Overview

We have restricted ourselves here to the most salient elements and facts and we refer the interested readers to the many specific books written on that subject as well as to the references in the section books and more.

Romanes shows a strongly articulated Indian morphology. Large parts of the grammar are found in existing Indo-Aryan languages. To this grammar of Indian origin, one has to add elements stemming from the Greek period of the Roma history, mostly represented in some suffixes and conjugations.

Substantives and Declinations

Substantives in Romanes have two genders with differing plurals. As in German, Russian and many other languages Romanes has declinations. The construction of these declinations is based on a two case principle. The direct or nominative form and the indirect, sometimes called oblique form.

The actual declinations are constructed from this indirect from by addition of flexions of undoubtedly Indian origins.

There are 5 + 1 cases in Romanes: The accusative, the dative, the instrumental, the ablative, the locative and the vocative. All declinations, except for the vocative are constructed from the oblique from and hence the 5+1! cases.

Verbs

Verbal forms are of Indian origins in Romanes. The use of these forms is determined and influenced by the usage found in the surrounding languages. Romanes has the following tenses: present, future, past indefinite, past perfect, imperative, conditional, subjunctive, and sometimes also a composed past and future.

The past tense shows the greatest variations among different dialect groups and is of importance for the classification of the different groups.

Note that Romanes generally has no infinitive. Romanes has transitive and intransitive verbs. Transitive means that the action applies to another object/person. Intransitive or reflexive verbs refer to an action that applies to oneself. Their conjugations, especially in the past tense differ. This constitutes one of the bigger difficulties for non-native Romanes speakers especially for those of English mother tongue.

Articles and Pronouns

Romanes has definite articles for masculine -o, feminine -e or -i and one for the plural of both genders. The use of articles is very limited in some dialects, such as the one of Russian and Polish Roma, although one finds their trace in old songs, tales and in endings of prepositions.

Personal and possessive pronouns are of Indian origins. The personal pronouns me [I]; tu [you] sing.; ov, jov or vov [he]; oj, joj or voj [she]; ame [we]; tume [you pl.]; on, jone or von [they] are declined as substantives, while the possessive ones behave like adjectives.

For example, the personal pronoun me [I], has the indirect form man and is declined as follows: mange, manca, mandar and mande.

Adjectives are usually placed in front of the substantives whose attributes they are and are accorded in both gender and number with the substantive. Adjectives have both a direct and indirect form.

The interrogative pronouns so [what], kon [who] are declined as substantives. The greatest variety and dialectical differences arises in demonstrative pronouns and some adverb.

These constitute a strong marker of metadialectical group’s identity. Even inside a given metagroup, they are often used as a group marker identity. These pronouns and their use also constitute one of the larger difficulties in Romanes.