The Caló, call also Roman, is a mixed language of spanish base grammatical and variable gipsy vocabulary (romany), spoken by spanish gipsies (Calé). Registered in texts at least from the XVIII century, together with the Portuguese-Brazilian Calâo, the catalan romanó and the basque errumantxela, the caló forms the Iberian group of the romamy language, that in contact with the vernacular languages as the Castilian or the Catalan, it was fractioned first in dialects and finally in neo-romany languages, classified by the specialists as para-romany.

 

First references of romany in Spain

In the Spanish official documents of the XVI and XVII centuries, the romany language of that time is bad-deribelately described as a “artificial jargon”, “cingerionza”, argument useful for the negation of a specific gipsy identity. Contradictorily, the Real Pragmatic ones are punctually explicit in their prohibition of the use of a “gipsy language.”

In the literature the panorama is not much more illustrative: the “gipsies” of Cervantes and Góngora in general lisp but they do not use any romany word. All this will indicate a hermetic character of the romany of that time, that confirm that the caló as mixed language had not still been born, althought the slang of the XVII century can contain some romany word.

Comparing the languages that form the Iberian group of the romany, it is possible to conclude that those arose of an only romany root arrived in the century fifteen in Spain. Although any concrete testimony of that romany Iberian does not exist, by the remains of romany grammar present in the caló and in him brothers and the testimonies of two varieties, practically extinguished today (the romany catalan and the romany basque), it is possible affirm that the language mother did not differ in essence of the romany that today is still spoken for example in the Balkans, although naturally with lexical differences and a character more “archaic.”

 

The transition of the romany to the caló

The caló seems to be the result of a process that we can call of linguistic change, in the one which, the spanish romany, after having assimilated the phonology and the Castilian syntax gradually (from which had already taken abundant vocabulary loans also), it was abandoned in favor of a form peculiar of spanish where certain romany specific words were retained. Many of this words (“chaval”, “menda”, etc.) passed to colloquial spanish.

 

The primitive caló

The first well-known vocabulary of calót is a manuscript of the XVIII century, titled “Gibberish” found in the National Library of Madrid. The phonology of the caló already shows influences of the Andalusian dialect very early, and it is evident that the language described here is already caló and non romany, because the verbs appear with the spanish termination of infinitive, just as actually. An unique curiosity of the caló among the romany languages, and already reflected in the mentioned vocabulary, is the use of nouns that instead of appearing in the nominative case, they appear with the form of another of the grammatical cases of the romany, for example, instead of “mol” it already appears “mollate” (both as “vino”). The origin of the second form is the prepositional case or romany locativo “moliate”, that still today in the romany dialects has the value of an entire sentence: “in the wine.”

The caló begins to be more and more common in the sketches and performances of the theater of XVIII century, for example in the works of the gaditano González of the Castle, where it is possible to see that many words of the caló had already passed to the Andalusian colloquial lexicon.

 

The caló from the XIX century to the XX century

With the abandonment of the anti-gipsies laws of the previous centuries, the gipsy town will leave the anonimity and at the same time that the gipsy flamenco will go winning audience with its "soleares" and "seguidillas". An intense fever will loosen “gitanófila” for all Spain: it is said that until the monks wrote poetries in caló. It is the time of the famous George Borrow, polemic character that published in 1842, in London, the first dictionary of caló. Another meritorious work is that of Don Luis Usoz y Río, manuscript of 1835, it was not published up to 1987. The caló it was continued speaking in more or smaller measure in spite of the somber presage, although it is necessary to admit that maybedecreased the number of caló-speakers with running of the years.

In fact, today the competence degree in caló varies from person to person and from community to community, this way for some it is in some cities of the south where more it has gotten lost and among nomadic groups where more it is conserved, although in general a “basic” vocabulary exists of oral transmission, more or less known by all, either active or passively.

