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Erromintxela (Basque pronunciation:[eromintʃela]^ⓘ) is the distinctive language of a group ofRomani living in theBasque Country, who also go by the name Erromintxela. It is sometimes calledBasque Caló^[2] orErrumantxela^[3] inEnglish;caló vasco, romaní vasco, orerrominchela inSpanish; andeuskado-rromani^[4] oreuskado-romani^[5] in French. Although detailed accounts of the language date to the end of the 19th century, linguistic research began only in the 1990s.

The Erromintxela are the descendants of a 15th-century wave ofKalderash Roma, who entered the Basque Country via France.^[6] Both ethnically and linguistically, they are distinct from theCaló-speakingRomani people in Spain and theCascarotRomani people of theNorthern Basque Country. Erromintxela is amixed language (referred to asPara-Romani inRomani linguistics^[3]), deriving most of its vocabulary fromKalderash Romani but usingBasque grammar, similar to the way theAngloromani language of the Roma in England mixes Romani vocabulary and English grammar. The development of the mixed language was facilitated by the unusually deep integration of the Erromintxela people into Basque society and the resultant bilingualism in Basque. The language is in decline; most of the perhaps 1000 remaining speakers live on the coast ofLabourd and in the mountainous regions ofSoule,Navarre,Gipuzkoa andBiscay.^[7]

The origin of the name Erromintxela is unclear and may be of relatively recent origin; Basque speakers had previously grouped the Erromintxela under more general terms for Romani such asijitoak "Egyptians",ungrianok "Hungarians", orbuhameak "Bohemians".^[1] However, a number of authors believe it to be a Basque rendering of the French nameromanichel orromané-michel,^[3][8] a name attested primarily in the vicinity of thePyrenees and in particular theNorthern Basque Country.^[8]Romanichel is in turn a French rendering of the Romani phraseRomani čel "Romani person".^[9] Though now uncommon in France, it is found in the names of the BritishRòmanichal^[10] and theScandinavianRomanisæl, all descendants, like the Erromintxela, of a group of Roma who had migrated to France.^[11]

Early attestations of the name in Basque includeErrama-itçéla, Erroumancel,^[8][12] latererrumanzel anderremaitzela.^[13] The initiale- is the Basqueprosthetic vowel,^[8] which was added at a time that no Basque word was allowed to begin with anr-. The final-a is theabsolutive case suffix, which is used when citing a name. If that etymology is correct, it is a rare case of a native Romani name for themselves (anendonym) being borrowed by another language.

The people identify themselves asijitoak, Basque for "gypsies", but more specifically as Erromintxela, in contrast to the Caló Romani,^[14] whom they refer to as thexango-gorriak, Basque for "red-legs".^[1][7]

There are currently an estimated 500 speakers in theSouthern Basque Country in Spain, approximately 2% of a population of 21,000Romanis, and another estimated 500 in France.^[1] In Spain the remaining fluent speakers are elderly people mostly over the age of 80; some are equally fluent in Spanish, Basque, orCaló. Middle-aged Erromintxela are mostlypassive bilinguals, and the youngest speak only Basque or Spanish. In the Northern Basque Country, however, the language is still being passed on to children.^[7] The percentage of speakers among Spanish Erromintxela are higher than 2%, as large numbers of Caló-speaking Romanis moved to the Basque Country in the intense period ofindustrialisation in the 20th century.^[15]

To date, there has been little literary production in the language. The most notable works are a poem byJon Mirande entitled "Kama-goli" in his 1997anthologyOrhoituz^[16] and the 1999 novelAgirre zaharraren kartzelaldi berriak by Koldo Izagirre Urreaga with the main character using the language.^[17]

The Erromintxela arrived in the Basque Country in the 15th century speaking Kalderash Romani. They integrated much more deeply into Basque society than other Romani groups. In the process, they acquired the Basque language and adopted aspects of Basque culture such as increased rights of women and important traditions such asbertsolaritza (extemporaneous poetic song) andpelota (the national Basque ballgame).^[6][14] Muñoz and Lopez de Mungia suspect that the morphological and phonological similarities between Romani and Basque facilitated the adoption of Basque grammar by the bilingual Romanis.^[6]

