Consonants

Stop positions and articulation

Three basic stop positions are inherited from Indo-Aryan and retained in all dialects of Romani: labial /p/, dental /t/, and velar /k/. To those one might add a palatal position, which is an inherited feature of other NIA languages (cf. Masica 1991: 94–5). The status of the palatal positions in Romani is somewhat problematic. In quite a few dialects /č/ behaves differently from other stops, showing loss of aspiration /čh/>/č/, loss of plosiveness /čh/>/ś/>/š/, /dž/>/ź/>/ž/, or substitution of its fricative quality through palatalisation /dž/>/d'/. These tendencies toward simplification suggest greater complexity than other stop positions, which in turn seems to recommend a separate classification of /č/ as an affricate. Palatalisation as an articulatory attribute can on the other hand accompany consonants (not just stops) in various positions. It makes sense therefore to separate three groups: genuine palatal stops, palatalised consonants, and affricates.

Genuine palatals are recent developments (cf. Boretzky 2001). They emerge either through the effects of inherited palatalisation of dentals in selected lexemes, as in Lovari dźes < *d'ives ‘day’, bući < *but'i ‘work’ (also in Northern Central dialects), or through contact developments, as in Arli and Gurbet varieties of Macedonia and Montenegro, affecting velars in positions preceding /i/ and /e/: ćher < kher ‘house’, ćin- < kin- ‘to buy’. Finnish and Laiuse Romani show similar palatal mutation of velars, as a result of earlier contact with Swedish: čhēr < kher ‘house’.