Romani people

Template:RomaniInfobox The Romani people (as a noun, singular Rom, plural Roma; sometimes Rrom, Rroma) or Romanies are an ethnic group living in many communities all over the world. The Roma are among the best known ethnic groups that appear in literature and folklore, and are often referred to as Gypsies or Gipsies, a term that is generally considered pejorative and is based on a mistaken belief of an origin in Egypt. The Roma are still thought of as wandering nomads in the popular imagination, despite the fact that today the vast majority live in permanent housing. This widely dispersed ethnic group lives across the world not only near their historic heartland in Southern and Eastern Europe, but also in the American continent and the Middle East.

Population

Worldwide there is an estimated population of at least 15 million Roma. The official number of Romani people is disputed in many countries, because many Roma often refuse to register their ethnic identity for fear of discrimination , determining parallel unofficial censuses, surveys and estimations in order to reveal the true numbers. The largest population of Roma is found on the Balkan peninsula; however, significant numbers also live in the Americas, the former Soviet Union, Western Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

The Roma recognize divisions among themselves based in part on territorial, cultural and dialectal differences. Some authorities recognize five main groups:

1. Kalderash are the most numerous, traditionally coppersmiths, from the Balkans, many of whom migrated to central Europe and North America;
2. Gitanos (also called Calé) mostly in the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and southern France; associated with entertainment;
3. Sinti mostly in Alsace and other regions of France and Germany (Other experts, and Sinti themselves, insist that Sinti are not a subgroup of Roma but rather a separate ethnic group which also had Indian origins and a history of nomadism);
4. Romnichal (Rom'nies) mainly in Britain and North America; and
5. Erlides (also known as Yerlii or Arli) settled in southeastern Europe and Turkey.

Some groups, like the Finnish Roma population (Kaalee) and the Norwegian and Swedish Travellers, are hard to categorize. Each of these main divisions may be further divided into two or more subgroups distinguished by occupational specialization or territorial origin, or both. Some of these group names are: Machvaya (Machwaya), Lovari, Churari, Rudari, Boyash, Ludar, Luri, Xoraxai, Ungaritza, Bashaldé, Ursari and Romungro.

Origins

The absence of a written history has meant that the origin and early history of the Romani people was long an enigma. As early as 200 years ago, cultural anthropologists hypothesised an Indian origin of the Roma based on linguistic evidence. Genetic data confirms this.

The Roma are believed to have originated in the Punjab and Rajasthan regions of the Indian subcontinent. They began their migration to Europe and North Africa via the Iranian plateau around 1050.

Linguistic evidence

Gipsy Encampment - facsimile of a copperplate by Callot.

Until the mid-late eighteenth century, theories of the origin of the Roma amounted to speculation. Then in 1782, Johann Christian Christoph Rüdiger published his research that pointed out the relationship between the Romani language and Hindustani. Subsequent work supported the hypothesis that Romani shared a common origin with the Indo-Aryan languages of Northern India, with Romani grouping most closely with Sinhalese in a recent study.

The majority of historians accepted this as evidence of an Indian origin for the Roma, but some maintained that the Roma acquired the language through contact with Indian merchants.

Genetic evidence

Further evidence for the Indian origin of the Roma came in the late 1990s when it was discovered that Roma populations carried large frequencies of particular Y chromosomes (inherited paternally) and mitochondrial DNA (inherited maternally) that otherwise only exist in populations from South Asia.

47.3% of Roma men carry Y chromosomes of haplogroup H-M82 which is otherwise rare outside of the Indian subcontinent. Mitochondrial haplogroup M, most common in Indian subjects and rare outside of Southern Asia, accounts for nearly 30% of Roma people. A more detailed study of Polish Roma shows this to be of the M5 lineage, which is specific to India. Moreover, a form of the inherited disorder congenital myasthenia is carried by around 4% of the Roma population. This form of the disorder, caused by the 1267delG mutation, is otherwise only known in subjects of Indian ancestry.

This is considered unambiguous proof that all Roma are descended from a single founding population, originating from the Indian subcontinent around 40 generations ago, which subsequently split into the subgroups we see today.

History

Main article: History of the Romani people

First arrival of the Roma outside Berne in the 15^th century, described by the chronicler as getoufte heiden ("baptized heathens") and drawn with dark skin and wearing Saracen-style clothing and weapons (Spiezer Schilling, p. 749).

