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The Lost Treasure Of Humanity: Gypsy Languages 13/01/2012

Peoples who belong to Gypsy Universal Community have spoken more than one languages for thousands of years. Gypsy peoples speak languages of non-Gypsies they live in same society. On the other hand, they also maintain their own languages. Gypsy languages which is one of the most important elements of cultural heritage of humanity is not known sufficiently.

Gypsy peoples who live in same society with non-Gypsies created Gypsy languages to communicate between eachother in thousands of years. Some of these languages completely dissappeared today. Words from lost Gypsy languages are still used in contemporary Gypsy languages. One of the lost Gypy languages is the language of Banu Sassan Gypsies of Arabian geography named Lugha. Influences of Lugha is visible on Domari of Dom Gypsies living in Middle East and Lavzi-Mugat of Mugat Gypsies living in Central Asia today.

Most of Gypsy languages could be maintained in contravention of all kinds of negative conditions. Tenet language of Inadan Gypsies living in northern Africa, Sim language of Helebi Gypsies of Egypt and Luri language of Luri Gypsies living in Iran could be maintained and still in use.

Traces of various languages existed in different geographies could be seen in Gypsy languaes as Gypsy people unit various human races among themselves. Grammatical features of Ural-Altaic languages which are widespread in Central Asia and words from mostly Persian are contained within Abdoltili language of Abdal Gypsies. Domari language of Dom Gypsies have features of either Indian and Middle Eastern languages. Romanes language of Roma Gypsies existed as an independent language containing Indian languages, Greek, Persian and Caucasian languages.

Source: Ali Mezarcıoğlu Çingenelerin Kitabı Cinius Yayınları (The Book Of Gypsies Cinius Publishing Company)