Language variety

This online lexicon presents the Romani-origin vocabulary found in the ethnolinguistic repertoire of the group of Hungarian Roma who have commonly been called Romungros, Carpathian Roma, or Musician Roma. This repertoire, whose size and composition vary from speaker to speaker, is a non-standard variety of Hungarian enriched with Romani-origin words. The differences arise not only on an individual level but also across regions, professions, social groups, and subcultures. Additionally, changes over time further shape the repertoire, as some words found in older published sources no longer appear to be in use today. Most words in this repertoire originate from South Central Romani, the heritage language of the Hungarian Roma, which has largely disappeared from Hungary (although not altogether, as recent research has confirmed). Therefore, with few exceptions, current speakers of this repertoire do not have competence in Romani.

The variety lacks a specific name among its speakers. During interviews, our consultants most commonly referred to it as cigány nyelv (Romani language) or cigányos (Romani-like), while some simply called it szleng (slang) or zsargon (jargon).

Lexicon

This lexicon contains nearly 1,000 entries of Romani origin, along with Slavic, Greek, and older loanwords. In addition to individual words, it includes some fixed phrases, collocations, loanblends, and wordplays. Several words from this lexicon also appear in other Hungarian non-standard varieties, such as city slang, prison slang or youth slang, colloquial Hungarian (e.g., kaja ‘food’ or pia ‘drink’), or even in standard Hungarian (e.g., roma ‘Roma’). These non-standard varieties of Hungarian, often enriched by vocabulary of Romani origin, may also exert influence on the lexicon of the ethnolinguistic repertoire. It appears that some of the items found in the lexicon have made their way back through these non-standard varieties of Hungarian. On the other hand, the online lexicon does not cover Hungarian dialectal (e.g., gyemetra ‘stomach’) and archaic (e.g., világi ‘very good, great’) terms, nor ad hoc borrowings (e.g., kamaftu ‘I love you’ from Vlax Romani kamav tu ‘I love you’) originating from various Romani sources that speakers may encounter.

Data

The data were collected by Zuzana Bodnárová (University of Graz), Mátyás Rosenberg (Eötvös Loránd University), and Márton A. Baló (Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics) from both published and unpublished sources, including texts written by Romani authors and by non-Romani authors citing Romani sources, as well as through sociolinguistic interviews with speakers from Budapest, Gödöllő, Szolnok, and Szeged. The lexicon typically provides example sentences drawn from these sources. To address ethical concerns and protect user privacy, data collected from publicly available social media pages and profiles were not included.

Transcription

The Romani elements of the repertoire are transcribed using the Hungarian alphabet. Some words show variation (e.g., baro ~ baró ~ báro ‘great, big’) in the use of long and short vowels; therefore, the different forms appear as separate entries in the lexicon. We also retain the transcription of Csemer (2001a, 2001b), which corresponds more closely to the local Hungarian dialect of Szeged (e.g., mögmérél instead of megmerel ‘dies’).

Search functionality

The lexicon is designed for both linguists and the general public and it offers four search options: 1) by the forms in the ethnolinguistic repertoire, 2) by the Hungarian translation, 3) by the English translation, and 4) by Romani origin. When using the first three search options, all forms containing the search expression are highlighted in light green for easier identification. When searching by Romani origin, users can select the original Romani form to see all the derived forms within the ethnolinguistic repertoire. Regardless of the search option chosen, the presentation remains consistent: the Romani origin is provided first, followed by all derived forms, with translations into Hungarian and English. Additionally, every entry can be expanded to show the source, and, when available, example sentence(s) and notes.