THE ROMANI LANGUAGE
By Ronald Lee
© Ronald Lee, October 1998, all rights reserved
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The language spoken by the Roma is called Romani. It is closely related to the Sanskrit from which all modern Indo-Aryan languages are derived. Romani developed in parallel to its sister languages still spoken in India until the 11th century AD. Then the ancestors of the Roma left India and Romani was influenced in its development by languages spoken elsewhere. These were Persian, Armenian, Byzantine Greek, Old Slavic and Rumanian. The same words from these languages can be found today in all dialects of Romani. This shows that the Roma travelled together as one group until they reached Rumania in the 14th century.