Laiuse Romani was a

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

variety spoken in

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and t ...

. It was a

mixed language A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole or pidgin language in that, whereas creoles/pidgi ...

based on Romani and Estonian. The

Romani people The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...

first appeared in Estonia in the 17th century. According to rumors, they were first part of Swedish King

Charles XII Charles XII, sometimes Carl XII ( sv, Karl XII) or Carolus Rex (17 June 1682 – 30 November 1718 O.S.), was King of Sweden (including current Finland) from 1697 to 1718. He belonged to the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a branch line o ...

's Romani orchestra which he, after spending a winter in

Laiuse Laiuse (german: link=no, Lais) is a small borough (') in Estonia. It is located in Jõgeva County and is a part of Jõgeva Parish. As of 2011 census, the settlement's population was 371.Laiuse Middle Schoolis one of the oldest in Estonia, bei ...

, left behind. In 1841 all 44 Estonian Romani were collected and settled around

Parish. Their main stop was

Raaduvere Raaduvere is a village in Jõgeva Parish, Jõgeva County in eastern Estonia. (retrieved 28 July 2021) See also * Kaevere Kaevere is a village in Haapsalu municipality, Lääne County, in western Estonia. Prior to the 2017 administrative ...

village, but they also lived in

Rakvere Rakvere is a town in northern Estonia and the administrative centre of the Lääne-Viru '' maakond'' (county), 20 km south of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea. Rakvere is the 8th most populous urban area in Estonia. Rakvere has a tota ...

Jõgeva Jõgeva (german: Laisholm) is a small town in Estonia with a population of around 5000 people. It is the capital of Jõgeva Parish and Jõgeva County. History Jõgeva was first mentioned in 1599 as ''Jagiwa'' manor, being established only rec ...

and its precincts. Before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

there were 60 Romani in Laiuse. Laiuse Romani became extinct in the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 193 ...

, when all its speakers were killed by the Nazis during the Porajmos.

Linguistic features

Laiuse Romani shares a number of linguistic features with Finnish Kalo, such as

palatalization Palatalization may refer to: *Palatalization (phonetics), the phonetic feature of palatal secondary articulation *Palatalization (sound change) Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation ...

velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive ...

s before front vowels and initial devoicing.

Notes

References

* * Romani in Estonia Para-Romani Languages of Estonia Extinct languages of Europe Mixed languages Jõgeva Parish {{Romani-stub