RomaniLanguage, LinguisticRightsand«Antigypsyism»

Abstract

The article analyses the forms of «antigypsyism»towards the use of Romani language, education of Roma children in their mother tongue and the linguistic human rights of Roma. After defining the «hate speech» and «antigypsyism», «antiziganism», «online hate» given by different authors, research with some Roma communities in Slovakia is presented. The «antigypsysim» is expressed directly or online towards Roma. The forms of personal/individual, institutionalized antigypsyism,institutionalized personal antigypsyismare discussed. Romani is in daily use mainly in the segregated Roma settlements. However, neither in the segregated nor in the special schools are the children offered lessons to build formal literacy in their mother tongue. The attitudes of the teachers towards the use of the Romani language at school are often not positive and they do not have any activities supporting the use and development of Romani. They do not recognize that such children have a right to acquire literacy in their home language. It is not viewed as an asset but precisely the opposite: the teachers think that they do not need their mother tongue and that the official school language is more important. The official languages used by the children are also an object of hate speech in social media and society, because often they use a variety of the official language called «ethnolect», and not the official language. Applying the insights of Auduc (2006), Iconcluded that the discrimination against young Roma is even stronger when they are highly qualified. The antigypsyism is much greater towards educated Roma who are fighting for their language and identity rights. That is because in their countries of origin this category of human capital, e.g. educated Roma, cannot be integrated, and most of them emigrate to West European countries to find their professional realization. Keywords: Roma, linguistic human rights, education, antigypsyism