Forum on Romani Studies ’What’s in the Verb? Corpus and Experimental Studies of the Romani Language in Serbia’

The forum on the Romani Studies titled ‘What’s in the Verb? Corpus and Experimental Studies of the Romani Language in Serbia’ will be held at the SASA Hall 3, on 17 March 2026, at 1 p.m. The event is organised by the Board for the Study of Life and Customs of the Roma.

The forum will present and explore the ways in which verbs from the Serbian language are adapted when borrowed into the Gurbet variety of the Romani language. Verb borrowing is a common linguistic mechanism in Romani because the history of this language shows a long tradition of verb borrowing; moreover, Romani speakers are typically fluent in other languages as well.

The lectures will address the ways in which Serbian verbs integrate into the Gurbet variety of Romani among bilingual Romani-Serbian speakers (čitol < читати, obećil < обећати). The results of corpus and experimental research will serve to establish the patterns of verb integration with a particular focus on the role of the thematic vowels and the morphological complexity of Serbian verbs. The data used in the analysis was collected in field research in eastern Serbia (Knjaževac and Zaječar), as well as from online media sources from central Serbia (Kruševac). The forum aims to provide a more detailed understanding of the language contact between Serbian and Romani, as well as bilingualism among Romani-Serbian speakers.