Using the Gypsies' Own Language: Two Contrasting Approaches in Hungarian Schools (1987)

In Hungary as everywhere else the government divides its Gypsies into different groups. The majority (60 percent) are called Romungri, but in fact this label, like “Travellers” in the U.K., covers a variety of groups: any Gypsies in fact who do not belong to the other two groups, the Rom (30 percent) and the Beash (10 percent). Unlike the Romungri, whose first language is deemed to be Hungarian (though, like English Gypsies, they know more Romani than they are given credit for), the Rom have as their first language Romanes, and the Beash an archaic Banat dialect of Romanian, adopted in past centuries when they were avoiding slavery by asserting that they were not Gypsies.