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Spanish Gypsy at the Beginning of the 21st Century: the State of the Art

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2020

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to offer a contextualized panoramic view of the Spanish Gypsy or hispanorromaní in the 21st century. In the first place, a brief introduction will be presented that will show the Spanish Gypsy in the context of other varieties of the Romani in contact with other languages, the so-called para-Romani, and the main characteristics that define it within the framework of languages in contact.

In next step, we will focus on the reception of the Spanish Gypsy in the Spanish majority society and how the reception has influenced the perception and the interpretation of its notions by the Spanish Gypsy community. In this part we will work both with the documents produced by people who do not belong to the Gypsy community, as well as those formulated by the Spanish Gypsies themselves.

Naturally, until the 20th century these testimonies come from non-Gypsies, but in last few decades there have appeared opinions from Spanish Gypsies as well. Nevertheless, the main attention is paid to the current status of the Spanish Gypsy language and, consequently, to the language policy strategies that try to awaken its revitalization.

Unfortunately, the results are in the present moment neither much fruitful, nor convincing.