The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom translated into the central Slovak dialect of Romani. As far as we know, it is the first such translation. It is served with the blessing of the local Orthodox bishop in the Roma communities of Markovce and Klenovec. It is a working text: the people who sing it keep correcting it, line by line.
The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom is the main Eucharistic service of the Orthodox Church. Martin Halík translated it into the central Slovak dialect of Romani, Ján Hero was the language consultant, and the Christian Roma Mission published it. As far as we know, it is the first translation of the whole Divine Liturgy into this dialect. romamission.eu, Liturgy in Romani
In the full text on romamission.eu, every Romani line has the Slovak beneath it.
Romani is a family, not one language. Linguists divide it into five main dialect groups: Vlax, Balkan, Central, Northwestern and Northeastern. Several isolated varieties in Britain, on the Iberian Peninsula and in southern Italy belong with them. Seven of these varieties have their own ISO language code.
This translation belongs to the Central group: it is Carpathian Romani (rmc), and within it the dialect spoken in central Slovakia, the Romani of Klenovec and Gemer. On the ground, this matters. Slovakia already has the New Testament in East Slovak Romani and the whole Bible in Carpathian Romani. Neither is the speech of the villages where this mission serves. That difference is not academic: it is the difference between a text people follow along with and a text they pray with.
main dialect groups.
varieties with their own ISO code.
code for Carpathian Romani.
years since the language left India.
Romani is an Indo-Aryan language. It left the north of the Indian subcontinent about a thousand years ago, and it has never stopped being an Indian language. It was by studying Romani that European scholars first found out where the Roma came from. Its closest living relatives are Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. You do not have to look deep into the grammar for that kinship: it is in the plainest words of the liturgy.
A Roma man from Klenovec and a man from Delhi or Lahore would not understand each other. A thousand years and half a continent of borrowed words lie between them. Yet both would recognise the word for water, house, brother and name. Every word in the table is in the text of this liturgy; the number says how many times its root appears in it.
| In the liturgy | Means | Hindi / Urdu | How many times |
|---|---|---|---|
| Devla | God (“O God!”) | dev (god) | 176 |
| Dad | Father | dādā (elder, grandfather) | 33 |
| Čhavo | Son | chāvā (young) | 31 |
| manuš | person | manuṣya (human being) | 26 |
| jekh | one | ek | 26 |
| anav | name | nām | 20 |
| dživipen | life | jīnā (to live) | 13 |
| trin | three | tīn | 7 |
| kher | house | ghar | 3 |
| phral | brother | bhāī | 3 |
| paňi | water | pānī | 1 |
In this liturgy the Trinity is named half in Indian and half in Slavic: le Dadéskero, le Čhavéskero thaj le Svetos Duchóskero. Father and Son are words the Roma brought with them from India. Spirit comes from the Church Slavonic of the Byzantine rite, in which they were baptized. A thousand years of the journey are in a single line.
Every line of this translation is a decision. As he went, the translator wrote the other options in footnotes: what the Serbian and Romanian Roma liturgies say, what older people in Klenovec say, and what is said one valley further on in Gemer. The interesting differences are these: not spelling, but a different word chosen for the same prayer.
Almost always, though, it was a single variety, and almost always the translation was made outside the Orthodox Church. These are milestones, not a complete list: parts of Scripture exist in many more varieties than are publicly recorded anywhere.
That is why this translation matters: it is the Divine Liturgy, not Scripture, it is Orthodox, and it is in the dialect that is really spoken in the villages where it is sung.
Sources given by the original page: Matras, Y. (2002). Romani: A Linguistic Introduction (division into five groups); translator's notes in the Songbook v1.1. ISO 639-3: macrolanguage rom E Nevi Zmluva pal o Romanes (2014) and Le Devleskero Lav (2021)
It is finished when a grandmother in Klenovec opens it and sings her part, without anyone handing her a Slovak book she only half understands. Three things are missing for that, and not one of them is translation.
The PDF is free and ready to print. A parish needs enough bound copies for everyone, so that people can sing together rather than listen to one person read.
People whose mother tongue is the Central Slovak dialect, to read the draft and mark what sounds wrong. Of the three, there is least of this, and it is worth the most.
Singers who record the responses, so that people who do not read can also learn their part by ear. That is how most of this congregation has always learned it.
Throughout the translation, two older Orthodox translations into other Romani dialects were kept in view, and the footnotes often refer to them. Behind the translation there is also scholarly work: what the liturgy asks of the language, what choices the Romani of central Slovakia allows, and where it has to borrow. It is written in Slovak. Its PDF is not yet published.
This page carries over the content of the page Liturgy in Romani. The liturgical text itself is not here; it is on romamission.eu. romamission.eu/sk/liturgia romamission.eu/sk/liturgia/text
The journey, names, timeline and voices from the archive, with sources. →
What is in it and how to get it for free. →
The mission's approach and how a parish can join. →