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Dialect comparison

Caló vs Zargari

Compare two dialects of Romani side by side — where they're spoken, what they're called, and how they relate.

Caló

Iberian Romani · Zincaló · Caló Romani

The Iberian para-Romani variety spoken by the Calé (Gitanos) of Spain and, in related forms, Portugal and southern France. A Romani-derived lexicon is embedded in a Castilian (or Catalan/Portuguese) grammatical frame; the older inflected Iberian Romani is no longer spoken. Caló vocabulary has left a marked imprint on Andalusian Spanish and flamenco.

Approximate centre
37.39°, -5.99°
Zargari

Zargari Romani · Zargari Romanes · Zargar Romani

A highly endangered Romani variety spoken in and around the village of Zargar in Qazvin province of north-western Iran, west of Tehran. The community is traditionally said to have been settled in the Safavid period and is one of the easternmost Romani-speaking populations on record; the dialect retains a Romani lexical core but shows heavy contact influence from Persian and Azerbaijani Turkish in phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. Speaker numbers are small and intergenerational transmission has weakened sharply.

Spoken in
Approximate centre
36.08°, 50.49°

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