Roma Korturare, "kaj žanas le vurdonenca": Some ethnographic answers to the Romani Dialectological Survey

Abstract

The Roma Korturare are a Romani group in the region of Transylvania. Since 1990, they have experienced stays of varying duration abroad. I will depict some of the cultural and social characteristics I witnessed during my field study of a community of this group living as immigrants in Granada, Spain. The article aims to answer some ethnographic questions submitted in the Romani Dialectological Survey, coordinated by Yaron Matras of the University of Manchester, England. I will also describe how elements of internal social organisation, such as raca subdivisions, can play a central role in the categorisation of the circumstantial social context, in spite of, but also together with, the wider linguistic context that relates to the particular Northern Vlax dialect.