Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes ProCon History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture Money Videos
Romany languages
Discover
Baseball laying in the grass. Homepage blog 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society, sports and games athletics
10 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time
John F. Kennedy as a boy with his family
What Did We Call America’s Elite Before the “1 Percent”?
Orange basketball on black background and with low key lighting. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society
The 10 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
Thumbnail for flags that look alike quiz Russia, Slovenia, Iceland, Norway
Flags That Look Alike
Thanksgiving Turkey with all the sides
Why Do We Eat Turkey on Thanksgiving?
Artist interpretation of a Space meteoroid impact. Meteor impact. Asteroid, End of the world, danger, destruction, dinosaur extinct, Judgement Day, Planet Earth, Doomsday Predictions, comet
10 Failed Doomsday Predictions
A human Inuit skull in a stone chambered cairn in Ilulissat in Greenland. These ancient graves are pre christian and are at least 2000
14 Tough Questions Answered
Romany languages Article

Romany language summary

verifiedCite
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Select Citation Style
Share
Share to social media
URL
https://www.britannica.com/summary/Romany-languages
Feedback
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites
Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Romany languages.

Romany language, Indo-Aryan language of the Roma (see Rom), spoken in many countries of the world, with its greatest concentration of speakers in eastern Europe. Romany is believed to have separated from the northern Indian languages c. ad 1000. Its dialects, which include many loanwords from languages where the Roma have lived, are classified according to the languages that influenced them: Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, Czecho-Slovak, German, Polish, Russian, Finnish, Scandinavian, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Welsh, and Spanish. Romany has no tradition of writing but a rich oral tradition. In the 20th century some collections of Romany poems and folktales were published in eastern Europe.