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Workshops & seminars

Romani Language and Translation

Part of Concordia’s Jean Monnet Chair


Date & time
Thursday, October 14, 2021 –
Saturday, October 16, 2021
7:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Registration is closed

Speaker(s)

Dr. Ian F. Hancock, FRSA, OBE; Dr. Hristo Kyuchukov and Dr. Hedina Tahirović-Sijerčić

Cost

This event is free

Organization

Jean Monnet Chair

Contact

ROMTRA

Where

Online

Brick homes at dusk with lights on in the windows and one street lamp illuminated. Photo by Olivier Depaep on Unsplash

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.

Speakers

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

13:30 CEST | 7:30 EDT  Welcome remarks - Dr. Patrick Leroux, Dr. Philippe Caignon
13:45 CEST | 7:45 EDT  Opening remarks, workshop goals moderator guidelines - Dr. Debbie Folaron
14:00 CEST | 8:00 EDT  Presentation 1: History of the Romani language and dialectal diversity - Dr. Ian Hancock
14:40 CEST | 8:40 EDT  Public Q&A
15:00 CEST | 9:00 EDT  Presentation 2: Contemporary situation of the Romani language - Dr. Hristo Kyuchukov
15:40 CEST | 9:40 EDT  Public Q&A
16:00 CEST | 10:00 EDT  Break
16:20 CEST | 10:20 EDT  Presentation 3: Working with Romani translators, consultants, and revisers - Dr. Hedina Sijerčić
17:00 CEST | 11:00 EDT  Public Q&A
17:20 CEST | 11:20 EDT  Presentation 4: Roma writing in Romani: stylistic differences - Dr. Hristo Kyuchukov
18:00 CEST | 12:00 EDT  Public Q&A
18:20 CEST | 12:20 EDT  Plenary discussion with speakers
19:30 CEST | 13:30 EDT  Closing remarks for the day

Day 2: Friday, October 15, 2021

13:45 CEST | 7:45 EDT  Welcome
14:00 CEST | 8:00 EDT  Presentation 5: Translation into Romani: education, media, government - Dr. Hristo Kyuchukov
14:40 CEST | 8:40 EDT  Public Q&A
15:00 CEST | 9:00 EDT  Presentation 6: Romani language maintenance and transmission strategies - Dr. Ian Hancock 
15:40 CEST | 9:40 EDT  Public Q&A
16:00 CEST | 10:00 EDT  Break
16:20 CEST | 10:20 EDT  Presentation 7: Skills, knowledge and resources for Romani translators - Dr. Hedina Sijerčić
17:00 CEST | 11:00 EDT  Public Q&A
17:20 CEST | 11:20 EDT Presentation 8: A Romani translator ‘toolkit’: dictionaries, grammars, and options for handling terminology during translation - Dr. Ian Hancock 
18:00 CEST | 12:00 EDT  Public Q&A
18:20 CEST | 12:20 EDT  Plenary discussion with speakers
19:30 CEST | 13:30 EDT  Closing remarks for the day

Day 3: Saturday, October 16, 2021

14:45 CEST | 8:45 EDT  Welcome
15:00 CEST | 9:00 EDT  Plenary discussion: Workshop takeaways and outcomes
15:30 CEST | 9:30 EDT  Public discussion
16:00 CEST | 10:00 EDT  Romani translation reading: Selected reading(s) in Romani and in English translation
17:00 CEST | 11:00 EDT  Concluding remarks

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).

With the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union
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