A Vlax Romani variety with strong Hungarian and Slavic influence. Spoken across Central Europe.
Ruska Roma
Also known as: 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.
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Frequently asked questions
What language is Ruska Roma?
Ruska Roma is a dialect of the Romani language.
Where is Ruska Roma spoken?
Ruska Roma is primarily spoken in Russia, Ukraine.
Which region is Ruska Roma associated with?
Ruska Roma is part of the Europe region on DialectAtlas.
Is Ruska Roma known by other names?
Yes — Ruska Roma is also referred to as Russian Romani, North Russian Romani, Xaladitka Roma.
Is Ruska Roma endangered?
Ruska Roma is classified as vulnerable: most children still speak it, but its use may be restricted to certain settings such as the home.
What are the other dialects of Romani?
Romani also includes Lovari, Kalderash, Arli, Gurbeti, Sinte Manouche, Baltic Romani, Central European Romani, Zargari, Romanichal, Welsh Romani, Finnish Kalo, Scandoromani, Caló, Ursari, Crimean Romani. Each variety has its own vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural context.
Other Romani dialects
See on the atlas →A Vlax Romani variety with a long history in Romania and the Balkans. Traditionally associated with coppersmith trades.
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.
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 →1 km away
The Moscow-area standard of Russian. The reference variety in education, broadcasting, and most second-language teaching.
401 km away
The Central Russian dialects of the middle Volga, around Nizhny Novgorod and Vladimir. A transitional zone between the Northern and Southern dialect groups.
601 km away
The sole surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic, spoken in Chuvashia in the Volga region. Linguistically the most divergent living Turkic language, with features lost everywhere else in the family.
630 km away
The Northern Ukrainian dialect group of the Polissia region, straddling northern Ukraine and southern Belarus. Forms a transitional zone between Ukrainian and Belarusian.
633 km away
The traditional educated speech of Saint Petersburg. Distinct from Moscow Russian in clearer enunciation of unstressed vowels and a number of lexical preferences.
647 km away
The Southeastern Ukrainian variety of the Sloboda region around Kharkiv and Sumy. Close to the standard, but with a distinctive lexicon shaped by long contact with Russian.