1 00:00:20,380 --> 00:00:21,500 Sorry for that. 2 00:00:21,860 --> 00:00:28,060 First of all, thank you for inviting me to take part in this conference. 3 00:00:29,580 --> 00:00:34,540 And I hope that the results from the conference 4 00:00:34,540 --> 00:00:38,700 will be helpful not only to the scientists 5 00:00:38,700 --> 00:00:42,220 but also to the Roma communities in Slovakia. 6 00:00:42,460 --> 00:00:50,380 So, my presentation is called Psycholinguistic Research Focused on Romani Language. 7 00:00:50,700 --> 00:00:54,060 The presentation will have the following parts: 8 00:00:54,900 --> 00:01:00,100 What is the Romani language and research on Romani, at the beginning, 9 00:01:00,860 --> 00:01:03,940 some theoretical linguistic research, 10 00:01:04,380 --> 00:01:08,340 sociolinguistic research, and psycholinguistic research. 11 00:01:09,100 --> 00:01:16,900 What is the Romani language and what kind of research 12 00:01:16,900 --> 00:01:19,860 has been done on Romani so far? 13 00:01:21,620 --> 00:01:25,380 We know that Romani is a New Indian language 14 00:01:25,380 --> 00:01:28,460 related to Hindi and Punjabi. 15 00:01:29,020 --> 00:01:31,820 It was created outside of India. 16 00:01:33,060 --> 00:01:37,580 It is related to some Indo-European languages. 17 00:01:39,220 --> 00:01:44,140 And there are influences from different European languages, 18 00:01:44,180 --> 00:01:51,340 and non-European as well, Armenian, Greek, Slavic langugages, Romanian. 19 00:01:51,860 --> 00:01:56,260 And we now that Romani is not standardized, there are many dialects, 20 00:01:56,780 --> 00:01:59,580 which are related between themselves. 21 00:02:00,780 --> 00:02:06,700 So, there were a lot of theoretical research on Romani. 22 00:02:07,260 --> 00:02:11,900 And mainly, Milena Hubschmannova, Norbert, Boretzky, 23 00:02:11,900 --> 00:02:16,620 Bubenik, Peter Bakker, Matras, Friedman, and Elšík 24 00:02:16,900 --> 00:02:22,020 were doing research on the theoretical linguistics. 25 00:02:22,700 --> 00:02:27,300 And I'm not going to go into details what exactly 26 00:02:28,020 --> 00:02:29,580 they did research. 27 00:02:30,900 --> 00:02:34,980 So, there was also sociolinguistic research 28 00:02:35,540 --> 00:02:40,820 and in the field of sociolinguistics, 29 00:02:41,020 --> 00:02:44,820 there were descriptions of dialects 30 00:02:45,500 --> 00:02:50,380 and starting from the beginning of the 20th century, 31 00:02:50,460 --> 00:02:54,460 John Sampson, Gilliat-Smith, Kopernicki, 32 00:02:54,740 --> 00:03:00,980 Kenrick, Kostov, Hancock, Kepesky, and Šaip Jusuf, 33 00:03:01,780 --> 00:03:08,340 until new times, Matras, Igla, Elšík, Halwachs, Sarau, Heinschink, 34 00:03:08,540 --> 00:03:17,460 Petra Cech and myself we were doing a research on describing different dialects, 35 00:03:19,060 --> 00:03:24,620 and in the field of sociolinguistics, there was also another direction. 36 00:03:24,860 --> 00:03:27,860 It was standardization of Romani. 37 00:03:29,460 --> 00:03:32,940 And the following authors 38 00:03:32,940 --> 00:03:36,700 were working in the field of standardization of Romani, 39 00:03:38,260 --> 00:03:43,860 Ljungberg in Sweden, Gilja Kochanowski in France, 40 00:03:43,860 --> 00:03:49,780 Hubschmannova in Czechoslovakia, Ian Hancock in America, 41 00:03:50,020 --> 00:03:54,020 Courthiade in France and in Romania, 42 00:03:54,260 --> 00:03:56,180 Sarau in Romania, 43 00:03:56,940 --> 00:04:02,980 Rajko Djuric in ex Yugoslavia, Halwachs in Austria, 44 00:04:03,020 --> 00:04:05,180 and myself in Bulgaria. 45 00:04:05,380 --> 00:04:09,540 So, all these people were doing different level of work 46 00:04:09,940 --> 00:04:12,340 on standardization of Romani. 47 00:04:13,220 --> 00:04:16,860 So, another direction in the field of sociolingustics 48 00:04:16,860 --> 00:04:19,780 was code-switching and code-mixing. 