Language
Most Romanies speak one of several dialects of Romani, an Indo-Aryan language. They also will often speak the languages of the countries they live in. Typically, they also incorporate loanwords and calques into Romani from the languages of those countries, especially words for terms that the Romani language does not have. Most of the Ciganos of Portugal, the Gitanos of Spain, the Romanichal of the UK, and Scandinavian Travellers have lost their knowledge of pure Romani, and respectively speak the mixed languages Caló, Angloromany, and Scandoromani.
There are independent groups currently working toward standardizing the language, including groups in Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, the USA, and Sweden. Romani is not currently spoken in India.
Read more about this topic: Romani People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“The writers language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own language.”
—Paul De Man (19191983)
“I am both a public and a private school boy myself, having always changed schools just as the class in English in the new school was taking up Silas Marner, with the result that it was the only book in the English language that I knew until I was eighteenbut, boy, did I know Silas Marner!”
—Robert Benchley (18891945)
“Theres language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)