WE USE THESE WORDS WITHOUT KNOWING THAT THEY ARE ROMANI | Anna-Maria Sonnemann

“Conversations with Romani linguists” is a series of interviews where we talk to linguists working on the Romani language.
Here we find out how they became interested in specialized research on the Romani language, what challenges they faced on their professional path, and what fascinating stories and discoveries they had working on the Romani language.

Anna-Maria Sonnemann is a Ph.D., Romani language specialist, Former Associate Professor of Slavic Studies at Universities of Hamburg and Cologne, Germany.

Link to get Anna-Maria Sonnemann’s book “Language Families in Contact. The Mutual Impact of Slavic and Romani”:
https://www.degruyter.com/docu....ment/doi/10.1515/978

Personal website of Yaron Matras:
https://yaronmatras.org/

Anastasiia Tambovtseva-Koval
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/ankovalia/
https://www.instagram.com/pro.romani/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pro.romani.at/
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@pro.romani/

0:00 Intro
1:35 Childhood Experiences and Language Interests
- growing up in Northern Bavaria
- developing the interest in Slavic languages
- traveling to Serbia
- studying Slavic constructed languages for PhD
- the dream jobs as a child
- family and friends’ support and open-mindedness
- first encounter with the Romani language
- interest in Romani music
- learning Romani
- one interesting fact about Slavic languages

13:20 Slavic Influence on Romani Dialects
- the differences between Slavic languages and Romani dialects
- comparison of the closeness of the Slavic languages and the varieties of Romani
- the influence of Slavic languages on Romani, particularly in phonetics, phonology, and lexicon
- the areas where Slavic languages have influenced Romani
- Romani dialects in contact with Slavic languages

32:00 Romani Words in Colloquial Languages
- the widespread influence of Romani words in various languages
- the historical context of these words and their usage
- the research on the grammaticalized Slavic aspect in Romani varieties
- the importance of details in linguistics research

39:56 Slavic Influence on Romani Dialects
- the influence of Slavic languages on Romani dialects, particularly in terms of writing systems and orthography
- the constructed languages
- the parallels between the attempts to standardize Slavic languages and Romani
- the role of the internet in spreading information and potentially influencing language use

57:26 Closing question
- discussion how working with the Romani language has enriched the life