# All Slavic languages: Roma loanwords



## Encolpius

Hello, do you know about any Gypsy loanwords in your language? Thanks.


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## DarkChild

I don't know of any but there probably are. I know vice versa there are manty loanwords.


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## Kartof

I'm pretty sure гадже (gadzhe), informal for boyfriend/girlfriend, is Roma in origin.


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## DenisBiH

There is lova (colloquial for "money").


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## Azori

Slovak:

*gadžo* = an ill-bred, uncouth, rude person

*love* = money

*dilino* = fool, dunce, blockhead

*čaja *= girl (the diminutive *čajočka* is fairly common, too)

*chalovať* = to eat

They're all rather colloquial / slang.


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## sesperxes

Dear foreros,

along with the Rom loanwords, could you indicate the use of Rom language in your own country? 
I'm writing from Spain: in everyday's Spanish  language  we use maybe 10-20 Rom loanwords (all of them related to the subculture of theft, prison, small business,  honour and folklore), but "our" Roms speak in Spanish, with more Rom words, but  the structure of sentences, conjugation, declensions are Spanish.


Thanks chavalé!


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## Tassos

Kartof said:


> I'm pretty sure гадже (gadzhe), informal for boyfriend/girlfriend, is Roma in origin.





Azori said:


> Slovak:
> *gadžo* = an ill-bred, uncouth, rude person



I was watching a documentary/reality show about a family of romani in America (specifically New York) and they use the word _gadze_ even when they speak English to refer to (lit.) "every person who isn't romani".


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## sesperxes

Tassos said:


> I was watching a documentary/reality show about a family of romani in America (specifically New York) and they use the word _gadze_ even when they speak English to refer to (lit.) "every person who isn't romani".



In Spain they use "gachó" in the same sense.


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## bibax

Probably the commonest Romani word in Czech is *čokl* (pejorative for dog).

Also *čorka* (theft) is common; *love* (money) is known, too. However they are rather argot words.


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## Christo Tamarin

sesperxes said:


> Tassos said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Kartof said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm pretty sure гадже (gadzhe), informal for boyfriend/girlfriend, is Roma in origin.
> 
> 
> 
> I was watching a documentary/reality show about a family of romani in America (specifically New York) and they use the word _gadze_ even when they speak English to refer to (lit.) "every person who isn't romani".
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> In Spain they use "gachó" in the same sense.
Click to expand...

I think gadzho(Masc.) and gadzhe(Fem.) are both used for "every person who isn't romani". This word (in Feminine) has been loaned into Bulgarian after a semantic shift. Anyway, this is a slang word in Bulgarian. No local dialects in the 19-th century had that word.

I could give another example. There is a word "хайде", a loanword from Turkish "haydi" (let's go, come on). The modern Bulgarian slang changed that word to "харе" (hare) which could be considered a Gipsy loanword.


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## marco_2

According to our philologists, there aren't any Gypsy loanwords in Polish. We have quite a popular surname *Wajda*, and I thought for a moment that it is a Romani loanword (_wajda _means "chief" in their language, at least in Poland) but it occured that it is a Hungarian word which then is a Slavic loanword (*wojewoda*).


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## rusita preciosa

I had to look it up because except for *лавэ* /lavé/ for "money", I did not know these other words came from Romani:
*стырить */stýrit’/ - to steal
*хавать* /khávat’/ - to eat
*лабать* /labát’/ - to play a musical instrument (mostly for money, like in a restaurant, lounge)
All these are slang, mostly outdated.

EDIT: just saw that the BE word *chav* may be also from Romani for "young man"


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## Encolpius

marco_2 said:


> According to our philologists, there aren't any Gypsy *loanwords *in Polish. We have quite a popular surname *Wajda*, and I thought for a moment that it is a Romani loanword (_wajda _means "chief" in their language, at least in Poland) but it occured that it is a Hungarian word which then is a Slavic loanword (*wojewoda*).



 Did I write loanword? I didn't mean that exactly.  I meant what some did understand correctly, just words, Gypsy words mostly used in informal speech and people somehow know its a Gypsy word, like the Serbian lova or gadjo.....


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