49 00:04:20,140 --> 00:04:22,940 By code we have in mind the language, 50 00:04:22,940 --> 00:04:25,660 language-switching, language-mixing, 51 00:04:25,940 --> 00:04:31,260 and Peter Bakker, Hubschmannova, Matras, Elšík, Friedman, 52 00:04:31,780 --> 00:04:36,140 Kyuchukov, and Sonnemann, in German, 53 00:04:37,100 --> 00:04:40,460 wrote recently a book 54 00:04:41,100 --> 00:04:45,780 about code-switching, code-mixing with Slavic languages, particularly. 55 00:04:45,780 --> 00:04:47,980 Romani with Slavic languages. 56 00:04:48,780 --> 00:04:53,660 My work was mainly on code-switching and code-mixing 57 00:04:53,900 --> 00:04:56,700 among Muslim Roma in Bulgaria, 58 00:04:57,500 --> 00:05:00,780 and I was doing research mainly with children, 59 00:05:00,780 --> 00:05:03,780 how the children mix the languages. 60 00:05:04,300 --> 00:05:07,140 Turkish, Romani, Bulgarian. 61 00:05:07,460 --> 00:05:11,260 Psycholinguistic research - what is psycholinguistics? 62 00:05:12,180 --> 00:05:15,340 And which are the areas of psycholinguistics? 63 00:05:16,420 --> 00:05:25,220 So, there are many directions in the field of psycholinguistics, 64 00:05:25,580 --> 00:05:31,300 but some of them are connected to early language acquisition, 65 00:05:32,340 --> 00:05:37,540 language socialization, bilingualism, 66 00:05:38,540 --> 00:05:40,780 and second language acquisition. 67 00:05:41,460 --> 00:05:48,860 So, the psycholinguistic research with Romani started in 1980s and 1990s, 68 00:05:49,620 --> 00:05:53,700 the first author was Zita Reger from Hungary, 69 00:05:55,260 --> 00:06:01,780 who published at the end of 1970s and at the beginning of 1980s 70 00:06:02,140 --> 00:06:07,220 some articles on language problem of Roma children from Hungary. 71 00:06:07,740 --> 00:06:14,020 and Milena Hubschmannova also did publish, I think, just one article 72 00:06:14,180 --> 00:06:19,940 on the language problems of the Czech Roma children 73 00:06:20,380 --> 00:06:22,540 and their bilingualism. 74 00:06:23,060 --> 00:06:25,820 However, there was no systematic studies, 75 00:06:26,100 --> 00:06:31,820 no longitudinal studies in 70s, 80s, until 90s. 76 00:06:32,140 --> 00:06:36,620 At the beginning of the 90s, I started to do research and publications 77 00:06:36,620 --> 00:06:41,900 on educational and particularly language issues of Roma children, 78 00:06:42,420 --> 00:06:49,380 and in 1994, I published my first article in The International Journal of Psycholinguistics 79 00:06:49,660 --> 00:06:52,300 in Osaka, Japan. 80 00:06:52,460 --> 00:06:58,660 So, this was also, fortunately, I don't, 81 00:06:59,100 --> 00:07:02,300 it seems the pictures didn't show, 82 00:07:02,300 --> 00:07:07,500 there was a picture of my first dissertation on psycholinguistics, 83 00:07:10,260 --> 00:07:15,300 but no, I cannot show them, I don't know what happened, they disappeared. 84 00:07:15,660 --> 00:07:20,340 I published my disseration in, 85 00:07:20,340 --> 00:07:26,100 I defended the dissertation in 1995 at the University of Amsterdam, 86 00:07:26,500 --> 00:07:30,540 and this was the first psycholinguistic disseration 87 00:07:30,540 --> 00:07:35,620 on Romani language, Roma children, whatever. 88 00:07:35,940 --> 00:07:37,540 So, then 89 00:07:39,140 --> 00:07:45,220 what kind of studies I did in the field of Romani language? 90 00:07:45,900 --> 00:07:48,740 And what kind of research I did? 91 00:07:50,100 --> 00:07:55,300 My very first research was with 2 boys and 2 girls in Sofia, 92 00:07:55,820 --> 00:08:00,100 from the Roma settlement which is called Fakulteta, 93 00:08:00,740 --> 00:08:04,100 and this was the first longitudinal study 94 00:08:04,860 --> 00:08:11,620 and I was testing - recording, actually - the conversation between mother and children, 95 00:08:11,820 --> 00:08:15,820 two times per month during two years, it was 96 00:08:15,980 --> 00:08:18,660 two years longitudinal study. 97 00:08:19,100 --> 00:08:22,020 And then I was looking how the children learn the 98 00:08:22,020 --> 00:08:25,900 Romani phonology, morphology, syntax, 99 00:08:27,180 --> 00:08:32,100 and what kind of code-switching they make with Bulgarian language, 100 00:08:32,740 --> 00:08:37,500 and I was also doing research with my nephews, 101 00:08:38,140 --> 00:08:41,940 and they were speakers of Romani and Turkish, 102 00:08:42,460 --> 00:08:47,220 and I was observing the code-switching with Turkish language. 