Romany

Romany , language belonging to the Dardic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Indo-Iranian languages). The mother tongue of the Gypsies , Romany has about 2 million speakers, largely outside India. The Gypsies apparently began migrating from NW India westward before the 9th cent. AD and had reached SE Europe before the 14th cent. They now live principally in central and E Europe and in Spain, although there are groups in the Western Hemisphere as well. Romany has three main dialectal groups: Asian, Armenian, and European. In grammar it can be traced back to Sanskrit . It has borrowed considerable vocabulary from the languages of the various peoples among whom its speakers have lived and roamed. There is no important literature in Romany, but some biblical translations into Romany exist, for which both the Roman and Cyrillic alphabets were used.

Bibliography: See J. Sampson, The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales (1925); R. L. Turner, Position of Romani in Indo-Aryan (1927); J. Kochanowski, Gypsy Studies (1963).

Romany (Gypsy) Nomadic people and their language. Romanies are believed to have originated in n India, and now inhabit Europe, Asia, America, Africa, and Australia. They first appeared in Europe in the 15th century. Their nomadic lifestyle aroused prejudice, often resulting in persecution. Their folklore is part of popular tradition. The Romany language originated in n India, and like Hindi and Sanskrit to which it is related, it belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Many Romanies today speak it as a second language, but there is little written Romany.

Romany the language of the gypsies, which is an Indo-European language related to Hindi. It is spoken by a dispersed group of about 1 million people, and has many dialects. The name comes (in the early 19th century) from Romany Romani, feminine and plural of the adjective Romano, from Rom ‘man, husband’.
Romany rye a man who is not a gypsy by birth, but who lives with gypsies; the phrase is first recorded in George Borrow's Lavengro (1851), an account of a wandering life apparently based on Borrow' own; the sequel, published in 1857, was called The Romany Rye. (Rye here represents Romany rai ‘gentleman’.)