Linguistic and genetic evidence indicates the Roma originated from the Indian subcontinent.[7] The cause of the Roma diaspora is unknown. However, the most probable situation is that the Roma were part of the military in Northern India. When there were repeated raids by Mahmud of Ghazni and these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire. This occurred between 1000 and 1050 AD. This departure date is assumed because, linguistically speaking, the Romani language is a New Indo-Aryan language (NIA), it has only two genders (masculine and feminine). Until around the year 1000, the Indo-Aryan languages, named Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) had three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter). By the turn of the 2nd millennium they changed into the NIA phase, losing the neuter gender. Most of the neuter nouns became masculine while a few feminine, like the neuter अग्नि (agni) in the Prakrit became the feminine आग (āg) in Hindi and jag in Romani. The parallels in grammatical gender evolution between Romani and other NIA languages is proposed to prove that the change occurred in the Subcontinent. It is therefore considered that it was not possible that the Romas' ancestors left there prior to 1000. They then stayed in the Byzantine Empire for several hundred years. However, the Muslim expansion, mainly made by the Seljuk Turks, into the Byzantine Empire recommenced the movement of the Romani people.

Many historians believe that the Muslim conquerors of northern India took the Roma as slaves and marched them home over the unforgiving terrain of Central Asia, taking great tolls on the population and thereby giving rise to such designations as the Hindu Kush mountains of present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mahmud of Ghazni reportedly took 500,000 prisoners during a Turkish/Persian invasion of Sindh and Punjab. Others suggest the Roma were originally low-caste Hindus recruited into an army of mercenaries, granted warrior caste status, and sent westward to resist Islamic military expansion. In either case, upon arrival, they became a distinct community. Why the Roma did not return to India, choosing instead to travel west into Europe, is an enigma, but may relate to military service under the Muslims.

Contemporary scholars have suggested that one of the first written references to the Roma, under the term "Atsinganoi", (Greek), dates from the Byzantine era during a time of famine in the 9^th century. In 800 AD, Saint Athanasia gave food to "foreigners called the Atsinganoi" near Thrace. Later, in 803 AD, Theophanes the Confessor wrote that Emperor Nikephoros I had the help of the "Atsinganoi" to put down a riot with their "knowledge of magic".

"Atsingani" was used to refer to itinerant fortune tellers, ventriloquists and wizards who visited the Emperor Constantine IX in the year 1054. The hagiographical text, The Life of St. George the Anchorite, mentions that the "Atsingani" were called on by Constantine to help rid his forests of the wild animals which were killing off his livestock. They are later described as sorcerers and evildoers and accused of trying to poison the Emperor's favorite hound.

In 1322 a Franciscan monk named Simon Simeonis described people resembling these "atsinganoi" living in Crete and in 1350 Ludolphus of Sudheim mentioned a similar people with a unique language whom he called Mandapolos, a word which some theorize was possibly derived from the Greek word mantes (meaning prophet or fortune teller).

Around 1360, an independent Romani fiefdom (called the Feudum Acinganorum) was established in Corfu and became "a settled community and an important and established part of the economy."

By the 14^th century, the Roma had reached the Balkans; by 1424, Germany; and by the 16^th century, Scotland and Sweden. Some Roma migrated from Persia through North Africa, reaching Europe via Spain in the 15^th century. The two currents met in France. Roma began immigrating to the United States in colonial times, with small groups in Virginia and French Louisiana. Larger-scale immigration began in the 1860s, with groups of Romnichal from Britain. The largest number immigrated in the early 1900s, mainly from the Vlax group of Kalderash. Many Roma also settled in Latin America.

A Romani woman with her child in Rome

When the Romani people arrived in Europe, curiosity was soon followed by hostility and xenophobia. Roma were enslaved for five centuries in Romania until abolition in 1864. Elsewhere in Europe, they were subject to ethnic cleansing, abduction of their children, and forced labor. During World War II, the Nazis murdered 200,000 to 800,000 Roma in an attempted genocide known as the Porajmos. Like the Jews, they were marked for extermination and sentenced to forced labour and imprisonment in concentration camps. They were often killed on sight, especially by the Einsatzgruppen (essentially mobile killing units) on the Eastern Front.

In Communist Eastern Europe, Roma experienced assimilation schemes and restrictions of cultural freedom. The Romani language and Romani music were banned from public performance in Bulgaria. In Czechoslovakia, they were labeled a "socially degraded stratum," and Romani women were sterilized as part of a state policy to reduce their population. This policy was implemented with large financial incentives, threats of denying future social welfare payments, misinformation or after administering drugs (Silverman 1995; Helsinki Watch 1991). An official inquiry from the Czech Republic, resulting in a report (December 2005), concluded that the Communist authorities had practised an assimilation policy towards Roma, which "included efforts by social services to control the birth rate in the Romani community" and that "the problem of sexual sterilisation carried out in the Czech Republic, either with improper motivation or illegally, exists" , with new revealed cases up until 2004, in both Czech Republic and Slovakia.

