Banjasi Na Balkanu: Identitet Etnicke zajednice/The Bayash of the Balkans: Identity of an Ethnic Community
2006; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 16; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1757-2274
Autores Tópico(s)Balkans: History, Politics, Society
ResumoBanjasi na Balkanu: Identitet etnicke zajednice/The Bayash of the Balkans: Identity of an ethnic community. (Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, Balkanoloski Institut, posebna izdanja/Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Institute of Balkan Studies, Special Editions 88) Edited by Biljana Sikimic Belgrade: Institut des etudes balkaniques. 2005.322 pp. ISBN 86-7179-048-7. Reviewed by Victor A. Friedman Gypsy groups that do not have Romani as their first language represent a special challenge with regard to questions of identity, ethnology, and history. They also provide interesting material for linguists, especially dialectologists and sociolinguists. It is worthy of note that complete language shift with maintenance of separate identity in the case of formerly Romani-speaking groups is arguably a Balkan phenomenon, in that the languages involved are from the Balkans. Such is the case of the Albanian- and Macedonian-speaking Egjipkjani of Macedonia, the Albanian-speaking Ashkali, Magjup, and Kovaci of Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia, the Greek-speaking Yiftoi of Greece, the Turkish-speaking Millet in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, and Serbia, and others (see Hunt 1999, Marushiakova et al. 2001, and references therein). Sometimes these groups do not identify themselves as Gypsies (Tsigani, etc.) but are so identified by others. On the other hand, at least as recently as the 19708, there were Romanian-speaking groups in rural Hungary that identified as Gypsies, call their language 'Gypsy' (using the root tsigan-), and were unaware that what they were speaking is Romanian and not Romani (my own field observation). In western Europe and the Caucasus, on the other hand, linguistically assimilated Gypsy groups often maintain a Romani lexicon, as is the case in such para-Romani varieties as Calo, Anglo-Romani, and Bosha. Of all the non-Romani languages maintained by Gypsy groups, Romanian is probably the most widespread. As Sikimic (7) points out in her introduction to the book under review here, Romanian-speaking Gypsies, known as Banjasi, Bejasi, Bajesi, Rudari, Koritari, Karavlasi, Rumuni, Rumunski/Vlaski Cigani (as well as Crni Vlasi, Selski Vlasi, Cincari, Kalajdzii, Cancari, Lingurari, Ursari, Ludari, Meckari, Kopanari, Majmunari, etc.) live in Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, as well as small groups in Macedonia and Greece (and, we can add, Albania, cf. Weigand 1895: 78). The book under consideration here comprises eleven articles plus an introduction (7-12), based on recent (2001-2005) fieldwork in Serbia (nine articles: five based on work done in the Morava Valley in central Serbia-in Tresnjevica, Strizilo, and Prcilovica-two in Mehovine in northwest Serbia (Sava and Danube valleys), and one in Marinkova Bara near Belgrade) and Bulgaria (one article), with one article based on previously unpublished material from Bosnia collected in the 19508. The articles are all in Serbian (five in Cyrillic, five in the Latin alphabet) with resumes in English and Romanian. There are notes and contact information for the authors (321-2) and a table of contents (5-6) that also gives English translations of the titles, which I have modified slightly in a few instances. In her introduction, Sikimic reviews the literature, sets the context, and gives a list of the 177 Bayash settlements in six regions of Serbia, with the 33 settlements visited by the team 2001-2005 in bold type. O. Hedesan's Jedan teren: Tresnjevica u Dolini Morave 'A field site: Tresnjevica in the Morava Valley' (13-106) gives a detailed account of the field site, with lengthy excerpts in the original Romanian and Serbian translation of the Bayash speaking for themselves about what it means to be 'Romanian (Rumun) or 'Gypsy' (Tsigan) as well as about facets of the life cycle and 'the repair of time.' The author also gives a careful and thorough analysis of the linguistic evidence and concludes that these Rudari originated in western Oltenia and Muntenia and arrived via the Banat 1790-1815. …
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