103 00:08:47,740 --> 00:08:51,660 Exacly how this was influencing the language acquisition, 104 00:08:51,860 --> 00:08:58,620 all this folkore, songs, this was also another very big study, 105 00:08:58,860 --> 00:09:03,780 and then, I was doing another study with parents. 106 00:09:04,220 --> 00:09:10,820 Roma mothers who have babies between 8 months and 16 months, 107 00:09:11,260 --> 00:09:16,620 and 20 parents with children between 16 months and 30 months. 108 00:09:17,300 --> 00:09:20,940 And we did a questionnaire with the mothers, 109 00:09:21,780 --> 00:09:27,780 we were observing how the children learn the verbs in Romani language. 110 00:09:29,140 --> 00:09:35,060 From psycholinguistics we know that the children learn easily the nouns, 111 00:09:35,820 --> 00:09:37,620 the names of objects. 112 00:09:38,020 --> 00:09:42,460 But the verbs are acquired later. 113 00:09:43,220 --> 00:09:46,420 So, we saw that with the growth of the age, 114 00:09:46,620 --> 00:09:48,900 their knowledge is growing as well. 115 00:09:49,340 --> 00:09:56,100 And we were observing how the children learn the W questions. 116 00:09:56,100 --> 00:09:57,860 These are the questions, 117 00:09:58,060 --> 00:09:59,980 the W words. 118 00:10:00,140 --> 00:10:03,860 Like who, where, what, how, 119 00:10:04,260 --> 00:10:09,860 these are very difficult grammatical categories for the children in this age. 120 00:10:10,140 --> 00:10:15,940 This grammatical category, the W questions, the W words, 121 00:10:16,700 --> 00:10:19,700 are very difficult for the children. 122 00:10:19,820 --> 00:10:23,860 But we saw that the children, with the growth of their age, 123 00:10:23,860 --> 00:10:27,340 also learned normally very well. 124 00:10:27,700 --> 00:10:35,620 So, another study which I did was with 130 children in Bulgaria. 125 00:10:36,980 --> 00:10:41,740 120 in kindergarten and 10 children in primary school. 126 00:10:42,340 --> 00:10:49,340 And all these children were divided into three age groups. 127 00:10:49,940 --> 00:10:54,980 Group 1: 4 - 5 years, group 2: 5 - 6 years old, 128 00:10:54,980 --> 00:10:57,620 and group 3: 6 - 7 years old. 129 00:10:57,940 --> 00:11:00,340 And one group of ten children 130 00:11:00,420 --> 00:11:05,420 were from grade 4, so 10 - 11 years old, 131 00:11:06,500 --> 00:11:08,340 in the primary school, 132 00:11:08,420 --> 00:11:14,500 and they were tested with different test measuring comprehension and production in Romani. 133 00:11:14,980 --> 00:11:18,780 So, the figure 1 shows how the children 134 00:11:18,780 --> 00:11:24,060 understand one-word receptive tests. 135 00:11:24,500 --> 00:11:29,340 Children were shown different objects, pictures, 136 00:11:29,580 --> 00:11:33,500 and they were asked to tell them 137 00:11:35,260 --> 00:11:39,300 and we see that with the growth of the age, the children 138 00:11:39,740 --> 00:11:44,260 better understand the Romani language. 139 00:11:45,260 --> 00:11:50,820 So, these are the results from one-word expressive tests. 140 00:11:52,500 --> 00:11:56,220 The children had to produce, 141 00:11:56,420 --> 00:12:00,620 the children were shown the pictures and they had to produce 142 00:12:00,740 --> 00:12:04,380 speech, naming the pictures. 143 00:12:04,780 --> 00:12:07,460 So, again, with the growth of the age, 144 00:12:07,460 --> 00:12:12,180 their knowledge in their mother tongue is growing up, increasing. 145 00:12:12,740 --> 00:12:15,180 Again, we tested the knowledge of verbs. 146 00:12:15,180 --> 00:12:19,780 Verbs are very important in every language 147 00:12:20,180 --> 00:12:23,260 and they are were difficult for learning. 148 00:12:23,940 --> 00:12:28,060 So, again, the figure shows that the children 149 00:12:28,220 --> 00:12:35,660 with the growth of the age, they acquire the knowledge of the verbs. 