The Romany Alphabet

Romany (Romani) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Roma people across Europe. It is the only Indo-Aryan language spoken entirely outside South Asia as a community's first language. Romani is related to Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, and other languages descended from Sanskrit — and the Roma people's Indian origin is confirmed by linguistic evidence (shared Sanskrit-derived vocabulary and grammar) as well as genetic studies.

Romani has several major dialect groups: Vlax Romani (ISO 639-3: rom) spoken mainly in Romania and the Balkans; Balkan Romani; Central Romani (Sinti) spoken in Germany, Austria, and France; and Northern Romani spoken in Scandinavia and the Baltic states. Each dialect group has developed distinct phonology, vocabulary, and loanword patterns from contact with different European languages.

Romany (Romani) is primarily written in the Latin script with diacritical letters — most commonly using caron marks: č for the ch sound, š for sh, and ž for the zh sound (as in "measure"). The letter x represents the velar fricative (as in Scottish "loch").

There is no single standardised Romani orthography. Romani communities in different countries have adopted spelling conventions influenced by local languages — Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, and other national orthographies. The Romani International Standard (Romani Union standard) uses the caron-based system described above. Some communities also use Cyrillic, Arabic, or Devanagari for writing their variety of Romani.

Romany (Romani) originated in the Indian subcontinent — linguistic and genetic evidence indicates that the Roma people migrated from northwestern India approximately 1,000–1,500 years ago. The Roma language retains clear Sanskrit-derived core vocabulary: dand (tooth, from Sanskrit danta), pani (water, from Sanskrit paaniya), jag (fire, from Sanskrit agni), vast (hand, from Sanskrit hasta), and many others.

As the Roma migrated westward through Persia, the Byzantine Empire (Greece), and into Europe, the Romani language absorbed large amounts of vocabulary from Persian, Greek, Turkish, Romanian, Slavic, and other languages. This multi-layered borrowing gives Romani a distinctive vocabulary that mixes South Asian roots with European loanwords. The language arrived in Europe by approximately the 14th century CE, when Roma communities are first documented in Greek and European records.

Romani is spoken by approximately 3–5 million Roma people across Europe, though precise figures are difficult to determine due to the Roma's dispersal across many countries and the underreporting of minority language use in national censuses. The largest Romani-speaking populations are in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, and Spain.

Many Roma communities have shifted to the dominant national language of their country (Romanian, Hungarian, Spanish, etc.) over generations, particularly in urban areas. Romani is considered an endangered language in several parts of Europe, with language shift accelerating in younger generations. International organisations including the Council of Europe and UNESCO recognise Romani as a minority language deserving of protection and support.

No — Romany (Romani) and Romanian are unrelated languages, despite the similarity in name. Romanian is a Romance language descended from Latin, closely related to Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Romany is an Indo-Aryan language descended from Sanskrit, related to Hindi, Punjabi, and Bengali.

The name confusion arises because the largest population of Roma people live in Romania, and the English words "Romani" and "Romanian" sound similar. However, the two names have different origins: "Romani" comes from "Rom" (the Roma people's own term for themselves, derived from Sanskrit "doma" — a caste of musicians), while "Romanian" comes from "Rome" (the Roman Empire). In the Romani language itself, speakers call their language "rromani čhib" (Roma tongue).