Search results
Romani is an Indo-Aryan language that is part of the Balkan sprachbund. It is the only New Indo-Aryan spoken exclusively outside the Indian subcontinent. [27] Romani is sometimes classified in the Central Zone or Northwestern Zone Indo-Aryan languages, and sometimes treated as a group of its own.
- Origins of Proto-Romani
- Development
- Dialects
- Para-Romani Languages & Cants
- Historical Sources
- History of Romani Linguistics
- Legacy
Romani language did not utilize a system of writing, and its origins have to be reconstructed by linguists. It is believed that speakers of Indo-Aryan, a branch of Indo-European languages, migrated into the Indian subcontinent in the 2nd millennium BCE. The oldest written examples of an Indo-Aryan or 'Indic' language are the Vedas, sacred texts whi...
Linguist Andrea Scala identified four main 'layers' of the Romani vocabulary. The foundational layer of the language is Indo-Aryan. Indo-Aryan words present in modern Romani are primarily those that describe core concepts like the environment, agriculture, food, kinship, emotions, and time. Words related to these topics are less likely to change ov...
The absence of a standardized written form contributed to a great degree of variation between Romani dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible. These dialects are often broadly grouped according to the geographic area in which they developed and the languages which influenced them. The complex history of Romani migration, which has seen...
A number of Para-Romani languages formed in bilingual communities through the mixing of Romani vocabulary with the grammar of locally spoken European languages. The structure of these diaspora languages and the conditions they developed under are similar to Jewish mixed languages such as Yiddish and Ladino. Para-Romani languages belong to a variety...
Reconstructions of Proto-Romani and its development into the extant Romani dialects are complicated by the scarcity of early written Romani. The oldest known example of written Romani was transliterated into Latin by Johannes ex Grafing, a Benedictine monk living in Vienna c. 1505-1510. The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, written by En...
Many medieval and early modern European writers mistakenly assumed that Romani was an invented thieves' cant, used to hide criminal activities from outsiders. This assumption was based on negative stereotypes about Romani as a class of criminals rather than a community with a distinct culture. As early as Vulcanius, some scholars began to character...
The study of the Romani language created the framework for the study of Romani history and culture and inspired academic interest in other areas of Romani history. The first works on the Romani migration were published shortly after the discovery of Romani's linguistic origins and created a surge of interest in documenting Romani folklore and custo...
- Arienne King
People also ask
What language is Romani?
How many people speak Romani?
Is Romani an Indo-Aryan language?
What is a Romani slang word?
In the English language (according to the Oxford English Dictionary), Rom is a noun (with the plural Roma or Roms) and an adjective, while Romani (Romany) is also a noun (with the plural Romani, the Romani, Romanies, or Romanis) and an adjective. Both Rom and Romani have been in use in English since the 19th century as an alternative for Gypsy.
e. 1552 woodcut of a Romani family. The Romani people are a distinct ethnic and cultural group of peoples living all across the globe, who share a family of languages and sometimes a traditional nomadic mode of life. [1] Though their exact origins were unclear, [2] recent studies show Kashmir in Northwest India is the most probable point of ...
Although Romani is used mainly as an oral language, some Roma do write in Romani. It is written mainly in the Latin alphabet, and also to some extent in the Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic and Devanagari alphabets. Romani was first written during the 16th century, when word lists were produced by non-Romani scholars such as Andrew Borde.
Romani or Romany (native name: romani ćhib) is the language of the Roma. The Indo-Aryan Romani language should not be confused with either Romanian (spoken by Romanians ), or Romansh (spoken in parts of southeastern Switzerland ), both of which are Romance languages .
