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Article published In: Diachronica
Vol. 40:5 (2023) ► pp.578–608

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Gender reduction in contact

The case of Romani in nineteenth-century Hungary

 | Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics
ORCiD logo with link | University of Graz
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 14 December 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.22011.bal
Abstract
The present paper investigates the reduction of gender assignment and agreement in a nineteenth-century Romani variety in contact with genderless Hungarian. This reduction took place within two generations of native speakers. We compare the geographical and sociolinguistic situation with the majority of present-day Romani varieties, which still maintain the original two-way (masculine, feminine) gender system. By comparing these varieties with the few Romani varieties which also display reduction of their gender system, we show that the development of this particular typological change may be the outcome of the minority situation of Romani and its geographical proximity to a genderless language. However, as rural varieties do not exhibit the same kind of erosion, this is not a sufficient explanation; what also appears to play a role in the Romani case is the urban context of the change. This sociolinguistic factor might also be considered in other case studies on the loss of grammatical gender.
Résumé
Le présent travail étudie la réduction de la distribution et de l’accord des genres grammaticaux dans une variété de romani du dix-neuvième siècle en contact avec le hongrois (langue sans genre grammatical), qui s’est produite au cours de deux générations de locuteurs natifs. En comparant sa situation géographique et sociolinguistique avec la majorité des variétés actuelles de romani, qui conservent le système original de genres grammaticaux (l’opposition du masculin et du féminin), et avec d’autres variétés du romani qui présentent également une réduction dans leur système du genre grammatical, nous montrons que le développement de ce changement typologique particulier peut être le résultat de la situation minoritaire du romani et de sa proximité géographique à une langue sans genre (le hongrois). Cependant, puisque les variétés rurales ne présentent pas le même type d’érosion, ce n’est pas une explication suffisante. Ce qui semble également jouer un rôle dans le cas du romani est le contexte de changement en milieu urbain. Ce facteur sociolinguistique pourrait également être pris en considération dans d’autres études sur la disparition du genre grammatical.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Reduktion von Zuweisung und Kongruenz des grammatischen Geschlechts in einer Romanivarietät im 19. Jahrhundert, die in Kontakt mit dem geschlechtslosen Ungarischen gestanden ist. Diese Reduktion hat im Laufe zweier Generationen stattgefunden. Durch den Vergleich der damaligen geographischen und soziolinguistischen Situation mit heutigen Romanivarietäten, die die ererbte zweifache Geschlechtsdistinktion (maskulin, feminin) beibehalten haben, sowie mit einigen Varietäten, die dieselbe Reduktion aufweisen, zeigen wir, dass diese Veränderung in der Typologie des Romani durch seine Minderheitensituation sowie seine Nähe zu einer Sprache ohne grammatisches Geschlecht verursacht worden sein kann. Die Tatsache, dass rurale Varietäten diese Erosion der Geschlechtsdistinktion nicht aufweisen, weist jedoch darauf hin, dass diese Erklärung nicht ausreichend ist. Es scheint daher auch der urbane Kontext eine Rolle zu spielen. Dieser soziolinguistische Faktor könnte auch in anderen Fallstudien zum Verlust von grammatischem Geschlecht betrachtet werden.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Gender reduction and loss
    • 2.1Examples of gender reduction in Indo-Iranian
    • 2.2Grammatical change in Romani
  • 3.Sources
    • 3.1Balogh Jancsi
    • 3.2Balogh Ferkó and Pusztai Sarolta
    • 3.3Discussion of the sources
  • 4.Gender in Romani
  • 5.Gender in Ipolyság Romani
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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