"In contrast to these special lexicons, Romany itself—spoken primarily in Central and Eastern Europe—is a full-fledged language, possessing a distinctive sound system and grammar. As with other languages, Romany exhibits geographic variation. Overall, however, this variation is relatively recent, going back to the settlement of Gypsies in Europe in 14th and 15th centuries. All Romany dialects derive from a single ancestral tongue, and the differences among them resemble the kind of variations found among dialects of such European languages as German and Italian. The exact enumeration and classification of Romany dialects remains a controversial subject, but several groups can be distinguished by the degree of mutual intelligibility. For example, Romany dialects spoken in Balkans and the Danubian Basin are largely mutually intelligible. A second group of closely-related dialects includes those spoken in central-eastern Europe: northern Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, southern Poland and western Ukraine. A third is found between central Poland, the Baltic states and Russia (see map of Northeastern Romany dialects; additional maps of Romany dialectal groups can be found on the University of Manchester Romani Project website). The Northwestern group of Romany dialects includes those found in, or formerly found in, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, and Finland." - Maitani