The Romani language is a key part of the identity of the Roma people, yet it’s often misunderstood or overlooked. This article covers the basic facts you need to know - where the Romani language comes from, how it developed, and why it’s important today.
When people hear the word "Romani", many immediately think of vague, often inaccurate images shaped by centuries of myth and misunderstanding. Here is a basic yet essential introduction to the Romani language - its origins, development, and relationship to other languages.
Romani belongs to Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes they are called Indic languages). It means that it is related to some of the languages spread in the peninsula Hindustan, such as Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and some others. The historical homeland of the Romani language was established quite late. It was only in the 18th century that linguists started to compare the Romani language with ancient and modern Indic languages. The first person who suggested the connection between the Romani language and Indian languages is traditionally considered to be the Hungarian pastor Valyi Istvan in the 1760s. He compared the language of Roma living in Hungary with the language of students from Malabar Coast in India. Couple of years later through the efforts of linguists Johann Rudiger and Jacob Bryant the Romani language was recognised as an Indo-Aryan language. First detailed analysis of relationships between Romani and Indic languages was published in 1844 by German linguist August Pott.
Roma is an endonym (or self-name) of these people. Names like «Gypsy» or «Cigani» are not only offensive today, but also carry old stereotypes about the Roma, as it was long believed that the Roma came to Europe from Egypt, which is why they were called that. Romani is not related to the Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, etc.), they are just similar names. In the ancient state of the Romani language there was a special consonant, which is called retroflex or cerebrum D. You can pronounce this sound by curling your tongue back. In modern dialects of the Romani language this consonant is not pronounced this way anymore but you may find many versions of its pronunciation but all of them are more or less close to “r-sound”.
The Roma live in close contact with other peoples, which, from a linguistic point of view, indicates that local languages have influence on Romani, and vice versa, as evidenced, for example, by lexical borrowings. Here it is worth noting and discussing such a phenomenon as Para-Romani, mixed languages based on Romani and one of the local languages. Another important feature of the Romani language from a sociolinguistic point of view is that there is no single literary norm, or even a generally accepted alphabet – the language of the Roma living in Macedonia will be very different from the Roma in Turkey.
The Romani language offers valuable insight into the history and identity of the Roma people. While the language varies significantly across regions and lacks a standardized form, its roots in the Indo-Aryan language family remain a powerful link to the community’s origins. This brief overview covers just the basic things you need to know, but even these fundamentals help dispel common myths and replace them with real knowledge. Learning about Romani is not only a linguistic journey - it's a way of understanding a people whose story deserves to be seen clearly and respectfully.