Erromintxela language

and Northern Africa to Europe The origin of the name Erromintxela is unclear and may be of relatively recent origin; Basque speakers had previously grouped the Erromintxela under more general terms for Romani such as ijitoak "Egyptians", ungrianok "Hungarians", or buhameak "Bohemians". a name attested primarily in the vicinity of the Pyrenees and in particular the Northern Basque Country. Though now uncommon in France, it is found in the names of the British Ròmanichal and the Scandinavian Romanisæl, all descendants, like the Erromintxela, of a group of Roma who had migrated to France. Early attestations of the name in Basque include Errama-itçéla, Erroumancel, later errumanzel and erremaitzela. The initial e- is the Basque prosthetic vowel, which was added at a time that no Basque word was allowed to begin with an r-. The final -a is the absolutive case suffix, which is used when citing a name. If that etymology is correct, it is a rare case of a native Romani name for themselves (an endonym) being borrowed by another language. The people identify themselves as ijitoak, Basque for "gypsies", but more specifically as Erromintxela, in contrast to the Caló Romani, whom they refer to as the xango-gorriak, Basque for "red-legs". ==State of the language==

There are currently an estimated 500 speakers in the Southern Basque Country in Spain, approximately 2% of a population of 21,000 Romanis, and another estimated 500 in France. ==Literary production==

To date, there has been little literary production in the language. The most notable works are a poem by Jon Mirande entitled "Kama-goli" in his 1997 anthology Orhoituz and the 1999 novel Agirre zaharraren kartzelaldi berriak by Koldo Izagirre Urreaga with the main character using the language. ==History==

The Erromintxela arrived in the Basque Country in the 15th century speaking Kalderash Romani. They integrated much more deeply into Basque society than other Romani groups. In the process, they acquired the Basque language and adopted aspects of Basque culture such as increased rights of women and important traditions such as bertsolaritza (extemporaneous poetic song) and pelota (the national Basque ballgame). Muñoz and Lopez de Mungia suspect that the morphological and phonological similarities between Romani and Basque facilitated the adoption of Basque grammar by the bilingual Romanis. It appears that many Romanis chose to stay in the Basque Country to escape persecution elsewhere in Europe. Nonetheless, even here they were not safe from persecution. For example, the Royal Council of Navarre in 1602 passed an edict to round up all "vagabonds" (meaning Romani), who were to be condemned to 6 years of galley duty. By the 18th century however attitudes had changed, and the emphasis shifted towards integration. In 1780–1781 the Courts of Navarre passed Law 23, which called for "the authorities to take care of them, find them locations for settlement and honest occupations and ways of living..." ==Research==

The oldest account of the language dates to 1855, when the French ethnographer Justin Cenac-Moncaut located the Erromintxela primarily in the Northern Basque Country. The oldest coherent Erromintxela text, a poem entitled Kama-goli, published by Basque writer Jon Mirande in a collection of Basque poetry, only dates to ca. 1960. Alexandre Baudrimont's 40-page study Vocabulaire de la langue des Bohémiens habitant les pays basques français of 1862, the most extensive of the early accounts, covers both vocabulary and aspects of grammar. He worked with two female informants, a mother and her daughter from the Uhart-Mixe area near Saint-Palais, whom he describes as highly fluent. Unfortunately, he was only able to conduct a single session as the women were then told not to cooperate further for the fear of outsiders prying into the secrets of the Romani. and in 1921 Berraondo and Oyarbide carried out some research. However, the most detailed research to date was carried out by Basque philologist Josune Muñoz and historian Elias Lopez de Mungia, who began their work in the Southern Basque Country in 1996 at the behest of the Romani organisation Kalé Dor Kayiko, with support from the Euskaltzaindia and the University of the Basque Country. Kalé Dor Kayiko, who had been working to promote the Romani language, was alerted to the existence of Erromintxela in the 1990s through an article by the historian Alizia Stürtze, Agotak, juduak eta ijitoak Euskal Herrian "Agotes, Jews, and Gypsies in the Basque Country". Kalé Dor Kayiko intends to continue research into the language, attitudes, identity, and history of the Erromintxela people in the less well researched provinces of Navarre and the Northern Basque Country. ==Linguistic features==

