Erromintxela language
Although detailed accounts of the language date to the end of the 19th century, linguistic research began only in the 1990s.
The Erromintxela are the descendants of a 15th-century wave of Kalderash Roma, who entered the Basque Country via France.
The language is in decline; most of the perhaps 1000 remaining speakers live on the coast of Labourd and in the mountainous regions of Soule, Navarre, Gipuzkoa and Biscay.
If that etymology is correct, it is a rare case of a native Romani name for themselves (an endonym) being borrowed by another language.
[7] The percentage of speakers among Spanish Erromintxela are higher than 2%, as large numbers of Caló-speaking Romanis moved to the Basque Country in the intense period of industrialisation in the 20th century.
The most notable works are a poem by Jon Mirande entitled "Kama-goli" in his 1997 anthology Orhoituz[16] and the 1999 novel Agirre zaharraren kartzelaldi berriak by Koldo Izagirre Urreaga with the main character using the language.
[6] It appears that many Romanis chose to stay in the Basque Country to escape persecution elsewhere in Europe.
For example, the Royal Council of Navarre in 1602 passed an edict to round up all "vagabonds" (meaning Romani), who were to be condemned to 6 years of galley duty.
In 1780–1781 the Courts of Navarre passed Law 23, which called for "the authorities to take care of them, find them locations for settlement and honest occupations and ways of living..."[13] The oldest account of the language dates to 1855, when the French ethnographer Justin Cenac-Moncaut located the Erromintxela primarily in the Northern Basque Country.
[18] Alexandre Baudrimont's 40-page study Vocabulaire de la langue des Bohémiens habitant les pays basques français of 1862, the most extensive of the early accounts, covers both vocabulary and aspects of grammar.
He worked with two female informants, a mother and her daughter from the Uhart-Mixe area near Saint-Palais, whom he describes as highly fluent.
Unfortunately, he was only able to conduct a single session as the women were then told not to cooperate further for the fear of outsiders prying into the secrets of the Romani.
The Canon Jean-Baptiste Daranatz published a wordlist in the periodical Eskualdun Ona in 1906[20] and in 1921 Berraondo and Oyarbide carried out some research.
[7] Kalé Dor Kayiko, who had been working to promote the Romani language, was alerted to the existence of Erromintxela in the 1990s through an article by the historian Alizia Stürtze, Agotak, juduak eta ijitoak Euskal Herrian "Agotes, Jews, and Gypsies in the Basque Country".
[7] The vocabulary appears to be almost exclusively Romani in origin; the grammar however, both morphology and syntax, derives from various Basque dialects.
[7] Typologically, Erromintxela displays the same features as the Basque dialects it derives its grammatical structures from.
According to Baudrimont's description of 1862[19] and modern southern sources, Erromintxela appears to have, at maximum, the sound system below.
Southern speakers appear not to have the rounded vowel /y/ or the consonant /θ/, in line with north–south differences in Basque, and it is not clear if the northern distinction between /ɡ/ and /ɣ/ also exists in the south.
Examples with interlinear versions (lexical items of Romani origin marked in bold): khere-kohouse-ATTRogaxo-amaster-ABSkhere-ko ogaxo-ahouse-ATTR master-ABS"the master of the house"[21]hire-tzatyour(informal)-BENgolisongkerau-tze-nmake-NMZ-LOCd-i-na-tABS.3SG-PRE DAT-FEM.ALLOC-ERG.1SGhire-tzat goli kerau-tze-n d-i-na-tyour(informal)-BEN song make-NMZ-LOC ABS.3SG-PRE DAT-FEM.ALLOC-ERG.1SG"I sing for you.
