Romani Language

Romani is the language of travelling communities of Indian origin. Due to the nature of the small, travelling communities, data on the number of speakers is considered unreliable. There are around 9 million speakers, in at least 47 territories. The largest numbers of speakers are in many Eastern European territories, and also the United States. Romani is a language of Romania. Roughly 8% of the population there speak it as a first language.

There are several major dialects, the largest of which is Vlax Romani, followed by the Balkan, Carpathian and Sinte variants. According to the Manchester Romani Project at the University of Manchester, “Romani communities in westernmost ‘fringe’ countries, such as Portugal and Spain, the United Kingdom, and the Scandinavian countries (with the exception of Finland), have abandoned Romani and have adopted the majority language (albeit retaining some Romani vocabulary in group-internal conversation).”