150 00:12:36,260 --> 00:12:39,780 And how the children learn to ask questions? 151 00:12:40,500 --> 00:12:47,900 This is the figure here, again, we see that they are developing quite normally, 152 00:12:48,060 --> 00:12:51,020 learning how to ask questions. 153 00:12:51,380 --> 00:12:53,860 And communicative role-taking. 154 00:12:53,860 --> 00:12:59,700 We were showing to the children pictures where there is, for example, mother and child, 155 00:13:00,380 --> 00:13:07,300 and we were asking the child to tell the story from the position of the mother. 156 00:13:07,380 --> 00:13:11,420 And second time to tell the story from the position of the child. 157 00:13:11,500 --> 00:13:16,900 In order the child to be able to tell the story, 158 00:13:16,900 --> 00:13:20,980 from the point of mother or from the point of the child, 159 00:13:21,620 --> 00:13:26,340 the children have to have very rich vocabulary. 160 00:13:26,460 --> 00:13:31,420 And we see here from this graph that with the growth of the age, 161 00:13:31,980 --> 00:13:36,300 their knowledge, their richness of the vocabulary is increasing. 162 00:13:36,580 --> 00:13:39,140 So, there was another test 163 00:13:39,140 --> 00:13:44,140 which I did together with Slovak and Bulgarian Roma children, 164 00:13:46,020 --> 00:13:48,620 and these were first grade Roma children. 165 00:13:49,340 --> 00:13:55,220 And we were testing the knowledge of the children about three tenses, 166 00:13:55,380 --> 00:13:58,140 present, future, and past tense. 167 00:13:58,700 --> 00:14:01,020 We had six verbs 168 00:14:02,460 --> 00:14:05,860 but these verbs were not very... 169 00:14:09,260 --> 00:14:14,060 They are not used very often in everyday communication. 170 00:14:14,580 --> 00:14:19,900 For example, the verb sneezing, or the verb laughing. 171 00:14:19,980 --> 00:14:26,340 And, the result showed that both groups of children 172 00:14:26,340 --> 00:14:30,140 when they are 6 or 7 years old, 173 00:14:30,700 --> 00:14:37,300 they don't know exactly these two verbs, sneezing and laughing. 174 00:14:38,740 --> 00:14:40,180 In both countries. 175 00:14:40,660 --> 00:14:44,860 But at the same time, we did the test with Bulgarian, 176 00:14:44,860 --> 00:14:49,020 ethnic Bulgarian children and ethnic Slovak children, 177 00:14:49,420 --> 00:14:54,300 and Bulgarian and Slovak children knew those two verbs. 178 00:14:54,540 --> 00:15:01,660 I was participating in one scientific conference in Slovakia, in Bratislava, 179 00:15:01,900 --> 00:15:05,100 and there were a lot of psychologists there, 180 00:15:05,300 --> 00:15:11,260 and then, I asked the psychologists 181 00:15:11,380 --> 00:15:17,420 why do you think that Roma children don't know these two verbs? 182 00:15:17,540 --> 00:15:22,100 And why the Slovak and Bulgarian children know these two verbs? 183 00:15:22,420 --> 00:15:24,220 What could be the reason? 184 00:15:24,540 --> 00:15:27,420 One of the psychologists answered to me 185 00:15:27,780 --> 00:15:31,580 directly, saying that, well, 186 00:15:31,660 --> 00:15:35,660 it is clear Roma children are mentally retarded. 187 00:15:35,660 --> 00:15:40,420 This is why they don't know these two verbs. 188 00:15:40,620 --> 00:15:43,300 I didn't know what to say, I was shocked. 189 00:15:43,500 --> 00:15:48,700 So, it seems for some psychologists in Slovakia, 190 00:15:49,980 --> 00:15:54,180 learning some verbs later 191 00:15:55,060 --> 00:16:00,900 puts the children in the category of mentally retarded. 192 00:16:01,180 --> 00:16:03,460 So, in different cultures, 193 00:16:04,060 --> 00:16:08,420 different categories, different grammatical categories 194 00:16:08,580 --> 00:16:13,780 are learned, acquired by different age. 195 00:16:13,980 --> 00:16:17,980 So, it seems the people don't understand that. 196 00:16:18,060 --> 00:16:20,340 Or they don't want to understand that. 197 00:16:20,900 --> 00:16:25,740 All the tests which I did until here, about which I was telling until here, 198 00:16:25,980 --> 00:16:32,620 were translated from English language into Romani language. 