Lomavren

 In previous literature, Lomavren spoken by Armenian Gypsies (Lom or Bosha) defined as a mixed language consisting of the vocabulary of Indo-Aryan, original words shared by the entire Gypsy dialects, loans from Iranian and especially Armenian grammar (Voskanian 2002; Scala 2014). However, it was determined that a different variant of Lomavren emerged and is still spoken by Poshas in Çankırı in Anatolia under the influence of Turkish. Posha community is known as ‘gypsies’ (cingene ~ Cingan), sieve maker (elekci), or bundler (bohcaci) which are equivalents of ‘gypsy’ in Turkish by the general public but self-identifies as ‘Posha’. Speakers are multilingual, living in partial isolation from the rest of the local monolingual people. This dialect can be defined as a mixed language, but it has a specific system by using Armenian and Turkish linguistic items (Demir & Üzüm 2014; Üzüm & Demir 2017; Demir & Üzüm 2018).

1.       Üzüm, Melike, and Nurettin Demir. 2017. Minority Language Education and Policy in Turkey: The Case of Cankiri Poshas. Journal of Universality of Global Education Issues, 4: 1-21.

2.       Voskanian, Vardan 2002. The Iranian Loan-Words in Lomavren, the Secret Language of the Armenian Gypsies. Iran and the Caucasus, 6 (1-2): 169-180.

3.       Demir, Nurettin, and Melike Üzüm 2014. Çankırı Poşaları. In: Mehmet Özmen Armağanı, Edited by Nurettin Demir, Faruk Yıldırım. Çukurova Üniversitesi Yayınları, pp.137-152.

4.       Demir, Nurettin, and Melike Üzüm. 2018. Some remarks on the Poshas of Çankırı. In: Linguistic Minorities in Turkey and Turkic-speaking Minorities of the Peripheries, Turcologica 111, Edited by Christiane Bulut. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 73-88.