Resumen de Romani literacy at the crossroads

Donald Kenrick

• Romani literacy practices are at the crossroads. The Romani language in Europe has over 50 dialects. Romani äs a minority language suffers neglect or active discrimination. Under the influence ofcontact with various majority languages Romani varieties are undergoing rapid changes. Conscious attempts have been made to reverse a growing divergence between the dialects. The development of Romani äs a written language in the last two decades has highlighted the differences between the dialects and led to a conscious move toward creating a Standard literary language. In the present article a sociolinguistic account of the development of written Romani is given.