Kalo, Kàlo or the Finnish Romani language () is a variety of the

Romani language Romani ( ; also Romanes , Romany, Roma; ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani people. The largest of these are Vlax Romani language, Vlax Romani (about 500,000 speakers), Balkan Romani (600,000), and Sinte Roma ...

spoken by the Kaale subgroup of the

Romani people {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. The language is related to but not mutually intelligible with

Scandoromani Scandoromani is a Para-Romani dialect spoken by the Romanisæl, a subgroup of the Romani people in Norway (c. 100–150 elderly Scandoromani speakers), and Sweden. Subforms are referred to as: * The Norwegian Romani language or Traveller Norw ...

Angloromani Angloromani or Anglo-Romani (literally "English Romani"; also known as Angloromany, Rummaness, or ) is a Para-Romani dialect spoken by the Romanichal, a subgroup of the Romani people in the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking w ...

. Kalo has 6,000–10,000 speakers and many young people do not know the language. The majority of speakers are from older generations and about two-thirds of the Romani in Finland still speak the language. There have been some revival efforts. Dictionaries and grammar books have been produced and some universities offer Kalo as a course. It has some similarities to the Romani languages in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, where stress is placed on the first syllable of the word. This may be related to the fact that both Finnish and Hungarian words have fixed word-initial stress, a feature that would have diffused to the Romani languages. Kalo has been taught in schools since the late 1980s, with some courses available as early as the 1970s.

Current situation

In 2012 only 30% of the 13,000 Romani in Finland spoke Kalo fluently, but about 50% could understand it. It is now uncommon for Kalo speakers to pass the language to children although there have been efforts made to revive it in recent years. There are

language nest A language nest is an immersion-based approach to language revitalization in early-childhood education. Language nests originated in New Zealand in the 1980s, as a part of the Māori-language revival in that country. The term "language nest" is ...

s in

Rovaniemi Rovaniemi ( , ; ; ; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Lapland (Finland), Lapland. It is located near the Arctic Circle in the northern interior of the country. The population of Rovaniemi is approximately , while the Rovaniemi su ...

, and in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

, Romani courses were established. In Finland, the municipalities can establish Romani courses if there is enough demand, though there have been problems due to a lack of resources. Finnish Romani in Sweden have a right to Kalo and Finnish education.

Phonology

Finnish Kalo has 8 pairs of long and short vowels. Vowel length can be phonemic as in 'through' versus 'boor' or allophonic as in / 'big'. Finnish Kalo has 9 closing

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

s and 3 opening diphthongs. Finnish Kalo has the following consonant phonemes:

Alphabet

Notes

References

* * * *

External links