# Slovenian / Slovak / Romani (?): Andro verdan drukos nane



## Saltie

Hi!
This song originates from Slovenian Romanies (at least, that's what I read about it), and it became famous due to the Soviet film "The gypsy camp goes to heaven". I could not find any reliable information about the language it's written in, and Google can't translate it at all. Some say it's Slovenian Romani, some say it's Slovenian, and some say it's Slovak.

_*Andro verdan drukos nane,
man pirani šukar nane,
Loľi phabaj prečinavaj, *
[hop, hop, hop]
* jepaš tuke, jepaš mange *
[hop, hop, hop]_

Which language is it?


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## Encolpius

Hello, it is Central European Romani.

_*Andro verdan drukos náne, - there is no "drukos" (I do not know what it is) in my coach
man piráni šukar náne, - I haven't got any pretty girlfriend
Loľi phábaj prečinavaj,  - I cut the red apple*
[hop, hop, hop]
* jepaš tuke, jepaš mange - one half for me, one half for you*
[hop, hop, hop]_


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## Saltie

Thanks a lot, Encolpius! From the translations I've come across, "drukos" should mean "bottom". Probably it's a rare dialectical word (or maybe this word is Slovenian, not Romani?) (There is no bottom in my coach). I saw other versions of this text that have "grundos" instead of "drukos".
On the other hand, there is a similar word in Serbo-Croatian - 'drug', meaning 'friend', I'm not sure about its declension in Romani, but then it might mean 'there is no friend in my coach'. By the way , the word 'drug'  means 'friend' in Russian too. Probably, I'm the first man suggesting this translation


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## francisgranada

An other suggestion: _drúk _in Slovak means _snag_, _tree stump ..._


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## Saltie

Then it is... 'My coach has no snags?' It's really a difficult song to translate.


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## cHr0mChIk

"Drukos" means either a "stem" or a "beam" in East Slovak Romani.


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## Saltie

cHr0mChIk said:


> "Drukos" means either a "stem" ...


Hmm... Then I've got another idea. Probably it could also mean a 'shaft' for a horse (one of a pair of poles between which a horse is tied to pull a coach)? Or should we understand it here as [the main part of] the frame of a coach?


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## francisgranada

Well, I don't speak Romani, however this language does interest me from the linguistic point of view. As  to our present discussion, I should exclude "drug" as "friend" ... This is not a term that is typically borrowed from an other language, furthermore I can't see no reason why "drug" should become "druk". Of course, everything is possible ...


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## cHr0mChIk

Saltie said:


> Hmm... Then I've got another idea. Probably it could also mean a 'shaft' for a horse (one of a pair of poles between which a horse is tied to pull a coach)? Or should we understand it here as [the main part of] the frame of a coach?



Hmm.. I don't know... possibly... It could mean either of them, I suppose...

I don't know man, I am a speaker of Romani, but Balkan Romani, and these Central dialects just sound so weird to me.. hehe
It sounds like some foreigners are speaking some foreign language, with some Romani words here and there...
When it's in the written form, I guess I can understand a lot.. but still there are some strange words I don't get...

"andro" means "on" or "upon"... "verdan" is a cart / coach.. we call it "kočija".. alternatively "vorda" or "vordan" I guess...
no clue about what would be our equivalent of "drukos"... also we don't have words ending with -s at all, so that also sounds so foreign to me... it sounds so Greek...

"man pirani šukar nane" = literally: "to me, partner/lover isn't beautiful"
these words are all understandable except for "pirani"... I don't even know where it comes from...
Here, we would use the word "čhaje" instead of it... (it just means "girl")...

"I cut the red apple" - we'd say "me čhingjum i loli phabaj"
"half to you, half to me" = "ekvaš tuke, ekvaš mange"


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## francisgranada

cHr0mChIk said:


> ... also we don't have words ending with -s at all, so that also sounds so foreign to me... it sounds so Greek...


Instead, in the Carpathian Romani (spoken e.g. in Slovakia) the ending _-s_ is typical in case of masculine substantives in the so called "indirect case" (e.g. _romes, _nominative _rom_), but also in the nominative case of words of foreign origin (e.g. _dochtoris, orvošis_ [< Hung. _orvos_]  = doctor, medician; _televizoris_= a TV set, etc ...)


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## cHr0mChIk

francisgranada said:


> Instead, in the Carpathian Romani (spoken e.g. in Slovakia) the ending _-s_ is typical in case of masculine substantives in the so called "indirect case" (e.g. _romes, _nominative _rom_), but also in the nominative case of words of foreign origin (e.g. _dochtoris, orvošis_ [< Hung. _orvos_]  = doctor, medician; _televizoris_= a TV set, etc ...)



Yes, I am familiar with these dialects from the grammatical point of view. However, we do not have any words ending with -s. Perhaps there was a sound change which resulted in the loss of the final s.

In other dialects "day" is "dives", however, we say "dive".
"city" = "foros", but we say "foro".
etc.

