Linguistic Rights of the Roma in Slovakia as a Constitutional and Policy Challenge

Michal Vašečka, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic and d irector of the Center for the Research of Ethnicity and Culture in Bratislava

Romany, the language of the Roma, is an integral part of their identity. In Slovakia, however, despite the constitutional right of the Roma to use Romany in public and in schools, not all Roma speak Romany, and many do not want to use their native language in these environments. There are numerous reasons for it and this paper analysis them in the context of Central European developments of last two hundred years. But the situation causes problems that neither the Roma nor the majority in Slovakia are prepared to deal with. Insufficient knowledge of the Slovak language and lack of availability of education in Romany are cited as a significant cause of poor performance of Roma children, especially those from isolated settlements.

The proposed paper explains why only a few international linguists paid any attention to Romany, or tried to codify its basic rules in the past. The paper describes the attempts of linguists to place Romany in the language tree, surveys the development of the language, and describes the differences between the European and Slovak dialects. Author explains how it is difficult to define the language, not just on the international level but even within Slovakia.