Category Archives: Books

Anthologies, Books, Nonfiction, Ronald Lee (contributer)

Gypsy Law – Romani Legal Traditions and Culture, ed. Walter O. Weyrauch

Approximately one thousand years ago the ancestors of the Roma left their native India. Today Roma can be found throughout the world, their distinct culture still intact in spite of the intense persecution they have endured. This authoritative collection brings together leading Romani and non-Romani scholars to examine the Romani legal system, an autonomous body of law based on an oral tradition and existing alongside dominant national legal networks.

For centuries the Roma have survived by using defensive strategies, especially the absolute exclusion of gadje (non-Roma) from their private lives, their values, and information about Romani language and social institutions. Sexuality, gender, and the body are fundamental to Gypsy law, with rules that govern being pure (vujo) or impure (marime). Women play an important role in maintaining legal customs, having the power to sanction and to contaminate, but they are not directly involved in legal proceedings.

These essays offer a comparative perspective on Romani legal procedures and identity, including topics such as the United States’ criminalization of many aspects of Gypsy law, parallels between Jewish and Gypsy law, and legal distinctions between Romani communities. The contributors raise broad theoretical questions that transcend the specific Gypsy context and offer important insights into understanding oral legal traditions. Together they suggest a theoretical framework for explaining the coexistence of formal and informal law within a single legal system. They also highlight the ethical dilemmas encountered in comparative law research and definitions of “human rights.”

The editor, Walter O. Weyrauch, is Distinguished Professor and Stephen C. O’Connell Chair of the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

This book includes the article “The Rom-Vlach Gypsies and the Kris Romani,” by Ronald Lee, as well as articles by Thomas Acton, Maureen Anne Bell, Susan Caffrey, Calum Carmichael, Angus Fraser, Martti Grönfors, Ian Hancock, Gary Mundy, Anne Sutherland and Walter O. Weyrauch, and a foreword by Angela P. Harris.

Anthologies, Books, Nonfiction, Ronald Lee (contributer)

“Gypsies” in European Literature and Culture, ed. Valentina Glajar, Domnica Radulescu

published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2008

This collection investigates portrayals of “Gypsies” across British, French, Italian, German, Finish, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, and Russian cultures in canonical and nationally aclaimed texts, Holocaust survivor literature, films, and other accounts. This book exposes tensions between imagined “Gypsies” and real Romanies and uncovers a kaleidoscope of Romjani images that speak of alterity, exoticization, and idalization, as well as enmity, presecution, and human rights violations.

The collection includes an introduction by Ronald Lee entitled “Roma in Europe: ‘Gypsy’ Myth and Romani Reality – New Evidence for Romani History”, and articles by Philip Landon, Agnieszka Nance, Marilyn Schwinn Smith, Abby Bardi, Valentina Glajar, Ferdâ Asya, Lucia Cherciu, Ian Hancock, Domnica Radulescu, Aimee Kilbane and Dina Iordanova.

Books, Language Books, Ronald Lee (book author)

Romani Dictionary: Kalderash – English

“… a comprehensive modern dictionary of the internationalised dialect, which will serve the emerging literary and administrative language needs of the growing Romani intelligentsia….”

— Professor Thomas A. Acton, M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.), F.R.S.A., O.B.E Professor of Romani Studies, University of Greenwich

As Ian Hancock notes in the introduction, this dictionary has been years in the making, and its early drafts have been in circulation among a select few for at least three decades. It should come as no surprise then that this Kalderash dictionary, by Learn Romani author Ronald Lee, is fundamentally different from many previously published Romani dictionaries: Firstly, it is compiled by a native Romani speaker; secondly, it covers and, where appropriate, differentiates European and North-American Kalderash terms; and thirdly, it is a decidedly academic quality work that does not shy away from Romani grammar. Prefaced by a grammatical primer, containing over 12,000 lexical items, and filled with countless real world examples of idiomatic usage, this book is an indispensable resource for anyone looking to learn or work with Kalderash Romani.

This dictionary must be used in conjunction with its companion volume Romani Dictionary: English – Kalderash by those learning or relearning the language in order to understand the exact meaning of many of the entries which have multiple glosses. It will also assist in translating written material from Romani to English. is designed to be compatible with the author’s previously-published Learn Romani (2005, Hatfield, University of Hertfordshire Press) and uses the same English-based phonetic alphabet. The grammatical synopsis included in this dictionary is there for quick reference. The comprehensive grammar must be studied in Learn Romani which also has 18 lessons for those learning this dialect. Both dictionaries will be combined in a bi-directional hardcover edition which is planned for 2014. This will also contain a large number of additions of neologisms and other terms needed in today’s rapidly-changing technology.