The research by Muñoz and Lopez de Mungia has confirmed that Erromintxela is not derived from Caló, the mixed Spanish-Romani language spoken throughout Spain, but is instead based on Kalderash Romani and the Basque language. and modern southern sources, Erromintxela appears to have, at maximum, the sound system below. Southern speakers appear not to have the rounded vowel or the consonant , in line with north–south differences in Basque, and it is not clear if the northern distinction between and also exists in the south. Baudrimont uses a semi-phonetic system with the following diverging conventions: Morphology Examples of morphological features in Erromintxela: Verb formation Most verbs have a Romani root plus the Basque verb forming suffix -tu. Examples of Erromintxela verbs are given below. (Forms given in angle brackets indicate spellings in the sources which are no longer in use. Basque is included for comparison.) Most Erromintxela verbal inflections are virtually identical to those found in Basque dialects: Negations are formed with na/nagi (Romani na/níči); cf Basque ez/ezetz. The word for "yes" is ua (Romani va); cf Basque bai/baietz. Nouns The majority of nouns have Romani roots, but frequently attested with Basque suffixes. The variation of nouns cited with or without a final -a is likely due to informants supplying them with or without the absolutive ending. (Forms given in angle brackets indicate spellings in the sources which are no longer in use.) Time According to Baudrimot, the Erromintxela have adopted the Basque names of the months. Note that some of the Basque names represent pre-standardisation names of the months, e.g. August is Abuztua in Standard Basque rather than Agorrila. Baudrimont claims that subdivisions of the year (apart from the months) are formed with the word breja (bréχa) "year": breja kinua "month" and breja kipia "week". Numerals Numerals (Basque included for contrasting purposes): Adjectives and adverbs Adjectives and adverbs are also mostly derived from Romani forms: Pronouns and demonstratives Pronouns are derived from both languages: ==Baudrimont's material==

Much of Baudrimont's wordlist is easily related to other Erromintxela sources. However, some of the material collected by Baudrimont deserves a more detailed overview due to its peculiarities. Most of these relate to the verbs and verb forms he collected but some include nouns and other items. Nouns His material contains a relatively high number of Basque-derived items. Certain items are peculiar. Baudrimont lists mintxa as "tooth". The Kalderash term is dand (daní in Caló) but the term given is immediately more reminiscent of Northern Basque mintzo "speech" or mintza "skin" (with expressive palatalization). This, and other similar items, raise the question of whether Baudrimont was simply pointing at items to elicit forms. The forms he attempted to elicit are questionable in some cases as well. For example, he attempted to agricultural terms such as plough, harrow and aftermath from his (female) informants and records the suspiciously similar sasta "plough" and xatxa (shatsha) "harrow". Verb system and pronouns The verb systems and pronouns recorded by Baudrimont is peculiar in several ways. Apart from his problem of eliciting the citation form of verbs as opposed to participles, he lists pronouns and possessive pronouns that appear to contain Romani roots and an unexpected auxiliary. The verb ajin for "to have" attested elsewhere although Basque derived forms appear more common overall. Kalderash Romani employs the 3rd person of "to be" and a dative pronoun to express ownership: 1Note that forms like duk (3rd pers-have-2nd per (male)) are the verbal part whereas Erromintxela tuk is a pronoun. The negative particle na is fairly clear in the forms above. Buter, as Baudrimont notes, is the word for "much, many" and may not be a true pronoun. Kalderash uses the accusative pronouns to express possession but the forms above are more reminiscent of wrongly parsed Kalderash dative forms mangé, tuké, léske, léke etc. and perhaps a different case of "to be" (the full Kalderash paradigm being sim, san, si, si, sam, san/sen, si). On the whole, it raises questions about the level of communication between Baudrimont and his informants and the quality of (some of the) material elicited. ==Connected examples==

Examples with interlinear versions (lexical items of Romani origin marked in bold): {{interlinear|indent=3|glossing=wikilink|number=(1) {{interlinear|indent=3|glossing=wikilink| ablist = COMP:comparative:comparative|number=(3) {{interlinear|indent=3|glossing=wikilink|number=(4) {{interlinear|indent=3|glossing=wikilink|number=(5) {{interlinear|indent=3|glossing=wikilink| ablist = COMP:comparative:comparative|number=(6) ==Bibliography==