Tarish language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tarish Language is spoken by an itenerent Romanichal community called the Tarish(1). It contains lexical borrowings from Spanish. Americans often confuse Tarish with Spanglish. It is described by Bishop Saucer as a dialect of Shelta(2) which, according to Professor MacAlister, is the collective name for a group of artificial languages created by displaced English Monks for use by their intenerent hosts.(3) Tarish is best described as a dialect of Angloromani because it is used by the Romanichal (English Gypsies) while the term Shelta is associated more often with languages spoken by the Irish Traveers who are not Gypsies.

[edit] Grammar

Concerning Angloromani, the Ethnologue(4) wrote:

The grammar is basically English with heavy Romani lexical borrowing. Many dialects. It has been spoken in the United Kingdom for 500 years. . 'The Romanichal population must be considered as being more actively determined to retain the ethnic language than some other British minorities.' (I. Hancock).

The Romanichal in England refer to their language as 'Romany' not Tarish. Occasionally they may use 'Romanichal' as well eg. "Mandi rokkers Romanichal"

[edit] References

1. Tarish Church Foundation
2. Saucer, Patrick R. Bishop. 1999. The Children of Wisdom.
3. MacAlister. The Secret Languages of Ireland.
4. Ethnologue's Entry for Angloromani