Slovenian / Slovak / Romani (?): Andro verdan drukos nane

[Saltie]

Hi!
This song originates from Slovenian Romanies (at least, that's what I read about it), and it became famous due to the Soviet film "The gypsy camp goes to heaven". I could not find any reliable information about the language it's written in, and Google can't translate it at all. Some say it's Slovenian Romani, some say it's Slovenian, and some say it's Slovak.

Andro verdan drukos nane,
man pirani šukar nane,
Loľi phabaj prečinavaj,
[hop, hop, hop]
jepaš tuke, jepaš mange
[hop, hop, hop]

Which language is it?

 

[Encolpius]

Hello, it is Central European Romani.

Andro verdan drukos náne, - there is no "drukos" (I do not know what it is) in my coach
man piráni šukar náne, - I haven't got any pretty girlfriend
Loľi phábaj prečinavaj, - I cut the red apple
[hop, hop, hop]
jepaš tuke, jepaš mange - one half for me, one half for you
[hop, hop, hop]

 

[Saltie]

Thanks a lot, Encolpius! From the translations I've come across, "drukos" should mean "bottom". Probably it's a rare dialectical word (or maybe this word is Slovenian, not Romani?) (There is no bottom in my coach). I saw other versions of this text that have "grundos" instead of "drukos".
On the other hand, there is a similar word in Serbo-Croatian - 'drug', meaning 'friend', I'm not sure about its declension in Romani, but then it might mean 'there is no friend in my coach'. By the way , the word 'drug' means 'friend' in Russian too. Probably, I'm the first man suggesting this translation

 

[francisgranada]

An other suggestion: drúk in Slovak means snag, tree stump ...

 

[Saltie]

Then it is... 'My coach has no snags?' It's really a difficult song to translate.

 

[cHr0mChIk]

"Drukos" means either a "stem" or a "beam" in East Slovak Romani.

 

[Saltie]

"Drukos" means either a "stem" ...

Hmm... Then I've got another idea. Probably it could also mean a 'shaft' for a horse (one of a pair of poles between which a horse is tied to pull a coach)? Or should we understand it here as [the main part of] the frame of a coach?

 

[francisgranada]

Well, I don't speak Romani, however this language does interest me from the linguistic point of view. As to our present discussion, I should exclude "drug" as "friend" ... This is not a term that is typically borrowed from an other language, furthermore I can't see no reason why "drug" should become "druk". Of course, everything is possible ...

 

[cHr0mChIk]

Hmm... Then I've got another idea. Probably it could also mean a 'shaft' for a horse (one of a pair of poles between which a horse is tied to pull a coach)? Or should we understand it here as [the main part of] the frame of a coach?

Hmm.. I don't know... possibly... It could mean either of them, I suppose...

I don't know man, I am a speaker of Romani, but Balkan Romani, and these Central dialects just sound so weird to me.. hehe
It sounds like some foreigners are speaking some foreign language, with some Romani words here and there...
When it's in the written form, I guess I can understand a lot.. but still there are some strange words I don't get...

"andro" means "on" or "upon"... "verdan" is a cart / coach.. we call it "kočija".. alternatively "vorda" or "vordan" I guess...
no clue about what would be our equivalent of "drukos"... also we don't have words ending with -s at all, so that also sounds so foreign to me... it sounds so Greek...

"man pirani šukar nane" = literally: "to me, partner/lover isn't beautiful"
these words are all understandable except for "pirani"... I don't even know where it comes from...
Here, we would use the word "čhaje" instead of it... (it just means "girl")...

"I cut the red apple" - we'd say "me čhingjum i loli phabaj"
"half to you, half to me" = "ekvaš tuke, ekvaš mange"

 

[francisgranada]

... also we don't have words ending with -s at all, so that also sounds so foreign to me... it sounds so Greek...

Instead, in the Carpathian Romani (spoken e.g. in Slovakia) the ending -s is typical in case of masculine substantives in the so called "indirect case" (e.g. romes, nominative rom), but also in the nominative case of words of foreign origin (e.g. dochtoris, orvošis [< Hung. orvos] = doctor, medician; televizoris= a TV set, etc ...)

 

[cHr0mChIk]

Instead, in the Carpathian Romani (spoken e.g. in Slovakia) the ending -s is typical in case of masculine substantives in the so called "indirect case" (e.g. romes, nominative rom), but also in the nominative case of words of foreign origin (e.g. dochtoris, orvošis [< Hung. orvos] = doctor, medician; televizoris= a TV set, etc ...)

Yes, I am familiar with these dialects from the grammatical point of view. However, we do not have any words ending with -s. Perhaps there was a sound change which resulted in the loss of the final s.

In other dialects "day" is "dives", however, we say "dive".
"city" = "foros", but we say "foro".
etc.