199 00:16:32,660 --> 00:16:36,300 So, I did adapt those tests. 200 00:16:36,460 --> 00:16:41,060 And, unfortunately, there are no standardized tests 201 00:16:41,060 --> 00:16:47,300 and unfortunately, there is no standardized test in Romani language 202 00:16:47,300 --> 00:16:49,380 for measuring 203 00:16:49,580 --> 00:16:53,660 the language acquisition, the language development of Roma children. 204 00:16:54,340 --> 00:16:57,580 I was in United States for a conference, 205 00:16:57,860 --> 00:17:03,220 and there, I presented some of the results which I presented here, 206 00:17:03,420 --> 00:17:06,660 and I was telling about this case in Slovakia 207 00:17:06,660 --> 00:17:10,300 when I was presenting the tenses and the verbs, 208 00:17:10,500 --> 00:17:13,340 and how the psychologists reacted to me, 209 00:17:13,540 --> 00:17:18,340 and then, there was one very famous American professor there, 210 00:17:18,540 --> 00:17:26,380 and she asked me: Why you don't create a test in Romani language 211 00:17:26,420 --> 00:17:33,820 having in mind the structure, the specificities of Romani language. 212 00:17:34,420 --> 00:17:38,900 And then I told her, well, I don't have experience creating tests, 213 00:17:39,020 --> 00:17:42,660 I'm not a specialist in test creating, 214 00:17:43,020 --> 00:17:49,500 and then she suggested that we together can create a test in Romani language, having in mind 215 00:17:49,580 --> 00:17:52,060 the structure of Romani. 216 00:17:52,100 --> 00:17:54,540 And then we created this test 217 00:17:54,540 --> 00:17:58,740 which has nine grammatical categories, subtests. 218 00:17:58,740 --> 00:18:01,340 Testing nine grammatical categories. 219 00:18:01,620 --> 00:18:06,900 And we started with W questions, words, for example, 220 00:18:07,500 --> 00:18:11,900 Who what has on the head? 221 00:18:11,900 --> 00:18:15,140 Two questions, yeah? 222 00:18:15,380 --> 00:18:20,620 And there was also three words at the beginning of the sentence, 223 00:18:20,820 --> 00:18:22,780 who, what, how. 224 00:18:23,100 --> 00:18:28,500 And there was four W words at the beginning: 225 00:18:28,700 --> 00:18:31,380 who, what, how, where. 226 00:18:31,660 --> 00:18:37,460 And we did this whole test with these all nine grammatical categories. 227 00:18:37,460 --> 00:18:43,420 We tested children from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia, 228 00:18:43,980 --> 00:18:49,300 Serbia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, England, 229 00:18:49,780 --> 00:18:55,700 Sweden, and Russia. 230 00:18:56,140 --> 00:18:59,820 So, I was saying no way that the children will know these 231 00:18:59,820 --> 00:19:06,220 so different, so difficult grammatical categories, I was so scared. 232 00:19:06,460 --> 00:19:12,140 And then, the second test was like this. 233 00:19:12,900 --> 00:19:19,380 And start the Wh complement tasks, 234 00:19:19,860 --> 00:19:25,940 where the mother said to the son to get her a big pot, 235 00:19:26,300 --> 00:19:30,020 but he got her a big glass instead, 236 00:19:30,220 --> 00:19:34,660 what did the mother say to her son to get? 237 00:19:34,700 --> 00:19:37,300 So this was the question, like this. 238 00:19:37,780 --> 00:19:41,740 So, and these were the passive verbs. 239 00:19:43,060 --> 00:19:45,380 The father kisses the girl, 240 00:19:46,900 --> 00:19:50,220 the father and the daughter kiss the baby, 241 00:19:50,420 --> 00:19:53,860 but the father was kissed by the girl. 242 00:19:55,540 --> 00:19:57,180 The passive verbs. 243 00:19:57,900 --> 00:20:03,100 So for the children is quite easy to use active verbs. 244 00:20:03,300 --> 00:20:08,260 Daughter kisses the father. 245 00:20:08,820 --> 00:20:13,620 But the passive verbs - the father was kissed - is not so 246 00:20:14,700 --> 00:20:20,500 popular among the children when they are 3 - 4 - 5 years old. 247 00:20:21,020 --> 00:20:27,140 The next test was about the possessivness, possessive tests. 