PROUD I – Preserving ROmanes through the Utilisation of an online Dictionary? Erasmus Project

Project Title

PROUD I – Preserving ROmanes through the Utilisation of an online Dictionary?

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Romas and/or other minorities; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

“Language is the roadmap of a culture. It tells you where its people came from and where they are going.” Rita Mae Brown

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

Language is bearer of sense and descent, key to understand the world and oneself as well as central means of interpersonal comprehension.

10 – 12 Million Roma live in Europe; about 4.3 Million in the partner countries of our project: 185.000 in North Macedonia, 750.000 in Bulgaria, 120.000 in Germany, 175.000 in Greece, 600.000 in Hungary, 3.350 in Lithuania, 1.95 Mio. in Romania and 500.000 in Serbia (Statista 2019).

At the beginning of their migration from India, Romanes (actually Romani – coming from romani chip, “Roma-language”) was still a common language. The long way that has been leading Roma for centuries through different continents and countries finally to Europe, but also the long stay in those countries, caused that Romanes fell apart into different dialects. Over the years, more and more words of the according national languages were integrated in the Romanes or the respective dialects.

In a few European countries, e.g. Romania and Spain, Roma were not allowed for a long time to speak their own language. This contributed also to the loss of the common language.

Until the younger past, Romanes was mainly an only spoken and orally inherited language.

Unfortunately, until today no successfully standardised Romanes exists. Besides, it is written with several alphabets – Latin, Cyrillic and Devanagari. Nowadays, language scientists group Romanes in four main and more than 60 sub-dialects.

However, the key challenges of preservation and development of Romanes remain in its infrequent use. The problems of learning and preserving Romanes are crystallised in the lack of high-quality teaching of Romanes, the shortage of producers of learning material, and the language’s invisibility in public activities. For example, play and activity material, didactic books and fairy tale books for children are almost non-existent.

Therefore, it is the aim of the project “PROUD I” to find out if an online platform for Romanes would be a reasonable tool for both preserving Romanes as part of the Roma’s cultural identity and enabling them to participate in lifelong learning.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 67050 Eur

Project Coordinator

National University Library “Sv.Kliment Ohridski” – Bitola & Country: MK

Project Partners

• “Dimitrije Tucovic” Library
• ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES FOR COOPERATION
• JUGENDSTIL EV
• Humán Eröforrásért Egyesület Dél-Alföldi Régió
• Panhellenic Federation of Greek Rom
• Federatia Etnica pentru Dezvoltarea Economica a Romilor – FEDER
• ROMA CULTURE AND MEDIA CENTAR BARIKANIPE