Finnish Kalo language

Finnish Kalo
Finnish Kalo
kaalengo tšimb
Native to	Finland, Sweden
Native speakers	10,000 in Finland (2001 census); 1,700 in Sweden (2009)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Central Zone Romani Northern Romani Northwestern Romani Finnish Kalo; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	rmf
Glottolog	kalo1256

Finnish Kalo (kaalengo tšimb) is a language of the Romani language family (a subgroup of Indo-European) spoken by Finnish Kale. The language is related to but not mutually intelligible with Scandoromani or Angloromani.

Finnish Kalo has 6,000–10,000 speakers and many young people do not know the language. The majority of speakers are from older generations and about two-thirds of the Romanis in Finland still speak the language. There have been some revival efforts. Dictionaries and grammar books have been produced and some universities offer Finnish Kalo. Finnish Kalo has some similarities with the Romani languages in Hungary where stress is placed on the first syllable of the word. This may be related to the fact that both Finnish and Hungarian words have fixed word-initial stress, a feature that would have diffused to the Romani languages. Finnish Kalo has been taught in schools since the late 1980s and some courses were available in the 1970s.^[2]

Current situation[]

In 2012 only 30% of the 13,000 Romanis in Finland spoke Kalo fluently but about 50% could understand it. It is now uncommon for Kalo speakers to pass the language to children although there have been efforts made to revive it in recent years. There are language nests in Rovaniemi, and in Helsinki, Romani courses were established. In Finland, the municipalities can establish Romani courses if there is enough demand, though there have been problems due to a lack of resources.^[3]

Kalo in Finland

Alphabet[]

Notes[]

^ ^a ^b Finnish Kalo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Granqvist (2001)
^ Tuukkanen (2012)

References[]

Granqvist, Kimmo (2001). "Suomen romanikieli". Kielikello (in Finnish). Retrieved January 28, 2021.
Tuukkanen, Pia (April 10, 2012). "Romanikieli on vaarassa kadota". Yle Uutiset (in Finnish). Retrieved January 28, 2022.