This book offers the first comparative discussion of variation in selected areas of structure in the dialects of Kurdish. The contributions draw on data collected as part of the project on Structural and Typological Variation in Kurdish and stored in the Manchester Database of Kurdish Dialects online resource, as well as on additional data sources. The chapters address issues in lexicon, phonology, and morpho-syntax including nominal case, tense and aspect categories, pronominal clitics, adpositions, word order (with special reference to post-predicate constituents) and connectivity and complex clauses. The materials that inform the analysis consist of a systematic questionnaire-based elicitation covering key features of variation in lexicon and morpho-syntax, and an accompanying corpus of free speech recordings, collected in over 120 locations across the Kurdish-speaking regions in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran and covering mainly the dialects of Northern and Central Kurdish (Kurmani-Bahdini and Sorani), with some consideration of Southern Kurdish. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in fields such as linguistics, linguistic typology, Iranian linguistics and linguistics of the Middle East, and dialectology.

Romani is a language of Indo-Aryan origin which is spoken in Europe by the people known as "Gypsies"--who usually refer to themselves as Rom. There are more than 3.5 million speakers, and their language has attracted increasing interest from scholars as well as language planners in governments and other organizations during the past ten years. This book is the first comprehensive overview in English of Romani, its structure, history, typology and dialects. It will provide an indispensable reference work for all interested in this fascinating language.

This volume deals with several types of contact languages: pidgins, creoles, mixed languages, and multi-ethnolects. It also approaches contact languages from two perspectives: an historical linguistic perspective, more specifically from a viewpoint of genealogical linguistics, language descent and linguistic family tree models; and a sociolinguistic perspective, identifying specific social contexts in which contact languages emerge.

Mixed Languages are speech varieties that arise in bilingual settings, often as markers of ethnic separateness. They combine structures inherited from different parent languages, often resulting in odd and unique splits that present a challenge to theories of contact-induced change as well as genetic classification. This collection of articles is devoted to the theoretical and empirical controversies that surround the study of Mixed Languages. Issues include definitions and prototypes, similarities and differences to other contact languages such as pidgins and creoles, the role of codeswitching in the emergence of Mixed Languages, the role of deliberate and conscious mixing, the question of the existence of a Mixed Language continuum, and the position of Mixed Languages in general models of language change and contact-induced change in particular. An introductory chapter surveys the current study of Mixed Languages. Contributors include leading historical linguists, contact linguists and typologists, among them Carol Myers-Scotton, Sarah Grey Thomason,William Croft, Thomas Stolz, Maarten Mous, Ad Backus, Evgeniy Golovko, Peter Bakker, Yaron Matras.

'Markedness' is a central notion in linguistic theory. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive survey of markedness relations across various grammatical categories, in a sample of closely-related speech varieties. It is based on a sample of over 100 dialects of Romani, collected and processed via the Romani Morpho-Syntax (RMS) Database - a comparative grammatical outline in electronic form, constructed by the authors between 2000-2004. Romani dialects provide an exciting sample of language change phenomena: they are oral languages, which have been separated and dispersed from some six centuries, and are strongly shaped by the influence of diverse contact languages. The book takes a typological approach to markedness, viewing it as a hierarchy among values that is conditioned by conceptual and cognitive universals. But it introduces a functional-pragmatic notion of markedness, as a grammaticalised strategy employed in order to priositise information. In what is referred to as 'dynamic', such prioritisation is influenced by an interplay of factors: the values within a category and the conceptual notions that they represent, the grammatical structure onto which the category values are mapped, and the kind of strategy that is applied in order to prioritise certain value. Consequently, the book contains a thorough survey of some 20 categories (e.g Person, Number, Gender, and so on) and their formal representation in various grammatical structures across the sample. The various accepted criteria for markedness (e.g. Complexity, Differentiation, Erosion, and so on) are examined systematically in relation to the values of each and every category, for each relevant structure. The outcome is a novel picture of how different markedness criteria may cluster for certain categories, giving a concrete reality to the hitherto rather vague notion of markedness. Borrowing and its relation to markedness is also examined, offering new insights into the motivations behind contact-induced change.

The Routledge Handbook of Language Contact provides an overview of the state of the art of current research in contact linguistics. Presenting contact linguistics as an established field of investigation in its own right and featuring 26 chapters, this handbook brings together a broad range of approaches to contact linguistics, including: experimental and observational approaches and formal theories; a focus on social and cognitive factors that impact the outcome of language contact situations and bilingual language processing; the emergence of new languages and speech varieties in contact situations, and contact linguistic phenomena in urban speech and linguistic landscapes. With contributions from an international range of leading and emerging scholars in their fields, the four sections of this text deal with methodological and theoretical approaches, the factors that condition and shape language contact, the impact of language contact on individuals, and language change, repertoires and formation. This handbook is an essential reference for anyone with an interest in language contact in particular regions of the world, including Anatolia, Eastern Polynesia, the Balkans, Asia, Melanesia, North America, and West Africa.

