Romani language
Romani (; also Romany; ) is any of several languages of the Romani people belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. According to Ethnologue, seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their own. The largest of these are Vlax Romani (about 500,000 speakers), Balkan Romani (600,000), and Sinte Romani (300,000). Some Romani communities speak mixed languages based on the surrounding language with retained Romani-derived vocabulary – these are known by linguists as Para-Romani varieties, rather than dialects of the Romani language itself.
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.