Books, Language Books, Ronald Lee (book author)

Romani Dictionary: English – Kalderash

“… a comprehensive modern dictionary of the internationalised dialect, which will serve the emerging literary and administrative language needs of the growing Romani intelligentsia….”

— Professor Thomas A. Acton, M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.), F.R.S.A., O.B.E Professor of Romani Studies, University of Greenwich

This English-Kalderash Romani dictionary is the companion volume to the previously published Romani Dictionary: Kalderash-English. It is more copious in that it contains modernisms adapted by Romani speakers which are coming into use as native speakers communicate internationally over the Internet. On the other hand, because of the delicate shades of meaning and nuances, those learning or relearning the language need to refer back and forth between the English-Romani and the Romani-English dictionaries in order to understand the exact meaning of the entries because in many cases, multiple glosses are listed in both dictionaries.

Along with the Kalderash-English dictionary, this volume is designed to be compatible with the author’s previously-published Learn Romani (2005, Hatfield, University of Hertfordshire Press) and uses the same English-based phonetic alphabet. The grammatical synopsis included in this dictionary is there for quick reference. The comprehensive grammar must be studied in Learn Romani which also has 18 lessons for those learning this dialect. Both dictionaries will be combined in a bi-directional hardcover edition which is planned for 2014. This will also contain a large number of additions of neologisms and other terms needed in today’s rapidly-changing technology.

Books, Fiction, Ronald Lee (book author)

The Living Fire

Before me are two roads …

“The living fire is that spark of defiance that is the birthright of everyone. In some, it has gone out, in others, it is only a smouldering ember. But in others it blazes into an inferno of passion, creativity, rebellion and all too often violence. This is my story, the saga of a Canadian-born Rom. All names of characters, except mine and that of my wife, are fictitious and the drama is in places fictionalized, a parallel rather than the actuality. But the pathos, tragedy and humour are a part of my life and my struggle to find recognition and equality in the land where I was born. I failed in both of these aims and this is the story of that failure.”

Ronald Lee, London, England, 1970.

Ronald Lee’s autobiographical novel, formerly published as Goddam Gypsy, is an intense, fast-moving and brutally honest affair. Yanko – a Canadian Rom who ‘took the non-Romani way but didn’t go far’ – seeks his fortunes both among and apart from the Roma, never quite finding his place.

His story exposes the out-of-sight, out-of-mind world of Canada’s Roma in 1970’s Montreal: Parties, rackets, bar brawls, weddings, desperate poverty, and intermittent police raids fuel in Yanko the passion, creativity and rebellious defiance that is The Living Fire.

Books, Language Books, Ronald Lee (book author)

Learn Romani – Das Duma Romanes

Following 18 carefully structured lessons, this Romani language primer explores the vocabulary and grammar of the Kalderash Roma in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Designed for beginner students, this course reference begins with the basic verbs and nouns and builds through to the subtler grammatical necessities of reading and speaking the language. Quotations from native speakers, poems, songs, proverbs, and folktales add to the cultural and historical understanding of the language.

This course of Romani language lessons is intended both for Romani people who wish to re-learn their ancestral language in its modern form and for non-Roma who want to learn Romani. Romani has many dialects and no standard written form; this course is based on the Romani language as spoken by the Kalderash Roma in Europe, the US, Canada, and Latin America – a native speaker of a particular Kalderash dialect can usually converse fluently with any other Kalderash speaker. Kalderash-Romani belongs to the Vlax-Romani group of dialects which evolved in central Europe before spreading all over the world. Speakers of Vlax-Romani dialects far outnumber speakers of any other Romani dialect worldwide. The phonetic system used is based on English and is designed to be understood by English speakers, and any grammatical and linguistic terms are clearly explained.

Eighteen lessons take the student from the basic declensions of verbs and nouns, gradually building up vocabulary and grammar, through to the later lessons which fill in the subtler points of this rich language. Romani is a living language, borrowing vigorously from the languages of the countries where its native speakers find themselves. Quotations from native speakers are printed throughout the book to give a flavour of authenticity, as are poems, songs, proverbs and folk tales which the student will gradually be able to understand.

Bibliographer Edward Proctor has provided a comprehensive list of source materials for further study of Kalderash and related dialects for the interested student.