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MARCEL COURTHIADE"S MISTAKES; THE -IMOS SUFFIX IS

INHERITED FROM INDIA IN ROMANI LANGUAGE!

Autor: Marian Nuţu Cârpaci Publicat în: Ediţia nr. 2216 din 24 ianuarie 2017 Toate Articolele Autorului

M. Marcel Courthiade is a non-Rom professor of the Romani language at

the Sorbonne, INALCO. He developed a theory of strata of the Romani
dialects. In his opinion (which has become an international dogma), dialects of
the Arli type take first place, while those of the Kalderash type take last place.
He based his analysis upon only 9 Romani words. He compared the 9 Romani
words without relating them to their original source (Indian languages, of
course). It is in such a manner that the best Romanian dialect was decided, by
comparing the dialects among themselves, without reference to Latin, for
instance. Even though the linguist Morris Swadesh, creator of
Glottochronology (a), developed a list (b) of 100 words (originally 215) which
represented the base vocabulary of all the languages of the world, M.
Courthiade compared 9 Romani words between themselves, with their
variants. In any case, the lexicon of the Romani language contains around
8000 words, about as many words as the Hebrew Bible.

List of criticisms of M. Courthiade:

1) "Phirdiom" – "I walked"

He did not choose the best verb. All serious linguists choose the verb “to
do”. If this verb were chosen, one would see that in India it is pronounced K R
(“do!”, imperative), exactly as the Kalderash Roma pronounce it (stratum III).
The Arli Roma say KER, a less frequent pronunciation in India. Thus, M.
Courthiade's theory is damaged. The pronunciation -diom versus -dem is not
conclusive, because in India, the conjugation of the verb “to do” is VO
K RDIYA - “he did”, just as the Kalderash Roma pronounce it. In India, the
pronunciation “ k rdea” also exists, but I will be discussing this in a future
article. In Hindi, the conjugation K RDIYA is used for the first, second and
third persons singular. Thus, Indians say: “me k rde(o)m” - “I did”, “ tu
k rdean” - “you did”, “vo/voi k rdia” - “he/she did”. In a following article, I
will show that the Roma inherited these forms of pronunciation and
conjugation from India.

2) -imos, the cornerstone, and bone - kokalo

The suffix -imo(s) has been the stumbling block for all linguists and
tsiganologists. They assumed that the Roma acquired it from Greece following
a long stay in the Byzantine Empire. A noun is constructed from an adjective
with this suffix: shukar – beautiful, shukarimos – beauty, alternatively
shukaripen. Or, mishto – well, mishtimos/mishtipen – kindness. M.
Courthiade and all the tsiganologists and professors assumed that the
Kalderash Roma acquired the suffix in Greece. Therefore, they placed the Arli-
type dialects in first place because the -ipen suffix is Indian. Even though Mr.
Gheorghe Sarau's book (1) gives no origin for the -ipen suffix; a book which
examines in detail the theory of strata developed by Marcel Courthiade.

But, because only those who seek may find, I have discovered that, in
fact, the suffix -imos has a Sanskrito-Prakrit origin. Had the tsiganologists
practised Yoga, they would have found that certain mystical Yogic powers (2)
use the suffix -ima, for example “lagh+ima” – “easiness”, (lokh+imo) in
Romani.

“Kokalo – bone” also thought to have been borrowed from Greek into
Romani, appears as “kagkala” in Sanskrit - “skeleton”:
http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?tinput=kaGkAla&direction = SE &
script = HK & link = yes & beginning = 0

A changing into O

In India, the final A changes to O. For example, in Hindi we find the

word “kala – black” (masc.); in Bengali this word takes the form “kalo –
black”, and this form (kalo) is used by the Roma. This explains the alteration
of the Sanskrit -ima form into the Romani -imo form. But Romani has
retained the Sanskrit -ima form in some cases, such as “patsima – opinion”.
 What M. Courthiade did not know was that the Kalderash Roma of
Caras-Severin use the suffixes -imos and -iben in parallel. The Kalderash
Roma say “hamos – food” and also “haben – food”. In this case, M.
Courthiade's theory is invalid. And there are tens of thousands of Kalderash
Roma who use the suffix -ben. But M. Courthiade did not know this, and
consequently (due to lack of interest or research), declared that the Arli-type
dialects were the most archaic. Moreover, the Lovara Roma also use the
suffixes -imo/-ipo in parallel.

