ON THE VITALITY AND ENDANGERMENT OF THE ROMANI LANGUAGE IN SLOVAKIA

Linguists expect that 90 ̶ 95% of 6,000 ̶ 7,000 languages worldwide may vanish in the course of this century, which may also lead to a loss of the unique identities, cultures, and traditions that these languages embody. According to criteria proposed by a UNESCO commission, various languages face different degrees of endangerment at present. The Romani language is classified as ‘definitely endangered’, which is Degree 3 in the UNESCO’s classification system. The present article will focus on a detailed evaluation of the general socio-linguistic situation of the Romani language in Slovakia, its causes and consequences, which contribute to its level of endangerment and which have led linguists to classify the language as definitely endangered. The article will be framed mainly by a consideration of the factors as defined by a study drafted by the above mentioned UNESCO commission, namely intergenerational language transmission, absolute number of speakers, proportion of speakers within the total population, trends in existing language domains, response to new domains and media, materials for language education and literacy, governmental and institutional attitudes and policies, including official status and use, and community members’ attitudes toward their own language. We will draw on published materials on the status and use of the Romani language in Slovakia as well as on the results of the field research that we conducted in 2015 by means of individual semi-structured interviews.