Speakers

Antoine,

Thank you for looking at the population figures from 3 different sources for the Romani (Romany) languages.

As you probably know, Romany [rom] is a macrolanguage with 7 member languages. So, Romany does not include what are sometimes referred to as "Para-Romani" varieties, such as Anglo-Romani [rme], Errumantxela [emx], and Caló [rmq]. But, these generally have low speaker populations.

Overall, it appears that the numbers given in these 3 sources are highly inflated compared to what is in the Ethnologue. Perhaps it is due to the fact that Ethnologue gets most of its numbers from censuses. It could be that the Romani people are not great census-takers: because of the low prestige factor, they may report the national or regional language, or because some tend to be somewhat semi-nomadic, they are difficult to count.

In any case, Britannica reports 1 million Romanis in the United States and presumably adds that number to the total number of speakers. Ethnologue reports exactly 0 (zero) Romani speakers in the United States. Britannica reports 800,000 speakers in Brazil, where Ethnologue reports 24,000. Ethnologue also reports 400,000 Caló [rmq] speakers, but Caló is not part of the Romany [rom] macrolanguage (Caló, and others such as Angloromani [rme] and Erromintxela [emx], are considered by some to be "Para-Romani" languages).

For Zatreanu and Halwachs, most of their numbers for European countries are MUCH higher than Ethnologue's: They report 290,000 speakers in Hungary, Ethnologue just 54,000, similarly 215,000 in North Macedonia, with Ethnologue at 40,000. Zatreanu and Halwachs' numbers are closer to Ethnologue's ethnic populations for Romani in Europe (where Ethnologue has ethnic numbers).

For Matras, I would say more of the same.

To answer your question, I would say that the "true" number probably falls somewhere between Ethnologue and these, perhaps 2 or 3 million.

Best wishes,

Chuck Fennig
Managing Editor, Ethnologue