Romani Language and Translation

Romani Language and Translation is a three-day public workshop focusing on Romani language and culture through the perspective of translation. The workshop will lay the foundation for development of a practical handbook on translation in diverse Romani contexts.

The questions that will be explored include:

• What are the unique features of the Romani language and its dialects?
• What strategies do translators use when dealing with idioms and style?
• How can translators manage terms, neologisms and lexical adoptions?
• How do dictionaries, grammars, and corpora serve as a translator’s toolkit?
• In what ways can translation support Romani language maintenance and intergenerational transmission?

Free and open to the public but registration is required.

Dr. Ian F. Hancock, FRSA, OBE is Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), where he has been a faculty member in the Departments of English and Linguistics for 50 years. He founded Romani Studies at UT as well as the Romani Archives and Documentation Center, the most extensive collection of documents related to Romani Studies in the world. He was awarded the Gamaliel Chair in Peace and Justice and the Rafto Foundation's International Prize for Human Rights. He is former Romani representative to the United Nations in New York and Geneva, and White House appointee for Roma to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, as well as State Commissioner on the Texas State Holocaust and Genocide Commission.

Dr. Hristo Kyuchukov is a professor in Romani Language at the Roma Research Centre of the University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland and a specialist in the field of Romani psycholinguistics and education of Roma children in Europe. In the 1990s, Kyuchukov introduced Romani language education to primary and secondary school children in Bulgaria as well as university-level programs on Romani language education in Bulgaria and Slovakia. He is also the author of numerous scientific publications and children's books.

Dr. Hedina Tahirović-Sijerčić is editor and contributing author of Rade Uhlik – Rromane paramiča / Romske priče / Zbirka I (2020) and author of Language and Literature of Roma in the Western Balkans: Poetry in Self-translation (2019) and Romani čhib: An Overview of Romani Language and Culture (2019). She is also the author of Romani Dictionary: Gurbeti-English / English-Gurbeti (2011/13), an autobiographical novella Rom like thunder (2011), Romani-Bosnian and Bosnian-Romani dictionary (2010), folk tales, six children’s books, poetry collections and many academic papers. In addition to teaching classes on Romani language, literature and culture of Roma, she was a member (2014-2020) of the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) for Bosnia and Herzegovina at the Council of Europe.

Schedule

Day 1: Thursday, October 14, 2021

Day 2: Friday, October 15, 2021

Day 3: Saturday, October 16, 2021

This event is the first of a series of three annual events organized by the Jean Monnet 2020-2023 Chair “Multiple Roles of Translation in Minority Multilingual Romani Contexts (ROMTRA),” supported by the European Commission and Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

About the Jean Monnet Chair
The Jean Monnet Chair “Multiple Roles of Translation in Minority Multilingual Romani Contexts” (ROMTRA) at Concordia University provides a focal point for teaching, research, and public discussion about translation practices and policies in the context of minoritized, transnational groups within the European Union (EU).