It appears that many Romanis chose to stay in the Basque Country to escape persecution elsewhere in Europe.^[6][15] Nonetheless, even here they were not safe from persecution. For example, theRoyal Council of Navarre in 1602 passed an edict to round up all "vagabonds" (meaning Romani), who were to be condemned to 6 years ofgalley duty.^[13] By the 18th century however attitudes had changed, and the emphasis shifted towards integration. In 1780–1781 the Courts of Navarre passed Law 23, which called for "the authorities to take care of them, find them locations for settlement and honest occupations and ways of living..."^[13]

The oldest account of the language dates to 1855, when the Frenchethnographer Justin Cenac-Moncaut located the Erromintxela primarily in the Northern Basque Country. The oldest coherent Erromintxela text, a poem entitledKama-goli, published by Basque writerJon Mirande in a collection of Basque poetry, only dates to ca. 1960.^[18]

Alexandre Baudrimont's 40-page studyVocabulaire de la langue des Bohémiens habitant les pays basques français of 1862, the most extensive of the early accounts, covers both vocabulary and aspects of grammar. He worked with two female informants, a mother and her daughter from theUhart-Mixe area nearSaint-Palais, whom he describes as highly fluent. Unfortunately, he was only able to conduct a single session as the women were then told not to cooperate further for the fear of outsiders prying into the secrets of the Romani.^[19] There is a certain degree of confusion in Baudrimont's publication—he himself states that he could not always be certain the correct forms were elicited. For example, most of the verb forms he tried to elicit lack the verbal-tu ending and appear to beparticiples.^[19]

The Frenchsociologist Victor de Rochas refers to the Romani in the Northern Basque Country speaking Basque, rather than French, in his 1876Les Parias de France et d'Espagne (cagots et bohémiens). TheCanon Jean-Baptiste Daranatz published a wordlist in the periodicalEskualdun Ona in 1906^[20] and in 1921 Berraondo and Oyarbide carried out some research.^[7] Although labelledgitano (Spanish for 'gypsy') orbohémien / gitan (French for 'gypsy'), some data can also be found inAzkue's 1905 dictionary andPierre Lhande's 1926 dictionary, both of which list a number of words identifiable as Erromintxela.^[7]

Little more was done until the late 20th century. In 1986Federico Krutwig published a short article in theRevista Internacional de Estudios Vascos entitled "Los gitanos vascos", with a short word list and a brief analysis of the language's morphology.^[21] However, the most detailed research to date was carried out by Basquephilologist Josune Muñoz andhistorian Elias Lopez de Mungia, who began their work in the Southern Basque Country in 1996 at the behest of the Romani organisationKalé Dor Kayiko, with support from theEuskaltzaindia and theUniversity of the Basque Country.^[7] Kalé Dor Kayiko, who had been working to promote the Romani language, was alerted to the existence of Erromintxela in the 1990s through an article by the historian Alizia Stürtze,Agotak, juduak eta ijitoak Euskal Herrian "Agotes, Jews, and Gypsies in the Basque Country".^[6] Kalé Dor Kayiko intends to continue research into the language, attitudes, identity, and history of the Erromintxela people in the less well researched provinces ofNavarre and the Northern Basque Country.^[6]

The research by Muñoz and Lopez de Mungia has confirmed that Erromintxela is not derived fromCaló, the mixed Spanish-Romani language spoken throughout Spain, but is instead based on Kalderash Romani and the Basque language.^[7] The vocabulary appears to be almost exclusively Romani in origin; the grammar however, both morphology and syntax, derives from various Basque dialects.^[7] Few traces appear to remain of Romani grammatical structures.^[6] The language is incomprehensible to speakers of both Basque and of Caló.^[7]

Typologically, Erromintxela displays the same features as the Basque dialects it derives its grammatical structures from. Its case marking follows theergative–absolutive pattern where the subject of anintransitive verb is in theabsolutive case (which is unmarked), the same case being used for thedirect object of atransitive verb. The subject of a transitive verb is marked with theergative case. Similarly,auxiliary verbs agree with the subject and any direct object and indirect object present and verb forms are marked forallocutive (i.e. a marker is used to indicate the gender of the addressee).

Since both Erromintxela and Caló derive from Romani, many Erromintxela words are similar to Spanish Caló and Catalan Caló.

According to Baudrimont's description of 1862^[19] and modern southern sources, Erromintxela appears to have, at maximum, the sound system below. Southern speakers appear not to have the rounded vowel/y/ or the consonant/θ/, in line with north–south differences in Basque, and it is not clear if the northern distinction between/ɡ/ and/ɣ/ also exists in the south.

