Welsh Romani language

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Welsh Romani Romnimus
Spoken in:	Wales (United Kingdom)
Total speakers:	Probably extinct as a first language.
Language family:	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Central Zone Romani Welsh Romani
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`rom`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`rmw`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Welsh Romani is a variety of the Romani language which was spoken fluently in Wales until at least the 1950s. It was spoken by the Kale group of the Roma people who arrived in Britain during the 15th century. The first record of Gypsies in Wales comes from the 16th century.

The majority of the vocabulary is of Indo-Aryan origin but there are a number of loanwords from Welsh such as melanō ("yellow", from melyn), grīga ("heather", from grug) and kraŋka ("crab", from cranc). There are also English loanwords such as vlija ("village"), spīdra ("spider") and bråmla ("bramble").

[edit] Reference

John Sampson (1926) The dialect of the Gypsies of Wales, being the older form of British Romani preserved in the speech of the clan of Abram Wood, Oxford University Press, London