Phonological and morphological features of Boyash language varieties in Eastern Slovakia

Abstract

The heterogeneous group of Boyash (or Bayash, Rudari) are small communities speaking different highly endangered conservative subvarieties of the Romanian language and dispersed throughout Central and Southeastern Europe. This paper first summarises historical research issues related to the Boyash communities in Eastern Slovakia and points out that the existing information is limited and rudimentary. A separate section is devoted to the categorisations of Boyash people. While these are crucial, they are of little use for linguistic inquiry. This is followed by a brief account of the migration history of the Slovakian Boyash. The paper focuses on preliminary linguistic data obtained through my dialectological fieldwork over the last decade. The audio material recorded in Slovakia is about 20 hours, the interviews were made between 2013 and 2018 recorded in 10 localities (Dolný Les, Oborín, Podhoroď, Podčičva, Čata, Kamenín, Malé Trakany, Čierna nad Tisou, Štúrovo, Most pri Bratislave) with 21 speakers (age 52-77). I present the system of Slovakian, Rusyn and Hungarian loanwords and differences between the Eastern Slovak Boyash varieties and standard Romanian, examine phonological and morphological features in detail and compare them with other language varieties spoken in Slovakia and Hungary. In Slovakia, the Boyash language varieties can only be learnt in local communities through oral communication as there is no institutional education. Literacy has not developed, only in the last 10-15 years have some people started to write phonetically using the Slovak alphabet. The Boyash language varieties of Eastern Slovakia are closely related to those of Transcarpathia, with many Slavic (Slovak, Ruthenian, possibly Ukrainian) and Hungarian elements enriching their language varieties. I point out that the characteristics of their linguistic system make them a clearly distinct language variety among the Boyash language varieties, with many variations, but also with a high degree of Old Romanian conservativism. The paper offers a brief description of the linguistic reality of an ethnic group that is still largely unknown.