Petra Cech, Dr. Mag., is the Curator Orality in the RomArchive section literature.

She studied General Liguistics and German Languages after finishing her studies of Biology at the University of Vienna. She started to work on Romani dialects in 1986, acquiring competence in Romani from Fatma Heinschink, a member of the Turkish Sepečides (‘basket weavers’). She completed her studies with a monography of this hence uncodified Romani dialect (published 1996 by Lincom Europe and 1999 by Harrassowitz). Her further research and linguistic publications focussed on Romani dialects of Austria and the Balkans, in cooperation, among others, with the Romani Project at the University of Graz, the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, the University of Ljubljana and the Romani Project Morpho-Syntax Database (RMS) of the University of Manchester.

Petra Cech works as a free-lance Romani linguist for the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, where she is engaged in archiving, translation and evaluation of Romani recordings preserved in the Heinschink Collection. She takes special interest in the documentation and edition of oral tradition and storytelling of Roma (see also a series of bilingual publications at www.drava.at). As a member of Romano Centro, Petra Cech works as a volunteer reviewer and lecturer for the association’s magazine.