Zoom Special reports
IN MEMORIAM
Saip Jusuf, the author of the first grammar of the Roma language in Macedonia and in the world
If the Roma language lives, so will the Roma people. The language is the first and the most important characteristic for one nation. Every nation got its name after the language they speak. Every nation cherishes it; develops it as the most essential thing ever. This is not the case for Roma people. They are running away from the language for years, they are ashamed of it and they are not passing it on their children. Besides that, the language still exists till nowadays, mostly orally, partially in written form, says the language expert Ibrahim Osmani
The first grammar of the Roma language, as well as the first text book is a creation of the professor Saip Jusuf. Along with the famous Macedonian academic Blaze Koneski, in 1978 he worked on this grammar which was finally published in 1980. This was and still is the first grammar of the Roma language in Macedonia and in the world. The grammar has 350 pages and it is a part of the curriculum everywhere around the world, where there are Roma schools.
Saip Jusuf committed his whole life on studying and standardization of the Roma language. The grammar and the text book are the first and only editions in Macedonia that in the past ten years cannot be found in the bookstores.
Before he publishes the grammar, Jusuf worked on this and explore the issue around the world for 12 years. In one occasion he says that the motive for the research for his language was the life of his uncle Demir, who was deported in India during the First World War.
He was captured by the French soldiers and they send him to Bombay. He was released from the detention occasionally and while he explored the environment, he was hearing words that he thought they were Romani. His uncle listened Roma language. Motivated by this true life story, Saip Jusuf since 1948 started with the research about the Roma people in the Roma areas in Macedonia and started looking for old Roma words. When he collected everything that was possible to collect in Macedonia, he continued his search for the language in Europe and than around the world.
In several occasions Saip Jusuf says that the grammar of the Roma language along with the text book caused really positive reactions not only in Macedonia, but in the world too. But, that was it. The experts even claim that if institutions and people don’t take some measures to prevent, to develop, to standardize the Roma language, both in formal and non-formal education that the Roma language could vanish in 30 years.
In 2006, on the 8th of April, the world day of Roma people, Saip Jusuf got the life achievement reward for his efforts for the grammar of the Roma language.
Don Quixote’s battle in Zlokukani A group of parents in expedition to increase the sense for the importance of the education
The level of knowledge among the majority of the Roma children is on a very low level and many of them don’t know the alphabet, nor the multiplication table and they are in the forth grade. So, we are asking the question, whose fault is it? And we are coming back to the parents again who are no interested for their children at all, nor they are interested to help them, although there are some who don’t know how to help them. So, in that case, is the problem in the curriculum? Taking as a fact, the regulation possibility for additional classes, we think that the teachers should be more engaged and to help more in home works and to increase the level of their knowledge, say the parents from Zlokukani
Do the Roma parents realize that the education can help their children and can improve their life? Why most of the parents are not interested if their children should be signed in into schools or not, if their children go to school on a regular basis, what is going on at school, on the classes, how’s the curriculum…? Who should be responsible for the education of the Roma students – the parents or the teachers, or more or less, the both institutions are equally important in the children’s development? How can be increased the sense among the parents that the key for better life, success and happiness is in the education? These were the most raised up questions by the group of parents from the area in Skopje, called Zlokukani. They want to show to their neighbors why the education is that important for their children. Many of the parents from this group are also members in the parents council in the elementary school "Avram Pisevski" that is situated three kilometers from the Roma community in Zlokukani.
The Roma community or better known as the Roma area in Zlokukani is in three to five kilometers from the center of Skopje and if traveling toward municipality Gorce Petrov, along on the main street, the Roma area can be recognized at the same moment because of the very poor houses on the right side of the street. But many people don’t even know that, in this, richer part of the city, there’s a Roma community there. This group of parents always has meetings in the store in the neighborhood. To get to the store, you must pass very narrow streets, like a labyrinth. There’s no street lighting, but the people there are hoping that they will get, because not very long ago, the municipality of Karpos, finally managed to asphalt the streets.