The book contains 30 descriptive chapters dealing with a specific language contact situation. The chapters follow a uniform organisation format, being the narrative version of a standard comprehensive questionnaire previously distributed to all authors. The questionnaire targets systematically the possibility of contact influence / grammatical borrowing in a full range of categories. The uniform structure facilitates a comparison among the chapters and the languages covered. The introduction describes the setup of the questionnaire and the methodology of the approach, along with a survey of the difficulties of sampling in contact linguistics. Two evaluative chapters, each authored by one of the co-editors, draws general conclusions from the volume as a whole (one in relation to borrowed grammatical categories and meaningful hierarchies, the other in relation to the distribution of Matter and Pattern replication).

Domari is an Indo-Aryan language that is now highly endangered. Its speakers were traditionally nomadic metalworkers and musicians who lived in tiny, geographically scattered and socially isolated communities throughout the Middle East. The grammar is based on conversational material recorded in Jerusalem in the mid-1990s with some of the last speakers of this particular variety.

Romani is the first language, and family and community language, of upwards of 3-4 million people and possibly many more in Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Documentation and research on the language draws on a tradition of more than two centuries, yet it remains relatively unknown and often engulfed by myths. In recent decades there has been an upsurge of interest in the language including language maintenance and educational projects, the creation of digital resources, language policy initiatives, and a flourishing community of online users of the language. This Handbook presents state of the art research on Romani language and linguistics. Bringing together key established scholars in the field of linguistics and neighbouring disciplines, it introduces the reader to the structures of Romani and its dialect divisions, and to the history of research on the language. It then goes on to explore major external influences on the language through contact with other key languages, aspects of language acquisition, and interventions in support of the language through public policy provisions, activism, translation, religious and literary initiatives, and social media. This comprehensive and groundbreaking account of Romani will appeal to students and scholars from across language and linguistics.

The Routledge Handbook of Language Contact provides an overview of the state of the art of current research in contact linguistics. Presenting contact linguistics as an established field of investigation in its own right and featuring 26 chapters, this handbook brings together a broad range of approaches to contact linguistics, including: experimental and observational approaches and formal theories; a focus on social and cognitive factors that impact the outcome of language contact situations and bilingual language processing; the emergence of new languages and speech varieties in contact situations, and contact linguistic phenomena in urban speech and linguistic landscapes. With contributions from an international range of leading and emerging scholars in their fields, the four sections of this text deal with methodological and theoretical approaches, the factors that condition and shape language contact, the impact of language contact on individuals, and language change, repertoires and formation. This handbook is an essential reference for anyone with an interest in language contact in particular regions of the world, including Anatolia, Eastern Polynesia, the Balkans, Asia, Melanesia, North America, and West Africa.

The book examines some of the dilemmas surrounding Europe's open borders, migrations, and identities through the prism of the Roma - Europe's most dispersed and socially marginalised population. The volume challenges some of the myths surrounding the Roma as a 'problem population', and places the focus instead on the context of European policy and identity debates. It comes to the conclusion that the migration of Roma and the constitution of their communities is shaped by European policy as much as, and often more so, than by the cultural traits of the Roma themselves. The chapters compare case studies of Roma migrants in Spain, Italy, France, and Britain and the impact of migration on the origin communities in Romania. The study combines historical and ethnographic methods with insights from migration studies, drawing on a unique multi-site collaborative project that for the first time gave Roma participants a voice in shaping research into their communities. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138239487_oachapter1.pdf Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138239487_oachapter7.pdf

The book examines some of the dilemmas surrounding Europe's open borders, migrations, and identities through the prism of the Roma - Europe's most dispersed and socially marginalised population. The volume challenges some of the myths surrounding the Roma as a 'problem population', and places the focus instead on the context of European policy and identity debates. It comes to the conclusion that the migration of Roma and the constitution of their communities is shaped by European policy as much as, and often more so, than by the cultural traits of the Roma themselves. The chapters compare case studies of Roma migrants in Spain, Italy, France, and Britain and the impact of migration on the origin communities in Romania. The study combines historical and ethnographic methods with insights from migration studies, drawing on a unique multi-site collaborative project that for the first time gave Roma participants a voice in shaping research into their communities. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138239487_oachapter1.pdf Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138239487_oachapter7.pdf

Language contact occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence one another. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and adult bilingualism, this book combines his original research with an up-to-date introduction to key concepts, to provide a holistic, original theory of contact linguistics. Going beyond a descriptive outline of contact phenomena, it introduces a theory of contact-induced language change, linking structural change to motivations in discourse and language processing. Since the first edition was published, the field has rapidly grown, and this fully revised edition covers all of the most recent developments, making it an invaluable resource for researchers and advanced students in linguistics.

Romani is the first language, and family and community language, of upwards of 3-4 million people and possibly many more in Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Documentation and research on the language draws on a tradition of more than two centuries, yet it remains relatively unknown and often engulfed by myths. In recent decades there has been an upsurge of interest in the language including language maintenance and educational projects, the creation of digital resources, language policy initiatives, and a flourishing community of online users of the language. This Handbook presents state of the art research on Romani language and linguistics. Bringing together key established scholars in the field of linguistics and neighbouring disciplines, it introduces the reader to the structures of Romani and its dialect divisions, and to the history of research on the language. It then goes on to explore major external influences on the language through contact with other key languages, aspects of language acquisition, and interventions in support of the language through public policy provisions, activism, translation, religious and literary initiatives, and social media. This comprehensive and groundbreaking account of Romani will appeal to students and scholars from across language and linguistics.

