Language contact is to a great extent constitutive of Romani. In particular, Romani is associated with some cross-linguistically rare outcomes as it exhibits ‘heavy’ borrowing in both lexicon and grammar. Over the past decades, exploration of Romani dialects has given rise to new concepts, especially in the search for explanations for the emergence of mixed languages, either through substantial replication of paradigms leading to compartmentalization or through near wholesale retention of lexicon after language shift.