#transylvanian

Eros GreyHeart

🐱 Transylvanian

📸 Zsolt Bereczki

hithere

I see many well-meaning non-Roma using (poorly translated) Romanes in their writings.

Even worse, I see (poorly translated) Romanian used as a placeholder for words not found in dictionaries.

Now, Vlax Romani does borrow some words from Romanian, but I've seen fanfics use Anglo-Romani (the tongue of the English Gypsies) and then switch to Romanian out of nowhere.

Not only is it inaccurate, Roma who have been in England for centuries would have no ties to Romania or the Romanian language.

It's disappointing to see a character switch from dialect to dialect with no regard for their country of origin and vitsa.

A Rom/ni from Czechia would never speak Angloromani as their mother tongue and I doubt English Roma speak Vlax/Carpathian Romanes.

I think a lot of people who do this stuff genuinely want to help represent Roma, but the representation is wrong (and sometimes disrespectful). You wouldn't portray an American using British slang/accents/culture/etc. so why do this to Romani people?

Google Translate is also hilariously wrong when it comes to certain words/phrases, and it only worsens when used for complex sentences. It also meshes dialects with no regard for understandability. It's so clearly meant for bored gadje who want to seem cool by having a foreign language in their IG bio.

I've seen people put English sentences in italics, with the implication being that the character is speaking another language. I think this approach is better when it comes to an endangered (and closed) language like Romanes.

Me having a little more knowledge on the area in the time of the setting makes it even funnier when Jonathan makes out of pocket racist comments.

And by funny I mean, that you could have heard his exact words of racism from the mouth of an upper class citisen from Budapest or Wien. Still racist but suprisingly on point?

CASTLE DIMITRESCU 🤝 GOLDEN BROWN