Româna şi predarea ei în Vajska (Serbia de nord-vest): între vitalitate sporită şi prestigiu precar

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Romanian speaking community in Vajska, a village in North-Western Serbia, near the Croatian border. This village is unique in that here functions the only school in Serbia where Romanian is taught outside the Banat and Eastern Serbia regions, with a large population of Romanians and Vlachs. The Romanian language speakers here claim Romanian origins, but part of the majority population considers them Roma, and they are known as Bayash in the relevant literature. Relying on the scarce ethnographic sources available and on her field research from 2016, the author presents the community and its vernacular, evaluates its vitality and prestige, to focus on the methods and framework of teaching the optional subject “Romanian language with elements of national culture” in the primary school in Vajska. The teacher’s background, personality and professional competence are also assessed, as they are elements of uttermost importance in the process of language maintenance and teaching.