The reference words with which M. Courthiade classified the Arli-type

dialects as the most archaic examples are incorrect. If one chooses the Hindi
word “pani” as the reference, why not choose the Hindi word with the
pronunciation “k rdiya – he did”, because almost everywhere in India it is
pronounced “kar”, not “ker”, as the Ursari Roma pronounce it, although in
some parts of India it is pronounced “ker”. In all linguistic works, the verb “to
do” is generally examined the most often; it is the most common example of
conjugation in all grammars of Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali and in comparative
Indo-European studies. We see that the Kalderash Roma use the suffix -ben,
although the Ursari Roma use the suffix -imos: it is not a matter of giving
preference to one group of Roma based only upon a certain suffix, nor on an -
imos suffix borrowed from Greece as M. Courthiade's table suggested. It would
have been better had the French researcher chosen the word “haben – food”,
but then it would have been clear to see that the Kalderash Roma use it, and
consequently, that the theory had cracks! The suffix -imo is not Greek but
Sanskrit, as we learn from the work of Mr. Madhusudan Mishra. Mr. Mishra
did not comment on Romani in his document, but we have found evidence
there that proved that the theory that the Romani -ibe suffix was more archaic,
to the disfavour of the -imo suffix, was incorrect.

Although Mr. Mishra (3) was not concerned with Romani, because the
latter is an Indian language, it is governed by the same grammatical principles.
Moreover, the Romani -imo suffix is considered by all linguists studying the
Romani language to be borrowed from Greek, thus suggesting that the groups
who use it are not speaking correctly. The discovery that the -imo suffix is
Indian is ours, based on the work of Mr. Mishra. With the help of Mr. Mishra's
work, I have discovered that the Romani suffixes -imo, -ibe, and -po are in fact
present in Sanskrit, in forms practically identical to those in Romani. The
Indian suffix -ana (in “khana” - food) is in fact analogous to the Indian suffixes
-ima, -pan and -po. In fact, the Romani word habe/habo/haipo/hamos -
“food”, is suffixed differently to the Indian word “khana”, but all the suffixes
are Indian, including -imos, not only the -iben and -ipen variants. The Lovari
Roma, for example, indiscriminately use haben, hamos, hamo, hapo! I would
be curious to know how M. Courthiade would classify the Lovari Roma.
Moreover, the work of Mr. Gheorghe Sarau, in which are cited M. Courthiade's
examples, does not state the geographical origins of the -ibe/-ipo suffixes. The
irony is that the -imo/-ima suffix is, if not the most ancient, for it is found in
Apabhramsha Prakrit, at least as ancient as suffixes in the -iben group.
Regarding the alteration of the final -a to -o (from the Prakrit suffix -ima), it
reminds us of the alteration of the alteration of the Hindi adjective “kala –
black” to “kalo” in Bengali, Nepali, Rajasthani and Romani. The Roma
sometimes pronounce the suffix -imo as -ima (rishima - “conflict”, in the
Crimean Roma dialect), just as in Sanskrit, and -imoh or -imas (feminine noun
“anklimasta” - “exit” in Gurbet dialect; “patsima” - “opinion” in Kalderash).

In Mr. Mishra's book about Apabhramsha Prakrit, we find for example

“vank+ima”, deformation. In Sanskrit, there is “vankra – crooked”, but in the
language of Nepal we find “bango – crooked”, deformed, just as in Romani.
For how many centuries must the Roma have remained in India for the
Sanskrit word “vankra” to have evolved into “bango” in Romani, just as in
modern Indian languages?

