Une langue peut-elle appartenir à deux aires linguistiques ? Le cas du rromani

Abstract

Is double (or manifold) language areal belonging conceivable for a language? The article proposes to explore the case of an Indo-Aryan language in Millennium-old diaspora – Rromani. It is based on research in areal linguistics, a concept classically focused on languages of settled populations. The notion of Sprachbund, launched mainly by Nicolas Troubetzkoy and Kristian Sandfeld arose from Balkan linguistic material – developing Jerenj Kopitar’s intuition. It was eventually extended to other areas – in our case South Asia, by Murray Emeneau and later Annie Montaut. The case of Rromani, with a dual areal implantation, is not very common worldwide but it allows to check the contour its integration as both an age-old member (as Rromani in the Indian area) and as a new-comer (as Rromani in the Balkan). It gives also hints about the stability and/or sustainability of traits acquired in both situations, including after leaving the areas under discussion. In fact, ancient features (brought from India) result more resistant to erosion and changes than transitional features (acquired in the Balkan) – in parallel with the fate of lexical items: inherited lexemes are comparatively more resistant than loanwords, even when the Rromani speakers are not anymore aware of their respective status and view them all equally as “genuine Rromani words”.