Baudrimont uses a semi-phonetic system with the following diverging conventions:

Examples of morphological features in Erromintxela:^{[1][6][18][21][23]}

Most verbs have a Romani root plus the Basque verb forming suffix-tu. Examples of Erromintxela verbs are given below.^[1][18][21] (Forms given in angle brackets indicate spellings in the sources which are no longer in use. Basque is included for comparison.)

Most Erromintxela verbal inflections are virtually identical to those found in Basque dialects:

Negations are formed withna/nagi^[20][21] (Romanina/níči); cf Basqueez/ezetz. The word for "yes" isua^[20] (Romaniva); cf Basquebai/baietz.

The majority of nouns have Romani roots, but frequently attested with Basque suffixes. The variation of nouns cited with or without a final-a is likely due to informants supplying them with or without theabsolutive ending. (Forms given in angle brackets indicate spellings in the sources which are no longer in use.)

According to Baudrimot, the Erromintxela have adopted the Basque names of the months. Note that some of the Basque names represent pre-standardisation names of the months, e.g. August isAbuztua inStandard Basque rather thanAgorrila.

Baudrimont claims that subdivisions of the year (apart from the months) are formed with the wordbreja (bréχa) "year":breja kinua "month" andbreja kipia "week".^[19]

Numerals (Basque included for contrasting purposes):^[1][18][21]

Adjectives and adverbs are also mostly derived from Romani forms:^[1][18][21]

Pronouns are derived from both languages:^[18][21]

Much of Baudrimont's wordlist is easily related to other Erromintxela sources. However, some of the material collected by Baudrimont deserves a more detailed overview due to its peculiarities. Most of these relate to the verbs and verb forms he collected but some include nouns and other items.

His material contains a relatively high number of Basque-derived items.

Certain items are peculiar. Baudrimont listsmintxa as "tooth". The Kalderash term isdand (daní in Caló) but the term given is immediately more reminiscent of Northern Basquemintzo "speech" ormintza "skin" (withexpressive palatalization). This, and other similar items, raise the question of whether Baudrimont was simply pointing at items to elicit forms.

The forms he attempted to elicit are questionable in some cases as well. For example, he attempted to agricultural terms such asplough,harrow andaftermath from his (female) informants and records the suspiciously similarsasta "plough" andxatxa (shatsha) "harrow".

The verb systems and pronouns recorded by Baudrimont is peculiar in several ways. Apart from his problem of eliciting the citation form of verbs as opposed to participles, he lists pronouns and possessive pronouns that appear to contain Romani roots and an unexpected auxiliary.

The verbajin for "to have" attested elsewhere although Basque derived forms appear more common overall. Kalderash Romani employs the 3rd person of "to be" and a dative pronoun to express ownership:

¹Note that forms likeduk (3rd pers-have-2nd per (male)) are the verbal part whereas Erromintxelatuk is a pronoun.

The negative particlena is fairly clear in the forms above.Buter, as Baudrimont notes, is the word for "much, many" and may not be a true pronoun. Kalderash uses theaccusative pronouns to express possession but the forms above are more reminiscent of wrongly parsed Kalderash dative formsmangé, tuké, léske, léke etc. and perhaps a different case of "to be" (the full Kalderash paradigm beingsim, san, si, si, sam, san/sen, si).

On the whole, it raises questions about the level of communication between Baudrimont and his informants and the quality of (some of the) material elicited.

Examples withinterlinear versions (lexical items of Romani origin marked in bold):

• Baudrimont, A. (1862)Vocabulaire de la langue des Bohémiens habitant les Pays Basque Français Academie Impérial des Sciences,Bordeaux
• Berraondo, R. (1921)La euskera de los gitanos inEuskalerriaren Alde - Revista de Cultura Vasca
• Macritchie, D. (1886)Accounts Of The Gypsies Of India New Society Publications,New Delhi; 2007 ReprintISBN 978-1-4067-5005-8
• Michel, F. (1857)Le Pays Basque Paris

• Kalé Dor Kayiko
• Full version of the Erromintxela poem with Basque translation
• Gitano in the Spanish-languageAuñamendia Encyclopedia.

• Languages of Spain
• Languages of France
• Kalderash
• Basque language
• Romani in France
• Romani in Spain
• Basque-based pidgins and creoles
• Para-Romani

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