 

Caló of the future: Romanó-Kaló

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the caló today is the interest for the recovery of the romany. The objective is the recovery of an “ideal” caló, a “supercaló” that it continues being spanish in spite of not taking spanish words in its grammatical structure and therefore it is incomprehensible for the rest of the romany world. It highlights, among other, the initiative of “re-grammaticalization” the caló; to return as much as possible to the romany; to learn another time their grammatical laws to adapt the vocabulary caló and to take from the other dialects the romany words lost.

 

CALÓ LEXICON

Many are the books that try to pick up the caló lexicon, among them the classic and more grateful Tineo Rebolledo and J.M. Pabanó highlight. The caló as language coming from the romanó, it drags great quantity of words of this, but on the other hand, it also picks up great quantity of words of other origins.

Let us say that in certain way, a linguistic symbiosis has taken place between spanish and the romanó and the result is the caló.

In spite of the intents to discover the true caló lexicon, there are enough problems when studying it because the written documents enjoy scarce reliability and they are constantly contradicted:

• "Currelar"; It is found as "to work" and as "to appreciate", although the first one is the most correct according to our approach.

In the first place we meet with a language of oral character that has been written with the step of the time and many words have been confused, like it can be proven in multiple examples:

• asobar y asornar; both mean "to make sleepy"

On the other hand, when it does not exist a written norm that everybody respects, it happens that one hesitates in the pronunciation and this is increased with the differences of accents of the peninsula.

• arakerando, is used in the Levante area
• arakelando, is used in Andalucía

Another interesting feature to highlight, already mentioned, it is to the little reliability of the written documents, reason of weight to hinder the knowledge of the caló.

The books in few cases are written by gipsies, only real experts of this language, and in many cases they are books or built documents to understand the hoodlums, for what we insist in the existent difference between a jargon and a language of roots again.

Lastly it is necessary to point out that we are studying a language that although it continues being used by population's sectors, anything can make in front of the step of the time and to the appearance of new concepts and even objects that have been left without a word that denominates them.

In opposition to this last point we could add that the romano-speakers has made a considerable effort to this does not happen them. In this way, the romany was taking words of diverse languages in this last century, as:

• Aropláno/ero-plano("aeroplane", from the russian)
• Mátora("automobile", from the russian)
• ljáko("medication", from slavic origin)

In the last ones 20 or 30 years, the romany language has been invaded by great quantity of spanish, english, french words and from other european languages in contact. Members of oneself dispersed family for the world adopted different words from necessity or for negligence. A cousin from Estocolmo called this way to the automobile " bílo ", another in United States " mobilí " and another in the Argentina " kóche "...
In the same way, there are words in many languages that derive from the romany.

• Berkeleys(english), derives from "berk"
• Chavvy(scottish), derives from "chey, chiavei"
• Chorey(scottish), derives from "chorav"

In the case of Spain, the caló has been antiquated to the new technologies and it is for it that is very difficult of speaking. This does not mean that certain communities do not use some words to denominate new concepts but certainly not in an uniform way.

The lexicon that the caló had caught borrowed of spanish it is very difficult of defining, because, as we have already seen, the caló uses the castilian for their holes and a mixture of frequent vocabulary takes place.
Now then, spanish takes many words of the caló and usually these are of frequent use. Many spanish people use them without knowing their origin. Some of them are:

bulo	lie
camelo	fall in love or deceit
chaval	young
chorear	steal
chichi	in principle face. After, and with pejorative sense, feminine genital apparatus
pure	elder, old. In Castilian "pureta"
cipote	foreskin
chalao	crazy
menda	me
chola	head
chungo	in principle "jest", later "bad"
garito	house
lache	shame
longuin	innocent
perplejo	fright
pinré	foot
cuezco	fart
sobar	to sleep
coba	persuasion
currelar	to work
chepa	hump
chingar	cohabit
chivato	informer
enroscar	roll, wrap
fullero	pestoso
geta	muzzle
ligar	friendship
parné	money
piño	tooth
privar	to drink
tasca	tavern

 

Información extraída de:

• Marcelo Romero Yantorno: "Del Romanó al caló: seis siglos de lengua gitana en España"
• Agustín Vega Cortés: "Los gitanos en España"