A Vlax Romani variety with strong Hungarian and Slavic influence. Spoken across Central Europe.
Kalderash
A Vlax Romani variety with a long history in Romania and the Balkans. Traditionally associated with coppersmith trades.
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Frequently asked questions
What language is Kalderash?
Kalderash is a dialect of the Romani language.
Where is Kalderash spoken?
Kalderash is primarily spoken in Romania, Serbia.
Which region is Kalderash associated with?
Kalderash is part of the Europe region on DialectAtlas.
What are the other dialects of Romani?
Romani also includes Lovari, Arli, Gurbeti, Sinte Manouche, Baltic Romani, Central European Romani, Zargari, Romanichal, Welsh Romani, Finnish Kalo, Scandoromani, Caló, Ruska Roma, Ursari, Crimean Romani. Each variety has its own vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural context.
Other Romani dialects
See on the atlas →A Balkan Romani variety spoken widely across North Macedonia, Kosovo, southern Serbia, and Bulgaria.
A Balkan Romani variety with communities across Bosnia, Serbia, and surrounding countries.
Sinti · Manush · Sinté
A northwestern Romanes variety spoken by Sinti and Manouche communities across Germany, France, the Benelux, and northern Italy. Shaped by long contact with Germanic and Romance languages.
Polska Roma · Xaladitka Roma
A northern Romani variety historically rooted in Poland and the Baltic region, shaped by long contact with Slavic and Baltic languages.
Central Slovak Romani · Servika Roma
A Central European Romanes variety spoken by Romanes communities in Slovakia, with strong contact-influenced vocabulary from Slovak, Hungarian, and neighbouring languages.
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.
Angloromani · British Romani · Pogadi Chib
The Romani variety of the Romanichal Travellers of England and the wider British Isles. The older inflected dialect is no longer spoken; it survives as Angloromani, a para-Romani register in which a substantial Romani-derived lexicon is embedded in an English grammatical frame. Diaspora communities exist in North America and Australia.
Kååle · Welsh Kale
The inflected Northern Romani variety historically spoken by the Kååle of Wales. It was extensively documented by John Sampson in the early twentieth century and is now extinct as a first language, the last fluent speakers having died in the mid-twentieth century. It is notable as the last conservatively inflected Romani dialect attested in Britain.
Kaale · Finnish Kaale · Fíntiko Rómma
A Northern Romani variety spoken by the Finnish Kale in Finland and, through twentieth-century migration, in Sweden. It shows heavy structural and phonological influence from Finnish, including consonant gradation, and is one of the most distinctive Northern Romani dialects. Intergenerational transmission has weakened markedly.
Tavringer Romani · Traveller Romani · Rommani
A para-Romani variety spoken by Traveller communities in Sweden and Norway, combining a Romani-derived lexicon with a Scandinavian grammatical frame. It descends from the speech of Romani groups present in the region since the sixteenth century and survives today largely as an in-group vocabulary register.
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.
Russian Romani · North Russian Romani · Xaladitka Roma
A Northern Romani variety spoken by the Ruska Roma across Russia and Ukraine, shaped by long and intensive contact with Russian. It was the basis of a short-lived literary standard developed in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s and remains one of the more vital Northern Romani dialects.
Ursaritska · Rićhinari
A Balkan Romani variety spoken in Romania and Moldova, traditionally associated with the Ursari, the Roma groups historically known as bear-leaders. It is grouped with the Balkan dialects rather than the surrounding Vlax varieties and shows substantial Romanian contact influence.
Krymitika Roma · Crimean Roma
A Balkan Romani variety spoken by Roma communities of the Crimean peninsula and the northern Black Sea coast, marked by heavy contact influence from Crimean Tatar and other Turkic languages in both lexicon and phonology.
Nearby dialects
See on the atlas →190 km away
A Balkan Romani variety spoken in Romania and Moldova, traditionally associated with the Ursari, the Roma groups historically known as bear-leaders. It is grouped with the Balkan dialects rather than the surrounding Vlax varieties and shows substantial Romanian contact influence.
190 km away
The Bucharest-based standard of Romanian, spoken across Romania and Moldova. The largest Eastern Romance language and the basis of the modern literary standard.
271 km away
The Southwestern Ukrainian variety of the Bukovyna region around Chernivtsi. Shaped by long contact with Romanian, German, and Polish under Habsburg rule.
287 km away
An Oghuz Turkic language spoken by the Christian Gagauz people of southern Moldova. The official language of the autonomous Gagauz region (Gagauz Yeri), distinct from neighbouring Romanian and Bulgarian.
359 km away
The East Slavic varieties of the Carpathian highlands across Zakarpattia, eastern Slovakia, and southeastern Poland. Often classified as a separate language; historically grouped with Ukrainian.
375 km away
The Belgrade-based standard of Serbian. Part of the Štokavian dialect continuum that underlies all four BCMS national standards (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian); written in both Cyrillic and Latin scripts.
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Sources & corpora
Data on Kalderash from open scholarly databases. Each link opens the source in a new tab.