Abstract
Objectives. The aim of the paper is to analyze the process of acquisition of mental state verbs in Romani and in Bulgarian langauges simultaneously by bilingual Roma children. The mental state verbs help the children to understand the Fals Belief Tasks, which predict the Theory of Mind. The theory of mind from other side is important for understanding the intentions, desires, jokes, motivations of others and what are the factors influencing the development of theory of mind
 Research methods and techniques. Two Roma children from Bulgaria (1 boy and 1 girl) aged 1;0 – 3;0 years were audiorecorded longitudinally in their natural home environment. According to M. Taumoepeau and T. Ruffman (2006), the mental state verbs can be grouped in different categories, showing different states: mental states, physical states, emotions, perception and cognition. The acquired verbs are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively.
 Results. The data shows that some mental state verbs are acquired in Romani and others in Bulgarian. The factors influencing the acquisition of part of the verbs in Romani and the other part in Bulgarian are analyzed. Mental state verbs are important for the cognitive development of the children. The results show that the the boy uses 100% Romani mental state verbs: very high number of verbs are related to (1) mental states, e.g.: mangav (want), dehav (love), arakhav (care about), džanav (know); (2) emotions: xavxoli (angry), khanile (feeling bad); (3) physical state, e.g.: dukhal (hurt), rovav (cry); (4) sense, such as: dikh (look). The girl uses 89.0% mental state verbs in Romani and 19.0% in Bulgarian language. The learned verbs by her are related to mental state from Romani: mangav (want), džanav (know), darav (be afraid) and from Bulgarian: obicham (love), znam (know), iskam (want). The other verbs from the field of emotions, physical state and sense are from Romani.
 Conclusions. The resreach although limited has shown that sentences with mental state verbs in a combination with a noun phrase in a simple sentence are acquired around the age of 1;6. The more complex sentences with mental state verb and complementizer phrase are acquired around the age of 2;6 years old.
Highlights
After the use of the term Theory of Mind by D
The results show that the the boy uses 100% Romani mental state verbs: very high number of verbs are related to (1) mental states, e.g.: mangav, dehav, arakhav, džanav; (2) emotions: xavxoli, khanile; (3) physical state, e.g.: dukhal, rovav; (4) sense, such as: dikh
In our previous study with Roma children between 3,0–4,6 years old we found that the theory of mind scores in Romani as L1 are higher than the scores in Bulgarian as L2
Summary
After the use of the term Theory of Mind by D. Woodruf (1978) the developmental psychologists started to investigate what the children know about the minds of others. Most of the studies focused on the age of the children when they start to understand the intentions, desires, jokes, motivations of others and what are the factors influencing the development of theory of mind. For this purposes psychologist such as H. Astington (1988) developed the two classical False Belief Tasks in psychology known as «Maxi task» and «Smarties task» which are predicting the development of the Theory of Mind in children
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