Romani people
Most Romani speak one of several dialects of the Romani language, an Indo-Aryan language, with roots in Sanskrit. They also often speak the languages of the countries they live in. Typically, they also incorporate loanwords and calques into Romani from the languages of those countries and especially words for terms that the Romani language does not have. Most of the "Ciganos" of Portugal, the Gitanos of Spain, the Romanichal of the UK, and Scandinavian Travellers have lost their knowledge of pure Romani, and respectively speak the mixed languages Caló, Angloromany, and Scandoromani. Most of the speaker communities in these regions consist of later immigrants from eastern or central Europe.
Romani people
The Romani language is divided into several dialects which together have an estimated number of speakers of more than two million. The total number of Romani people is at least twice as high (several times as high according to high estimates). Many Romani are native speakers of the dominant language in their country of residence or of mixed languages combining the dominant language with a dialect of Romani; those varieties are sometimes called Para-Romani.Rom means man or husband in the Romani language. It has the variants dom and lom, related with the Sanskrit words "dam-pati" (lord of the house, husband), "dama" (to subdue), "lom" (hair), "lomaka" (hairy), "loman", "roman" (hairy), "romaça" (man with beard and long hair). Another possible origin is from Sanskrit डोम "doma" (member of a low caste of travelling musicians and dancers).