Sinti culture, language & the origin of the name Django

Jazzaferri

Hmmmm....makes me wonder who and why they are angry.......what are some of them up to......don't want the police to know....fear and loathing appear to be still alive and well...

I don't believe anyone owns their language ..... They don't have to participate if they don't want, and that is their right, but by what right do they have to tell others what to do or what not to do, that doesn't harm any one else.

If they want a private language, go create their own individual one and share it only with the few they want.

dennis

as i said in my article, hate and paranoia are powerful among the oppressed. What's shocking to me in their statements is that if it is Roma romanes being taught it does not matter.. however they share common ancestry with the roma, and the roma have suffered equal amounts of persecution as the sinti.

Like I said, since i'm not sinti, i cannot begin to understand what they go through, and what their ancestors go through..

however, as a taiwanese born in canada, i cannot understand what it's like to be a true taiwanese, nor do i understand my parents' suffering other than what they have told me.

kevingcox

To be fair, they aren't just expressing concern about the police but also neo-nazis identifying them, their homes, families, and children. The recent rise of ultra-right wing groups in Europe is alarming, and systematic racism (including extermination) is barely two generations past. There lies the potential for real world danger there. Even if one is unaware of the political climate in Europe, one need look no further than recent events in Ferguson to acknowledge that.

I recall reading about the English invasion of Ireland and how the Irish were surprised at how much the English seemed to be in love with cataloguing everything. It is a type of power. The sinti might well be alarmed at how individuals sharing a tidbit or two has snowballed in this information age.

Here in North America mainstream culture tends to lionize individual freedom over group responsibility, but there are many cultures around the world where the group is supposed to come first and foremost before individual freedom of choice. Although that is not my value system, I can defnitely understand how individuals in such a minority group might well feel betrayed by others from the group who are sharing information and thus not upholding what they feel is part of their group's social contract.

As the old saying goes: two can keep a secret, as long as one of them is dead.

crookedpinky

Kevin makes some very valid points, particularly relevant in Europe and the United Kingdom at this point in time where immigrants of all types are being turned into the scapegoats for a lot of societies problems. Having close contact with some of a local gypsy community I understand their reticence to mix or to publicise their existence and to maintain their privacy and culture.

Buco

Regarding guarding the language, I think it might be a matter of people that have no official country to call their own so keeping something that's uniquely theirs within their circles becomes a matter of national pride.
Sort of like I can visit France but I can't just walk in and acquire the passport. Now replace the country with a language and it becomes something worth protecting.


What I wanted to ask though and I don't know if this has been asked before, is how the matter of spelling Django and then pronouncing it the way we do today played in the association with "I awake"? I read about different spellings and I remember someone commenting something like "I wanna know who's the one that first spelled Django that way?" But I don't remember any speculation as to how that might have affected the Django's name myth?
Do we know when he started introducing himself pronounced the way we do today? On some of the live recordings it's different as pointed out earlier. So when pronounced this was is there still any merit in the I awake theory? At the time these pronunciations were made Django was already famous so I'm guessing it wouldn't be the case of someone guessing how to pronounce his name.
There is a story, I'm not sure now if it's in this thread or elsewhere, about his mother saying how Jean is too simple and common and that she announced how they will call him Django right then and there.
If that's true would she have pronounced it in the way it would associate it with "I awake"?

Sorry, it's too early in the day, perhaps none of this makes sense.

Buco

kevingcox

I think you might be placing too much importance on "the way we pronounce it today." I am not sure how many people here speak more than one language, but I do and I have friends whose names I pronounce differently depending on which language I am speaking at the time. When you are speaking another language you just hold your mouth differently and different sounds come more easily.

I would probably find it strange and pretentious for an Anglophone to be speaking to me in English and then drop the "Jeangot" pronunciation, but if someone were speaking to me in French and did the same I would not even notice. Certain individuals might have a preference (maybe they think it sounds cool) and French people who are talking to Anglos in English might subconsciously just choose the English way to say it at that moment, just like I do with my friend Manon: m'KNOW for English, Mah-Non in French. Sorry, I don't know any international pronunciation signs... just trust me, they're different :-)

Buco

I get that.
What I'm wondering, the theory is Django=I awake
Is it way it's spelled and it resembles the common spelling in Romanes for "I awake" or the way it's pronounced and it resembles the way "I awake" is pronounced in Romanes?
Maybe I need to read an article again ?

Jazzaferri

I hear most people up here pronouce it ..... JANGO....with the a like in hAt

I pronounce it the more like Jeangot.... With the a more like in yAwn but not quite so awww sounding, and a soft J not a hard one.

I

dennis

re: pronunciation, it s very funny... i agree that it personally sounds pretentious when someone purposely pronounces a foreign word the "right way" just to show u that he can pronounce it ythat way... i think it s in the intent... but that said, there some things i pronounce the "right" way and other things i pronounce in the language that i use...

in quebec french, people say "partay" to mean party instead of the word "fêtes" or "soirée", i simply cannot bring myself to say "partay"!

"stochelo rosenberg", most english speaking people say Stotchelow or stoke-ello.. but i find myself switching between the latter and the real pronunciation when speaking english.

"wegen" picks, english speakers say, way-gehn. i say that too, knowing full well that the real pronunciation is closer to "vay-ruh"

the dutch gipsy fijkeli prisor (perfect example of a gypsy who s had his name spelled so many ways), his name is pronounced fag-elli ... i remember django in june regular michel st pierre telling me he was a huuuge fan of Fidge Kelly, i was like "whooooo?!"

i always struggle woth words like tempo.. i always wonder in the back of my mind if i should say tempos in plural. knowing full well that plural is actually tempi.. or guitar solos.. but it should be guitar soli.. it s the same thing in romanes, plural of gadjo is gadje, that s one instance where i say it right and i have corrected people who used to say gadjos...

in in the emd i think everyone is different and as long as we re not trying to show offf or make ourselves look superior, it s all good hahaha

kevingcox

Does anyone else remember the old SNL skit where all the journalists doing the news are totally over-pronouncing all the names of South American countries and international figures? Good times.