much more hidden. Travelling people were long their language for themselves; to use it before the others could be associated with death. “Förbrytarspråk” is called in scientific presentations well into the 1900s. Language virtuoso Almqvist allows some “robbers” speak Traveller Romani in the adventure novel “Three wives in Småland” in 1843, but then with the glossary in the notes of “gypsies sneak language.”

Swedish travel Romani is a small twig on the great Romani language branch, outgrowth of the Indo-European language tree. The grammar is substantially similar to the Swedish language, but important parts of the vocabulary another. Nowadays heard second Romani dialects more: kalderaš and Lovara with roots in Romania and Hungary, Finnish Roma kale and various other things. Since the 1980s, is also spoken Arli in Sweden, a Romani variant of the Balkans. An excellent dictionary with 28,000 words from Swedish to Romany Arli has been issued in the Language Council Lexinserie. There you can look up the wagon (for horse) is called vrda , horse called gras , selling bikinela and money love . The proximity of Lundbergs voddring, grejj, bikkna and lover is palpable. The linguistic links persists despite 500 years of separation between the speakers.