ZAGREB, November 6, 2019 – The World Day of Romani Language was marked in Croatia on Tuesday as one of three holidays of the Roma community in the country.
“Our work over the last ten years on promoting the Romani language and marking the World Day of Romani Language has been a very successful project through which we have preserved some of the valuable material for future generations and restored a sense of pride to the Roma community,” Veljko Kajtazi, the MP for the Roma minority, told a ceremony marking the World Day of Romani Language in Zagreb.
Speaking of the Roma community’s achievements and plans for the future, Kajtazi cited an expanded edition of the Romani-Croatian Dictionary covering over 30,000 words. He added that a Roma Memorial Centre would be opened in August next year on the site of a WWII concentration camp for Roma at Uštica near Jasenovac, and that the founding of a central library for the Roma in Croatia was under way.
“We will collect all relevant literature from the Roma community in one place, save its rich tradition and culture from oblivion and make it available to the general public for the first time. This will also make us unique in the world,” Kajtazi said.
The head of the University of Zagreb, Damir Boras, said that a program of Romani studies was being prepared as part of the Department for Indology and Far East Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, and that the Romani language and literature were already being taught.
The World Day of Romani Language has been organised by the Kali Sara Alliance of Roma in Croatia since 2009. This initiative was embraced by the UNESCO General Assembly in 2015 and today it is marked in at least 15 countries.
More news about the Roma in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.
