Editing Romani language (section)

== Orthography ==
{{Main|Romani alphabets}}
[[File:Brno,_Káznice_Cejl,_báseň_v_romštině.jpg|thumb|Romani poem by Jan Döme Horváth printed on wall at Cejl prison, [[Brno]]]]
Historically, Romani was an exclusively unwritten language;{{sfn|Matras|2006|loc=Definitions}} for example, Slovak Romani's orthography was codified only in 1971.<ref>Šebková, Hana; Žlnayová, Edita (1998). [http://rss.archives.ceu.hu/archive/00001112/01/118.pdf ''Nástin mluvnice slovenské romštiny (pro pedagogické účely)''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304024041/http://rss.archives.ceu.hu/archive/00001112/01/118.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }}. Ústí nad Labem: Pedagogická fakulta Univerzity J. E. Purkyně v Ústí nad Labem: p. 4. {{ISBN|80-7044-205-0}}. "U nás k tomu došlo v roce 1971, kdy jazyková komise při tehdy existujícím Svazu Cikánů-Romů (1969–1973) přijala závaznou písemnou normu slovenského dialektu romštiny."</ref>

The overwhelming majority of academic and non-academic literature produced currently in Romani is written using a Latin-based orthography.<ref>{{harvp|Matras|2002|p=254}}</ref>

<!---There are two statements written that are directly against each other. I am not sure how to combine them correctly.--->
The proposals to form a unified Romani alphabet and one standard Romani language by either choosing one dialect as a standard, or by merging more dialects together, have not been successful - instead, the trend is towards a model where each dialect has its own writing system.<ref name="errc">{{cite web |last=Matras |first=Yaron |date=11 March 2005 |title=The Future of Romani: Toward a Policy of Linguistic Pluralism |url=http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2165 |publisher=[[European Roma Rights Centre]]}}</ref> Among native speakers, the most common pattern is for individual authors to use an orthography based on the writing system of the dominant contact language: thus [[Romanian language|Romanian]] in [[Romania]], [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] in [[Hungary]] and so on.

To demonstrate the differences, the phrase /romani tʃʰib/, which means "Romani language" in all the dialects, can be written as ''{{lang|rom|románi csib}}'', ''{{lang|rom|románi čib}}'', ''{{lang|rom|romani tschib}}'', ''{{lang|rom|románi tschiwi}}'', ''{{lang|rom|romani tšiw}}'', ''{{lang|rom|romeni tšiv}}'', ''{{lang|rom|romanitschub}}'', ''{{lang|rom|rromani čhib}}'', ''{{lang|rom|romani chib}}'', ''{{lang|rom|rhomani chib}}'', ''{{lang|rom|romaji šjib}}''<ref name="mluvnice"/> and so on.

A currently observable trend, however, appears to be the adoption of a loosely English- and Czech-oriented orthography, developed spontaneously by native speakers for use online and through email.<ref>{{harvp|Matras|2002|p=257}}</ref>