Erromintxela

Erromintxela is spoken in the Basque country in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in the southeast of France, and in the País Vasco autonomous community in northern Spain. In 2009 there were about 500 speakers of Erromintxela in France and 500 in Spain. The majority of Erromintxela speakers in Spain are elderly, while in France the language is still being passed on to children.

The Erromintxela people are descendents of Roma people who moved to the Basque country in the 15th century. They became integrated with the Basque people and bilingual in Romani and Basque. Over time a mixed language combining mainly Romani vocabualary with Basque grammar emerged.

Erromintxela is also known as Basque Caló, Errumantxela in English, as caló vasco, romaní vasco, or errominchela in Spanish, and as euskado-rromani or euskado-romani in French. It was first documented during the 19th century, and linguistic research on it began in the 1990s.

Erromintxela alphabet and pronunciation

Notes

The letters C and Ü are only used in northern dialects.
G is pronounced [ɣ] before e and i, but only in northern dialects

Download an alphabet chart for Erromintxela (Excel)

Details provided by Wolfram Siegel

Sample text

Hiretzat goli kherautzen dinat
erromeetako gazin mindroa
ene muirako mandro londoa
mol loloena ene khertsiman.

Hire dui ankhai baro, koloek
pekhautzen nina kamatze-jakaz
phiria hautsiz erromenitzat
letu hindudan latziaz geroz.

Source: https://andima.armiarma.eus/pami/pami0711.htm

Sample videos in and about Erromintxela

Links

Information about Erromintxelat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erromintxela_language
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erromintxela
https://www.ethnologue.com/language/emx
http://aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus/artikuluak/artikulua.php?id=eu&ar=76974

Romani languages

Caló, Domari, Erromintxela, Finnish Kalo, Kalderash, Lovari, Romani

Languages written with the Latin alphabet

Page last modified: 28.06.21

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