248 00:20:27,780 --> 00:20:31,180 This was the favourite test of the children 249 00:20:31,500 --> 00:20:36,220 because we had a horse, which is masculine in Romani, 250 00:20:36,460 --> 00:20:40,540 and balloon, which is masculine in Romani, 251 00:20:40,980 --> 00:20:46,260 and we were starting the test with the 'Yeah, look here,' 252 00:20:46,540 --> 00:20:48,980 'there is a balloon, this is not your balloon, 253 00:20:48,980 --> 00:20:54,460 this is...' and the child has to say 'the horse's balloon' in Romani. 254 00:20:54,780 --> 00:20:58,860 And I was so much shocked that even 3 years old children 255 00:20:58,860 --> 00:21:04,020 were answering 80% - 85% correctly to these questions. 256 00:21:04,300 --> 00:21:10,260 And actually, this is the genitive case in the Romani language, 257 00:21:10,580 --> 00:21:15,780 genitive case, 258 00:21:15,980 --> 00:21:20,620 and to make the test little bit more difficult with the children, 259 00:21:20,740 --> 00:21:26,300 we created two unknown object and subject, 260 00:21:27,620 --> 00:21:32,020 for example, this creation, 261 00:21:32,020 --> 00:21:34,860 we called him 'Boho'. 262 00:21:35,300 --> 00:21:39,500 The instrument which he has in the hand 263 00:21:39,540 --> 00:21:44,700 is suki. These words don't exist in Romani. 264 00:21:45,180 --> 00:21:50,460 So we wanted to see if the children can transfer 265 00:21:50,900 --> 00:21:54,340 the known things, grammatical forms, 266 00:21:54,460 --> 00:21:59,420 to unknown object and subject. 267 00:22:00,780 --> 00:22:05,860 In Romani, there is the aspect of the verb. 268 00:22:06,340 --> 00:22:11,860 So, there is one man who is going over the river, 269 00:22:11,980 --> 00:22:14,980 this is a non-complete action, 270 00:22:15,500 --> 00:22:20,940 and there is a second painting, second figure, 271 00:22:20,940 --> 00:22:24,740 where the action is completed. 272 00:22:25,300 --> 00:22:29,740 So, usually, we start with one of them, for example, 273 00:22:29,740 --> 00:22:35,900 if we say, look at this boy, 274 00:22:35,900 --> 00:22:41,260 he's over the river, 275 00:22:42,020 --> 00:22:46,380 he is doing what? The child has to say the verb. 276 00:22:47,060 --> 00:22:50,860 And then, we ask what he did here, 277 00:22:50,860 --> 00:22:54,980 the child should use the completed action, 278 00:22:55,060 --> 00:22:57,740 so the verb in completed action, 279 00:22:58,020 --> 00:22:59,860 which is very difficult. 280 00:23:00,620 --> 00:23:04,700 Then we have the tense. 281 00:23:05,180 --> 00:23:11,460 And we were using three tenses: present, past, and future tense. 282 00:23:11,740 --> 00:23:14,140 And we were playing with the children, 283 00:23:14,260 --> 00:23:20,420 like, we tell the child one verb, singing, to sing, 284 00:23:21,540 --> 00:23:29,620 and ask the child to give us the past tense of the verb to sing. 285 00:23:30,020 --> 00:23:32,020 And then we say to the child look, 286 00:23:32,180 --> 00:23:35,660 there is here another verb, which you don't know, 287 00:23:35,940 --> 00:23:40,900 and this is a made-up word, doesn't exist in Romani, 288 00:23:41,500 --> 00:23:46,180 and, for example, this is the action which the man does, 289 00:23:46,180 --> 00:23:49,980 we call it 'kreminel' in Romani language, 290 00:23:50,500 --> 00:23:54,140 and we ask the child how it will be in future tense. 291 00:23:54,660 --> 00:24:01,100 Now he is kreminel, and tomorrow what he's going to do? And the child has to answer. 292 00:24:02,100 --> 00:24:04,940 Fast-mapping adjective tests. 293 00:24:05,740 --> 00:24:09,140 As you can see, there are two objects in black, 294 00:24:09,460 --> 00:24:15,740 and there is one object in red, or pink, 295 00:24:16,180 --> 00:24:22,820 and of course, the child doesn't know the names of this pink object 296 00:24:22,820 --> 00:24:25,540 and the other black object. 