Bugurdži, Drindari and Kalajdži Romani are spoken in North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and in northern and central Bulgaria.

Elšík uses this classification and dialect examples (geographical information from Matras): Balkan Romani retains the aspirated consonants /pʰ, tʰ, tʃʰ, kʰ/ of other Indic languages.

There has been an attempt at standardization, at a 1992 conference in North Macedonia, based on the Arli dialect and using the Latin script.

[8] The proposed alphabet is as follows:[8] Turkish lexical influence is a defining and extremely important part of the Romani dialect in the Balkans.

The use of Turkish conjugations is widely embedded within Balkan Romani and oftentimes, it is difficult to tell the difference between the grammar of the two languages depending on geography.

Balkan Romani has compartmentalized grammar[10] originating from Turkish verbal paradigms along with some Greek influence.

Part of the substrate of Balkan Romani appears to be derived from medieval northern Indian languages.