In the early 1990s, Germany deported tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to Eastern Europe. Sixty percent of some 100,000 Romanian nationals deported under a 1992 treaty were Roma. In Norway, Roma were forcibly sterilized by the state until 1977.[8].

Society and culture

Main article: Roma society and culture

A Gipsy Family - Facsimile of a woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster: in folio, Basle, 1552.

The traditional Roma place a high value on the extended family. Virginity is essential in unmarried women. Both men and women often marry young; there has been controversy in several countries over the Roma practice of child marriage. Roma law establishes that the man’s family must pay a dower to the bride's parents.

Roma social behaviour is strictly regulated by purity laws ("marime" or "marhime"), still respected by most Roma and among Sinti groups by the older generations. This regulation affects many aspects of life, and is applied to actions, people and things: parts of the human body are considered impure: the genital organs (because they produce emissions) as well as the rest of the lower body. Fingernails and toenails must be filed with an emery board, as cutting them with a clipper is taboo. Clothes for the lower body, as well as the clothes of menstruating women are washed separately. Items used for eating are also washed in a different place. Childbirth is considered impure, and must occur outside the dwelling place. The mother is considered impure for forty days after giving birth. Death is considered impure, and affects the whole family of the dead, who remain impure for a period of time. However, in contrast to the practice of cremating the dead, Roma dead must be buried. It is possible that this tradition was adapted from Abrahamic religions after the Roma left the Indian subcontinent.

Religion

Roma have usually adopted the dominant religion of the host country while often preserving aspects of their particular belief systems and indigenous religion and worship. Most Eastern European Roma are Catholic, Orthodox Christian or Muslim. Those in western Europe and the United States are mostly Roman Catholic or Protestant. In Turkey, Egypt, and the southern Balkans, the Roma are split into Christian and Muslim populations.

Romani religion has a highly developed sense of morality, taboos, and the supernatural, though it is often denigrated by organized religions. It has been suggested that while still in India the Romani people belonged to the Hindu religion, this theory being supported by the Romani word for "cross", trushul, which is the word which describes Shiva's trident (Trishula).

Since the 1960s, a growing number of Roma have embraced Evangelical movements. Over the past half-century, Roma have become ministers and created their own churches and missionary organizations for the first time. In some countries, the majority of Roma now belong to the Romani churches. This change has contributed to a better image of Roma in society. The work they perform is seen as more legitimate, and they have begun to obtain legal permits for commercial activities.

Evangelical Romani churches exist today in every country where Roma are settled. The movement is particularly strong in France and Spain; there are more than one thousand Romani churches (known as "Filadelfia") in Spain, with almost one hundred in Madrid alone. In Germany, the most numerous group is that of Polish Roma, having their main church in Mannheim. Other important and numerous Romani assemblies exist in Los Angeles, California; Houston, Texas Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Mexico City. Some groups in Romania and Chile have joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

In the Balkans, the Roma of Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo (southern province of Serbia) and Albania have been particularly active in Islamic mystical brotherhoods (Sufism). Muslim Roma immigrants to western Europe and America have brought these traditions with them.

Music

Main article: Roma music

Roma music plays an important role in Eastern European cultures such as Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Hungary, Russia, and Romania, and the style and performance practices of Roma musicians have influenced European classical composers such as Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms. The lăutari who perform at traditional Romanian weddings are virtually all Roma. Probably the most internationally prominent contemporary performers in the lăutar tradition are Taraful Haiducilor. Bulgaria's popular "wedding music," too, is almost exclusively performed by Roma musicians such as Ivo Papasov, a virtuoso clarinetist closely associated with this genre. Many famous classical musicians, such as the Hungarian pianist Georges Cziffra, are Roma, as are many prominent performers of manele. Zdob şi Zdub, one of the most prominent rock bands in Moldova, although not Roma themselves, draw heavily on Roma music, as do Spitalul de Urgenţă in Romania, Goran Bregović in Serbia, Darko Rundek in Croatia, and Beirut in the United States.

Another tradition of Roma music is the genre of the gypsy brass band, with such notable practitioners as Boban Markovic of Serbia, and the brass lăutari groups Fanfare Ciocărlia and Fanfare din Cozmesti of Romania.

The distinctive sound of Roma music has also strongly influenced bolero, jazz, and flamenco (especially cante jondo) in Europe. European-style Gypsy jazz is still widely practised among the original creators (the Roma People); one who acknowledged this artistic debt was guitarist Django Reinhardt.