297 00:24:25,780 --> 00:24:31,900 So, we, again, make some kind of new words which do not exist in Romani, 298 00:24:32,060 --> 00:24:38,980 and then we ask the child with this adjective, black or pink, 299 00:24:39,580 --> 00:24:42,380 and we ask it 300 00:24:42,700 --> 00:24:48,340 with the female or male ending 301 00:24:48,500 --> 00:24:54,300 and we explain to the child that the two black objects are masculine, 302 00:24:54,740 --> 00:24:59,820 but one of them, the child knows the name, cup, 303 00:25:00,100 --> 00:25:05,340 and the other one, we make up this new word, we create it somehow. 304 00:25:05,540 --> 00:25:09,260 When I was doing this research in Sweden, 305 00:25:09,380 --> 00:25:16,500 there was a man at the Institute of Minority Languages, a Roma man who is working there, 306 00:25:16,820 --> 00:25:21,860 he was fighting with me that I am crazy, putting the children in stress, 307 00:25:22,340 --> 00:25:26,260 asking the children these kinds of crazy questions, what is this? 308 00:25:26,260 --> 00:25:28,300 Hristo, what are you doing? 309 00:25:28,460 --> 00:25:33,700 I said to him, well, sometimes in life we do crazy things. 310 00:25:33,940 --> 00:25:39,940 And this is another kind of fast-adjective again. 311 00:25:39,940 --> 00:25:46,180 So, the colours of the cat and the dog don't exist in Romani. 312 00:25:46,460 --> 00:25:51,780 So, for example, the donkey and the dog in Romani language are masculine. 313 00:25:51,980 --> 00:25:55,140 And I make up some colours, 314 00:25:55,140 --> 00:25:58,580 for example, the colour of the dog, 315 00:25:58,620 --> 00:26:01,260 of course, the children know the colour of the donkey, 316 00:26:01,380 --> 00:26:03,500 and they I say to the child, 317 00:26:03,780 --> 00:26:09,180 tell me, this definite article for masculine, 318 00:26:09,340 --> 00:26:13,420 and made up new word which is new adjective. 319 00:26:13,860 --> 00:26:19,540 I say to the child, please, show me the 320 00:26:21,140 --> 00:26:24,340 which is masculine article, 321 00:26:24,660 --> 00:26:29,540 and then I say the colour in masculine. 322 00:26:29,660 --> 00:26:32,820 This made up colour which does not exist in Romani. 323 00:26:32,980 --> 00:26:36,340 And there are actually two objects, 324 00:26:36,340 --> 00:26:40,340 the cat is in Romani 325 00:26:40,900 --> 00:26:45,380 a feminine, and the dog is in masculine, and then the child should 326 00:26:45,980 --> 00:26:48,500 listening only to the article 327 00:26:48,660 --> 00:26:51,540 and to the adjective in the article, 328 00:26:52,780 --> 00:26:56,140 the adjective together with the article 329 00:26:56,140 --> 00:27:00,380 should understand what I mean, cat or dog. 330 00:27:01,220 --> 00:27:06,460 There was also about these fast nouns 331 00:27:06,460 --> 00:27:09,380 we made up some kind of objects 332 00:27:09,580 --> 00:27:13,940 and the children were so good in that, I miss that as well, 333 00:27:14,060 --> 00:27:16,580 and what are the results of the children? 334 00:27:16,580 --> 00:27:21,780 So the study was done in Bulgaria and in Czech Republic. 335 00:27:21,860 --> 00:27:24,140 Actually, we did it in many other countries, 336 00:27:24,140 --> 00:27:27,100 but we compare here just two countries. 337 00:27:27,260 --> 00:27:30,380 So, we can see that for Czech Roma children 338 00:27:31,940 --> 00:27:36,740 Wh questions and possessivness were difficult, 339 00:27:37,020 --> 00:27:41,540 and for Roma children from Bulgaria, the aspect was difficult. 340 00:27:41,780 --> 00:27:47,900 So, there was also a repetition of sentences, 341 00:27:49,180 --> 00:27:50,740 ten sentences, 342 00:27:50,940 --> 00:27:53,780 and we had also repetition of numbers. 343 00:27:53,980 --> 00:27:56,820 And we were asking, for example, the child, 344 00:27:57,380 --> 00:28:01,380 repeat after me, two, five. 345 00:28:01,740 --> 00:28:04,700 Or three, five, seven. 346 00:28:04,900 --> 00:28:09,860 And there was this kind of average next time we were increasing 347 00:28:10,300 --> 00:28:12,220 the number of the numbers, 348 00:28:12,500 --> 00:28:14,700 and it was the same with the sentences. 349 00:28:14,700 --> 00:28:20,140 We had two word sentences, three word sentences, four word sentences and 350 00:28:20,140 --> 00:28:22,940 until 7 - 8 words in the sentence. 351 00:28:23,220 --> 00:28:27,820 For many people this kind of test is craziness, 352 00:28:27,820 --> 00:28:32,700 this is crazy, why you put the children in the stress, who needs that, 353 00:28:33,620 --> 00:28:36,060 why will you need these tests? 354 00:28:36,220 --> 00:28:38,820 Well, I usually answer with this: 355 00:28:39,580 --> 00:28:45,980 If a four years old child, three years old child, five years old child 356 00:28:46,260 --> 00:28:51,100 knows 80% - 90% of the tests, 357 00:28:51,700 --> 00:28:55,140 that means that the children are normally developing children 358 00:28:55,140 --> 00:28:58,660 as any bilingual child around the world. 359 00:28:59,100 --> 00:29:02,580 So that means that Roma children are not mentally retarded. 360 00:29:02,780 --> 00:29:04,900 If a Roma child knows 361 00:29:05,300 --> 00:29:10,420 these kinds of very difficult grammatical categories in their mother tongue, 362 00:29:10,500 --> 00:29:13,700 but they have problems with the second language, 363 00:29:13,860 --> 00:29:18,580 then the children are not... The problem is not in the children. 364 00:29:18,660 --> 00:29:21,300 The problem is in the school system, 365 00:29:21,500 --> 00:29:27,580 because the school system is not prepared to work with this kind of children. 366 00:29:27,700 --> 00:29:31,620 In the school system, we have one methodology of work, 367 00:29:31,820 --> 00:29:35,580 and if you do not fit into that methodology, 368 00:29:35,620 --> 00:29:39,060 then the problem is on you, this is what we think. 369 00:29:39,300 --> 00:29:43,140 So, the contemporary school should rethink 370 00:29:43,500 --> 00:29:50,620 the methods of work that the school turns to be a place for every child. 371 00:29:50,900 --> 00:29:52,980 Not only for the children who have 372 00:29:52,980 --> 00:29:55,820 the official language as their mother tongue. 373 00:29:55,980 --> 00:30:00,420 And in the end, I should say that these kinds of psycholinguistic tests 374 00:30:00,420 --> 00:30:05,380 and this kind of psycholinguistic research should be more 375 00:30:06,100 --> 00:30:09,700 in order that the teachers, the psychologists, the pedagogues, 376 00:30:09,740 --> 00:30:12,660 they should know more about these problems. 377 00:30:12,900 --> 00:30:18,020 Otherwise, always the Roma children will be blamed that they are mentally retarded. 378 00:30:18,260 --> 00:30:21,060 And very often in our societies, 379 00:30:21,260 --> 00:30:25,860 the poverty of the Roma and Roma children 380 00:30:25,860 --> 00:30:30,380 is put in the same level as their IQ. 381 00:30:30,380 --> 00:30:34,540 If you poor, then you have lower IQ. 382 00:30:34,780 --> 00:30:37,860 So, the poverty doesn't mean that you are stupid 383 00:30:38,140 --> 00:30:39,860 or mentally retarded. 384 00:30:39,860 --> 00:30:44,180 The poverty shows only the social status, 385 00:30:44,300 --> 00:30:46,900 economical status of the family, 386 00:30:46,900 --> 00:30:50,140 but not the intellectual development of the child. 387 00:30:50,140 --> 00:30:53,180 Okay, I think we should stop here. 388 00:30:53,180 --> 00:30:56,580 I have been speaking something like 45 minutes. 389 00:30:56,660 --> 00:31:02,580 And I would like to show two books, of course, they are in Bulgarian language. 390 00:31:02,820 --> 00:31:05,620 This one is Psycholinguistic Approach 391 00:31:05,860 --> 00:31:10,420 to Education of Roma Children in Their Mother Tongue, Romani. 392 00:31:10,620 --> 00:31:17,860 And the other book is about the... The title is Socio-cognitive Factors 393 00:31:18,100 --> 00:31:22,780 for Literacy of Roma Children in Their Second Language 394 00:31:22,860 --> 00:31:25,820 in the Conditions of Multilingualism, 395 00:31:26,340 --> 00:31:29,540 and in the Conditions of Multilingualism. 396 00:31:29,620 --> 00:31:34,300 This is a comparative study between Roma children in Slovakia and Bulgaria. 397 00:31:34,860 --> 00:31:37,540 So, thank you very much for your attention.