Romani Language Dictionaries: (1755-2019): An Annotated Critical Bibliography

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to present an up-to-date bibliography of monographic dictionaries and selected wordlists that record the lexicological wealth of the many varieties of the Romani language. While salient features of each dictionary will be discussed, the bibliography is not intended to offer a comprehensive book review of each dictionary. It is also not within scope of the bibliography to present a detailed overview of the Romani language and its dialects per se, as this has been covered well in myriad other resources, including in the additional information found in many of the dictionaries cited in this bibliography. I will, however, give a brief overview of certain features of Romani insofar as this will help understand the organization of the bibliography and clarify some of the features of the works which I have chosen to highlight in the annotations. This bibliography is intended primarily for scholars and students interested in Romani from the linguistic perspective to aid in identifying appropriate dictionaries for their research. It can also be of use to libraries in assessing their collection to determine if they have key lexicological resources for those researching Romani.