Abstract
The chapter covers the major issues in Romani dialectology. After a brief discussion of the extent and parameters of cross-dialect variation in Romani, we present an overview of dialect groups, reflecting an emerging consensus on Romani dialect classification, with a focus on their geographical distribution, internal subgroupings, and an overview of major descriptive works.
A section devoted to the history of the discipline contains an outline of the previous classification schemes of Romani dialects and their criteria. A separate section discusses two, partly conflicting and partly complementary, models of diachronic interpretation of the patterns of Romani cross-dialect variation, viz. the genealogical model and the diffusionist model.
The final section concludes and outlines the perspectives for further research.