Sinti culture, language & the origin of the name Django

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Sinti culture, language & the origin of the name Django

by Denis Chang PREFACE Greetings dear readers. If you are reading this, then you are probably interested in the music of Django Reinhardt, or perhaps, interested in Romani culture. This article is about Sinti culture, Sinti language, and the origin of the name Django. Before I begin, I would...

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MichaelHorowitz

An in-depth look at Romanes and the origin of Django's name, nice work Denis! :-B

Al Watsky

Denis "you da man" !

JSanta

Thank you again Denis for your contributions to this forum and to our understanding in the culture and music we all very much enjoy!

Bob Holo

Nice one bro! I'll have to get to a computer to read it - the print on a phone screen is too small for lengthy reading.

Jazzaferri

Wow, what an article Dennis. Though I think you were over kind in leaving the name thing as open as you did......I agree with your line of thinking....not that I am any expert or even near expert....but to me that line of thinking makes more sense to me.

Jon

Great work Denis - very interesting reading. Thanks!

fea3

This is a big pile of words. I will digest them when I can. If you have more I will have them for dessert. Your menu is gourmet but my palette is not. Thanks for lunch!

klaatu

What I want to know is ... how do you say "Cookie Monster" in Romanes?

MacKeagan

Wo! Great job, Denis! It points up the great difficulties of human verbal communication versus written. Many of my fellow Yanks seem to have difficulty relating spoken (American) English to written English, and we have here all our regional dialects(the late Willard Espy's "Say It My Way" lays it all out). I started with compulsory French in school (K-8th grade), and then picked up a smattering of German, Spanish, and Russian. Now working on Irish Gaelic and Italian(the developers of the modern violin!). Looking at the differences/similarities of Scottish Gaelic and Irish, it is just as you have demonstrated with the various Sinti and Roma dialects--borrowed words, sound-alikes, and accents/spellings from neighboring languages. Gives us something to ponder on. Jean/Django, John/(I) awake--a play on words? Who knows? And the bit about having a nickname or alias, perhaps to confuse the authorities? Hey, we have to have some mystery in our lives. Now, I go to practice my BBC English speaking.

klaatu

It's curious that the Romanes word for outsiders ("gadje") is so similar to the Japanese word ("gaijin"). Probably a coincidence, but interesting nonetheless.