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.
Romansh language
The main features distinguishing Romansh from the Gallo-Italic languages to the south, and placing it closer to French, are:
Another defining feature of the Romansh language is the use of unstressed vowels. All unstressed vowels (except /a/) disappeared.
Whether or not Romansh, Friulan and Ladin should compose a separate "Rhaeto-Romance" subgroup within Gallo-Romance is an unresolved issue, known as the "Questione ladina". Some linguists posit that these languages are descended from a common language, which was fractured geographically through the spread of German and Italian. The Italian linguist Graziadio Ascoli first made the claim in 1873. The other position holds that any similarities between these three languages can be explained through their relative geographic isolation, which shielded them from certain linguistic changes. By contrast, the Gallo-Italic varieties of Northern Italy were more open to linguistic influences from the South. Linguists who take this position often point out that the similarities between the languages are comparatively few. This position was first introduced by the Italian dialectologist Carlo Battisti.