This book is a thorough and rigorous linguistic description of Romani. Anyone interested in the linguistic structure of Romani should read this book as a beginning point. Matras presents an excellent, descriptive sketch of the history and synchronic structure of the Romani language along with a comprehensive list of literature for those interested in further pursuing Romani linguistics. Not being a specialist in Romani linguistics, I can't fully interpret everything Matras writes. Given the nature of the field, I'm sure that specialists would not agree with everything that Matras writes. However, he does present the data from a primarily descriptive point of view, and the extensive bibliography serves to point the interested reader to other works on the topic.

However, it cannot be overemphasized that this book will NOT help you learn Romani in any real way. If you're already engaged in learning Romani (i.e., through Hancock or other resources), and are familiar with modern linguistic terminology, a more thorough structural understanding of the language is always helpful. Nonetheless, this book will not teach you to speak, read, or write Romani. Its audience is primarily academic linguists, and for this reason, I can't interpret this as a weakness of the book per se. Just something to keep in mind if you're interested in buying it.

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