Also words of foreign origin, as you have already mentioned, have the -s suffix, however, we just say them doktori, televizori, etc.

The words which are in the "indirect" (AKA "oblique") case, for us just end with "e". E.g. "romane" and not "romanes".. etc.

There is also an another set of nouns, which are built from verbs/adjectives or other nouns, which has an -imos suffix.
Such as the words "kamlimos" (love - from the verb kamel - "to love"); "sastimos" (health - from the adjective sasto - "healthy"), brotimos (friendship - from the verb brotil - "to befrend"), xoxaimos (lying - from the verb xoxavel - "to lie"), etc.

However, instead of the suffix "-imos", we use "-pe", so in our dialect, it would be:
"mangipe" (from mangel), "kam(l)ipe" (from kamel), "sastipe" (from sasto), "amalipe" (from amal), "xoxajpe/hovajpe/hovajbe" (from xoxavel/hovavel).

Here, we only use the "-pe" suffix for such formations, however, other dialects seem to use both.

Another case of final -s is in 2nd person singular present tense:
tu dikhes (you see) - instead, in our dialect, it's: "tu dikheja"
tu manges (you want/love) - we say "tu mangeja" instead, etc.

 

[csicska]

This site offers a translation from a Romani teacher:

Ve voze není oj, já nemám hezkou milou, vezmu červené jablíčko a rozpůlím. Půlku dám mé milé, půlku sobě

Someone who speaks Czech perfectly would need to translate it though.

 

[francisgranada]

This site offers a translation from a Romani teacher: "Ve voze není oj, já nemám hezkou milou, vezmu červené jablíčko a rozpůlím. Půlku dám mé milé, půlku sobě"

This seems to confirm my suggestion (post #4) ...

... Perhaps there was a sound change which resulted in the loss of the final s.

It's almost sure. First I have encountered the Romani grammar in the Pallas Nagy Lexikona (a Hungarian analogy of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica): there is a quite comprehensive and detailed passage about the Romani language, comparing various variants of Romani (including grammar and lexicon), namely dialects of the early 19th century spoken in the Hungarian Kingdom. Later, I had the possibility to read other literature, as well.

Well, the substance is that according to my "investigations" this final -s seems to be an original Indo-European feature, both in case of the nominal declension (romes, romanes, dives, ...) and in case of the 2nd person sg. of verbs (tu dikhes, kames, keres, šunes, etc ....).

Of course, this doesn't answer the question what "drukos" means, but the ending -os seems to me etymological in Romani.

 

[Saltie]

This seems to confirm my suggestion (post #4) ...

And mine in post 7#
oj
pole (the one which connects a vehicle with a cargo) (oj - Wiktionary)

 

[Saltie]

As for this line:
'man pirani šukar nane,'
it must be 'piramni', not 'pirani', which can be found in Russian Romani-Russian dictionaries as 'girlfriend', 'bride' etc.
I found another translation of this line from a Russian Romani, she says it means "There is no girl (or girlfriend) more beautiful than me". She says that 'šukar' is a shortened form of comparative which is used in poetry. I'm not sure if she's correct.
PS
This song made me get a Romani language self-taught book, I hope I have time to read it.

 

[cHr0mChIk]

This site offers a translation from a Romani teacher:

Someone who speaks Czech perfectly would need to translate it though.

I am actually a Slovak, so I can translate it:

"There's no pole in the cart/coach,
I don't have a beautiful darling,
I will take a red apple and split it in half,
I will give the half to my dear, and half to myself."

As for this line:
'man pirani šukar nane,'
it must be 'piramni', not 'pirani', which can be found in Russian Romani-Russian dictionaries as 'girlfriend', 'bride' etc.

As for this, it actually is 'pirani'. Pirani is correct, however, the form piramni indeed appears as well in some dialects. This word varies across the dialects:
pirani / piraani / piranyi / pirauni / piramni... etc. The first form (pirani) is the most common, although I believe the form with an "m" might be the oldest,
since it reminds me a little of the Romani word for a woman: "řomni" - they could be etymologically connected.

I found another translation of this line from a Russian Romani, she says it means "There is no girl (or girlfriend) more beautiful than me". She says that 'šukar' is a shortened form of comparative which is used in poetry. I'm not sure if she's correct.

"Šukar" is a common word all across the Romani world - although originally, and archaically it means something "bright" - in modern Romani it signifies something "pleasant" / "beautiful" / "nice". Anyway, in our Balkan dialects, the word is used also with the meaning "good", and as for confirmation (such as the English "sure" or "okay").

That sentence simply means "to me, there is no beautiful girlfriend/lover" - it could be interpreted as "I don't have a beautiful lover" or "My lover isn't beautiful" - I guess that the 1st interpretation is more likely.