Language contact occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence one another. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and adult bilingualism, this book combines his original research with an up-to-date introduction to key concepts, to provide a holistic, original theory of contact linguistics. Going beyond a descriptive outline of contact phenomena, it introduces a theory of contact-induced language change, linking structural change to motivations in discourse and language processing. Since the first edition was published, the field has rapidly grown, and this fully revised edition covers all of the most recent developments, making it an invaluable resource for researchers and advanced students in linguistics.

This volume deals with several types of contact languages: pidgins, creoles, mixed languages, and multi-ethnolects. It also approaches contact languages from two perspectives: an historical linguistic perspective, more specifically from a viewpoint of genealogical linguistics, language descent and linguistic family tree models; and a sociolinguistic perspective, identifying specific social contexts in which contact languages emerge.

Romani is a language of Indo-Aryan origin which is spoken in Europe by the people known as 'Gypsies' (who usually refer to themselves as Rom). There are upwards of 3.5 million speakers, and their language has attracted increasing interest both from scholars and from policy-makers in governments and other organizations during the past ten years. This 2002 book is the first comprehensive overview in English of Romani. It provides a historical linguistic introduction to the structures of Romani and its dialects, as well as surveying the phonology, morphology, syntactic typology and patterns of grammatical borrowing in the language. This book provides an essential reference for anyone interested in this fascinating language.

This work deals with the Romani language. It does not teach the readers to speak the language. Rather, it deals with its origin, its current use and status, its beginning literature and films, and the way it is learned by children and much more. It shows that Romani is a language in its own right, with its own, unique grammatical system, dialects, and particular norms of language use. Pressure from the outside world has diminished the use of the language in some areas, but generally it is a thriving language, spoken by millions of people.

In I Met Lucky People, Yaron Matras, the world's leading authority on the Romani, explains why we need to reconsider how we view their culture Who are the Romani people? As one of the last remaining societies in the Western hemisphere with a strictly oral culture, they have no written record of their history that can be consulted. From the early 1990s, linguist Yaron Matras has been working with the 'Rom', as they call themselves, one of a handful of people to have done so. Travelling widely in central and eastern Europe, studying their language and learning their dialects, he has witnessed their campaign for recognition. In I Met Lucky People Matras gives us the first comprehensive account of their culture, language and history. It is a story of the echoes of a rich past left in language and customs, and of how the changing fortunes of Europe throughout the centuries have been imprinted on Romani culture. 'Required reading' - Financial Times Yaron Matras is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manchester, and Editor of the journal Romani Studies. His involvement with Romani issues began in the advocacy and civil rights arena. Matras was media relations officer to the Roma National Congress from 1988 -1995, and founding editor of RomNews, one of the very first advocacy information services on Romani issues. He has worked closely with the Open Society Institute's Roma programmes, is a founding member of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies, and has led several large-scale research projects on Romani language and culture, including an international research consortium on Romani migrations. He is the author of over a dozen books and numerous chapters and articles on Romani language and culture, and speaks the Romani language fluently.

Romani is one of Britain's oldest and most established minority languages. Brought to the country by Romani immigrants from continental Europe in the sixteenth century or even earlier, it was spoken in its old, inflected form as a family and community language until the second half of the nineteenth century, when it yielded to English. But even after its decline as the everyday language of English and Welsh Gypsies, Romani continues to survive in the form of a vocabulary that is used to express an 'emotive mode' of communication among group members. This book examines British Romani in its historical context and in its present-day form, drawing on recordings and interviews with speakers. It documents the Romani vocabulary and its usage patterns in conversation, offering insight into the processes of language death and language revitalization. The volume includes an extensive lexicon of Angloromani as a helpful reference.

Gypsies have lived among Europeans since the Middle Ages. Yet Roms still seem exotic to Westerners, who often rely on fictional depictions for what they know, or think"they know, about this much-misunderstood people. The Romani Gypsies" challenges stereotypes that have long been the unwelcome travel companions of this community in Europe and the New World. Yaron Matras offers a perspective-changing account of who the Roms are, how they live today, and how they have survived over centuries.

Descendents of Indian migrants, Roms began moving into western Europe in the 1300s, refugees of a collapsing Byzantine Empire. By the 1500s they had spread throughout Europe, working as itinerant smiths and toolmakers, healers and entertainers, and would soon reach the Americas. Often described as Egyptian hence the name Gypsies they were ostracized as beggars, vilified as criminals, respected as artisans, and idealized as free spirits. They have been both enslaved and protected, forced to settle down and forcibly expelled, in a pattern of manipulation and persecution that persists in our own time.

Matras draws on decades of first-hand research into Romani life to explain the organization of Romani society, its shared language, history, and traditions, as well as differences among widely dispersed Romani groups. He also details the present-day dilemmas surrounding the struggle of Roms for political recognition in European countries which are, by turns, either ambivalent or openly hostile."