Abstract
The chapter provides an up-to-date introduction to the origins of the Romani language and its genetic affiliation and relationships to other languages. It presents Romani as a case of an Indo-Aryan language that is not part of the Indian Linguistic Area and deals with methodological issues in reconstructing older stages of Romani.
It discusses the classification of Romani within the Indo-Aryan family and the chronology of separation of a Romani antecedent from the Indo-Aryan dialect area as well as contact with various Asian languages. The major part of the chapter provides an outline of the Indo-Aryan structures in Romani at the levels of phonology, morphology and syntax, and characteristic features of the inherited vocabulary in Romani.