Talking letters

TALKING LETTERS narrates the history and present of the Romani people, whose native language is currently threatened with extinction. Over the course of centuries the language was passed from generation to generation orally, with a commonly agreed-upon written form for the various dialects only in existence since 1990. This documentary film is a vivid portrait of an endangered language, which has been banned and persecuted from the reign of Maria Theresa through to Hitler's times. Witnesses and linguists from Austria, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania and the Ukraine sketch multifaceted portrait of a little-known language and associated culture.