The position of Romani in Indo-Aryan revisited

The article reassesses Turner’s (1926) classification of Romani within the Indo-Aryan group, drawing on insights from recent research and several years of the author’s work on the Romani Etymological Dictionary (ЭСЦЯ, jointly with Kirill Kozhanov). Turner’s approach has proven robust, but some of his specific conclusions need revision. While some of the isoglosses identified by him remain valid indicators of Romani’s historical position within Indo-Aryan, others appear less reliable upon closer examination of the etymological evidence. The article also presents some recent findings and hypotheses on Romani prosody, including evidence for preservation of ancient vowel length potentially detectable through comparison with Dardictonal-moraic systems. Additionally, it touches upon the puzzling distinction between OIA kh vs. kṣ preserved in Romani, mentions the preservation in Romani of vestiges of the neuter, and brings up non-trivial Romani stress patterns in connection with the reconstructed “rhythmic law.” This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .