Pre-European origins

The form of Romani that was first documented in Britain (see Chapter 3) was clearly closely related to the varieties of the language that continue to be spoken all across the European continent. By carrying out systematic comparisons of Romani language samples recorded from Gypsies in different locations in Europe with other languages selected almost at random, scholars in the second half of the eighteenth century were able to establish an affinity between Romani and the Indo-Iranian language group, and more specifically with the languages of India (Marsden 1785, Rüdiger 1782). The actual breakthrough came with Rüdiger's lecture delivered in 1777 (and published in 1782). The paper contained for the first time not just a comparison of word lists in Romani and Hindustani, but also a systematic discussion of grammar at the levels of morphology and syntax and an analysis of similarities as well as differences between the two languages along with an attempt to provide an explanatory account of the changes and innovations that have affected Romani. Rüdiger's position was then replicated in Grellmann's (1783) monograph, which, well marketed, became the more frequently cited source for the hypothesis that the Romani language is of Indo-Aryan stock and that the ancestors of the Roma therefore descend from a migrant population of Indian origin.