Also words of foreign origin, as you have already mentioned, have the -s suffix, however, we just say them doktori, televizori, etc.

The words which are in the "indirect" (AKA "oblique") case, for us just end with "e". E.g. "romane" and not "romanes".. etc.

There is also an another set of nouns, which are built from verbs/adjectives or other nouns, which has an -imos suffix.
Such as the words "kamlimos" (love - from the verb _kamel _- "to love"); "sastimos" (health - from the adjective _sasto _- "healthy"), brotimos (friendship - from the verb _brotil _- "to befrend"), xoxaimos (lying - from the verb _xoxavel _- "to lie"), etc.

However, instead of the suffix "-imos", we use "-pe", so in our dialect, it would be:
 "mangipe" (from _mangel_), "kam(l)ipe" (from _kamel_), "sastipe" (from _sasto_), "amalipe" (from _amal_), "xoxajpe/hovajpe/hovajbe" (from _xoxavel/hovavel_).

Here, we only use the "-pe" suffix for such formations, however, other dialects seem to use both.

Another case of final -s is in 2nd person singular present tense:
tu dikhes (you see) - instead, in our dialect, it's: "tu dikheja"
tu manges (you want/love) - we say "tu mangeja" instead, etc.


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## csicska

This site offers a translation from a Romani teacher:


> Ve voze není oj, já nemám hezkou milou, vezmu červené jablíčko a rozpůlím. Půlku dám mé milé, půlku sobě


Someone who speaks Czech perfectly would need to translate it though.


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## francisgranada

csicska said:


> This site offers a translation from a Romani teacher: "Ve voze není oj, já nemám hezkou milou, vezmu červené jablíčko a rozpůlím. Půlku dám mé milé, půlku sobě"


This seems to confirm my suggestion (post #4) ... 





cHr0mChIk said:


> ... Perhaps there was a sound change which resulted in the loss of the final s.


It's almost sure. First I have encountered the Romani grammar in the  _Pallas Nagy Lexikona_ (a Hungarian analogy of the _Encyclopaedia Brittanica_):  there is a quite comprehensive and detailed passage about the Romani language, comparing various variants of Romani (including grammar and lexicon), namely dialects of the early 19th century spoken in the Hungarian Kingdom.  Later, I had the possibility to read other literature, as well.

Well, the substance is that according to my "investigations" this final _-s_ seems to be an  original Indo-European feature, both in case of  the nominal declension (_romes, romanes, dives, ..._) and in case of the 2nd person sg. of verbs (tu _dikhes, kames, keres, šunes, etc _....).

Of course, this doesn't answer the question what "drukos" means, but the ending_ -os_ seems to me etymological in Romani.


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## Saltie

francisgranada said:


> This seems to confirm my suggestion (post #4) ...


And mine in post 7#
oj
pole (the one which connects a vehicle with a cargo) (oj - Wiktionary)


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## Saltie

As for this line:
_'man pirani šukar nane,'_
it must be 'piramni', not 'pirani', which can be found in Russian Romani-Russian dictionaries as 'girlfriend', 'bride' etc.
I found another translation of this line from a Russian Romani, she says it means "There is no girl (or girlfriend) more beautiful than me". She says that '_šukar' is a shortened form of comparative which is used in poetry. I'm not sure if she's correct._
PS
This song made me get a Romani language self-taught book, I hope I have time to read it.


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## cHr0mChIk

csicska said:


> This site offers a translation from a Romani teacher:
> 
> Someone who speaks Czech perfectly would need to translate it though.



I am actually a Slovak, so I can translate it:

"There's no pole in the cart/coach,
I don't have a beautiful darling,
I will take a red apple and split it in half,
I will give the half to my dear, and half to myself."



Saltie said:


> As for this line:
> _'man pirani šukar nane,'_
> it must be 'piramni', not 'pirani', which can be found in Russian Romani-Russian dictionaries as 'girlfriend', 'bride' etc.



As for this, it actually is 'pirani'. Pirani is correct, however, the form piramni indeed appears as well in some dialects. This word varies across the dialects:
 pirani / piraani / piranyi / pirauni / piramni... etc. The first form (pirani) is the most common, although I believe the form with an "m" might be the oldest,
since it reminds me a little of the Romani word for a woman: "řomni" - they could be etymologically connected.



Saltie said:


> I found another translation of this line from a Russian Romani, she says it means "There is no girl (or girlfriend) more beautiful than me". She says that '_šukar' is a shortened form of comparative which is used in poetry. I'm not sure if she's correct._



"Šukar"  is a common word all across the Romani world - although originally, and archaically it means something "bright" - in modern Romani it signifies something "pleasant" / "beautiful" / "nice". Anyway, in our Balkan dialects, the word is used also with the meaning "good", and as for confirmation (such as the English "sure" or "okay").

That sentence simply means "to me, there is no beautiful girlfriend/lover"  - it could be interpreted as "I don't have a beautiful lover" or "My lover isn't beautiful" - I guess that the 1st interpretation is more likely.


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