3) Elision of the -n. Pani, a masculine noun.

M. Courthiade decided that the dialects in which the word for “water”
takes the form “pani” were more archaic than those which use the form “pai”.
But in Sanskrit, this word takes the form पाय “paya” - “water” (4). What he
forgot to say was that both in Hindi and Romani, the noun “pani” has the
feminine ending (ni), but is masculine. In Romani, the masculine gender is
indicated by adding the definite article “o” and in Hindi, it is known by long
tradition (5). This phenomenon is considered as an exception in Hindi. In
Romani, it is also exceptional. The conclusion is that, despite the hundreds of
years that have elapsed since the exodus from India, the form of the word
“pani” - “water” has been retained as masculine, despite its feminine ending,
in both languages.
 The Romani language confirms it itself

It is not necessary to look to the Indian languages to demonstrate the

elision of the “n” in “pani/pai”. The Kalderash Roma name their language,
“Romani shib”, as “Roma'i shib”. The Kalderash Roma also say “harku'i” -
“copper”, in place of “harkuni”. Thus, the elision of the “n” is common. We
may suppose that the Roma prefer easier pronunciations, abandoning the
forms “khoni – tallow”, “kuni – elbow”, in favour of “khoi” and “kui”.

The comparative degree

M. Courthiade chose the forms po/mai. “Po” is of Slavic origin and “mai”
is Romanian. Examples: “mai mishto / po mishto” - “better”.

The only correct dialects are those which use -eder to express the
comparative degree: “mishteder” - “better”. This form is derived from the
Sanskrit comparative form “-tara”. M. Courthiade took no account of this
issue.

The definite articles

M. Courthiade did not manage to remember that all Romani dialects use
the Greek definite articles “o” and “i”. Therefore, the dialects which he
declared to be Stratum I are comparable to those of Stratum II or III. In
consequence, all the dialects are equal, because they use the same Greek
definite articles, just like the -imos suffix. But, as we have just shown, the -
imos suffix is also Indian.

The article (6) on the linguistic archaeology of the -imo suffix, in which it
was demonstrated that its origin is Indian and not Greek (Indo-European),
was published in the Yearbook of the General Society of Anthropology of
Prahova, no. 2/2017 under the title “The Roma people, the people of the
language. Aspects taken into account in attempting to establish a literary
language”, written by the current author.

1-Sar u, Gheorghe, 1997, Romii, India și limba romani, Bucureşti:

Kriterion.

2-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhi#Eight_primary_siddhis

3-Mishra, Madhusudan, 1992, A grammar of Apabhramsha, Delhi:

Vidyanidhi Prakashan Delhi.

4-
http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?tinput=pAya&direction=SE&script=HK&link
=yes&beginning=

5-https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hindi_Lessons/Lesson_4 : "But
exceptions exist. for e.g., the following end in -ī (-ee) but are masculine: पानी
(paanī) = water पक्षी (pakshī) = bird."

6- Marian Nuțu Cîrpaci, "Poporul rom, popor al limbii. Aspecte de luat în

seam în încerc rile de a stabili o limb literar " în Anuarul societ ții
prahovene de antropologie general , nr. 2/2017, Centrul jedețean de cultur
Prahova, Editura Mythos.

a-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottochronology

Glottochronology is a technique to calculate the temporal separation

between two dialects.

b-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swadesh_list

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Translated by Natalie Winter (Ivend), native Romanichal

speaker.
Referinţă Bibliografică:
Marcel Courthiade s mistakes; the -imos suffix is inherited from India in Romani language! /
Marian Nuţu Cârpaci : Confluenţe Literare, Ediţia nr. 2216, Anul VII, 24 ianuarie 2017.

Drepturi de Autor: Copyright © 2017 Marian Nuţu Cârpaci : Toate Drepturile Rezervate.
Utilizarea integrală sau parţială a articolului publicat este permisă numai cu acordul autorului.