The Roma of Turkey have achieved musical acclaim from national and local audiences. Local performers usually perform for special holidays. Their music is usually performed on instruments such as the darbuka and gırnata. A number nation wide best seller performers are said to be of Romani origin. The Roma anthem is called Djelem, Djelem.

Language

Main article: Romani language

Most Roma speak one of several dialects of Romani, an Indo-Aryan language. They also will often speak the languages of the countries they live in, or incorporate into Romani loanwords from the language of the country, especially words for terms which Romani does not have. The Gitanos of Spain and the Romnichal of the UK, have lost their knowledge of pure Romani, and respectively speak the patois languages Caló and Angloromani.

There are independent groups currently working toward standardizing the language, including groups in Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, the USA, and Sweden. Romani is not currently spoken in India.

Etymology

Most Roma refer to themselves as rom or rrom, depending on the dialect. The word means "husband", romni/rromni meaning "wife", while the unmarried are named čhavo ("boy") (IPA pronunciation: /cʰaʋo/) or čhej ("girl"). There are no historical proofs to clarify the etymology of these words.

The word Rom (plural Roma) is a noun, Romani is an adjective, while Romanes is an adverb (meaning, roughly, "in the Romani way"). The language is called the Romani language or Romanes. In the Romani language, the adjective is created by attaching suffixes to the root that express gender and number: "Romani" (f. sing.), "Romano (m. sing.) and "Romane" (m. & f. pl.). Usually in English it is used only the feminine singular form, but they may also appear in the other forms. "Romanes" is created by attaching the suffix -es, usually employed for adverbs. The use of the word Romanes in English as a noun is incorrect.

The English term Gypsy (or Gipsy) originates from the Greek word Αιγύπτοι (Aigyptoi), modern Greek γύφτοι (gyphtoi), in the erroneous belief that the Roma originated in Egypt, and were exiled as punishment for allegedly harboring the infant Jesus. If used, this exonym should also be written with capital letter, to show that it is about an ethnic group. As described in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the medieval French referred to the Rom as "egyptiens". This ethnonym is not used by the Roma to describe themselves, and is often considered pejorative (as is the term "gyp", meaning "to cheat", a reference to the suspicion the Roma engendered). However, the use of "Gypsy" in English is now so pervasive that many Roma organizations use the word Gypsy in their own names. In North America, the word "Gypsy" is commonly used as a reference to lifestyle or fashion, and not to the Roma ethnicity. The Spanish term gitano and the French term gitan may have the same origin.

In most of continental Europe, Roma are known by many names, most of them similar to the Hungarian cigány (pronounced IPA /ˈʦiɡaːɲ/). Early Byzantium literature suggests that the various names now referring to Gypsies, such as tzigane, zincali, cigány, etc., are derived from the Greek ατσίγγανοι (atsinganoi, Latin adsincani), applied to Roma during Byzantine times, or from the Greek term αθίγγανοι (athinganoi) meaning literally 'untouchables', in reference to a 9th-century heretical sect that had been accused of practising magic and fortune-telling. In modern Greek, aside from the term Rom (Ρομ), the terms gyphtoi (Greek:γύφτοι) and tsigganoi (Greek:τσιγγάνοι) are interchangeable and both are used when referring to the Roma.

Because many Roma living in France had come via Bohemia, they were also referred to as Bohémiens. This would later be adapted to describe the impoverished artistic lifestyle of Bohemianism.

Outside Europe, Roma are referred to by more varied names, such as Kowli (کولی) in Iran; Lambani, Labana Lambadi, Rabari or Banjara in India; Ghajar (غجر) or Nawar (نور') in Arabic; and tzo'anim צוענים in Hebrew (after an ancient city in Egypt and the biblical verb צענ ṣā‛an, roaming).

There is no connection between the name Roma (ethnicity) and the city of Rome, ancient Rome, Romania, the Romanian people or the Romanian language.

Persecutions

Main article: Antiziganism

Historical persecution

The first and one of the most enduring persecutions against the Romani people was the enslaving of the Roma who arrived on the territory of historical Romanian states of Wallachia and Moldavia, that lasted from the 14th century until the half of the 19th century. Specific legislation prescribed that all the Roma living in these states and any other that would immigrate were slaves.

The arrival of some branches of the Romani people in Western Europe, in the 15th century, coincided with and was determined by the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. Although the Roma themselves were refugees from the conflicts in southeastern Europe, they were mistaken by the local population in the West, because of their foreign appearance, as part of the Ottoman invasion (the German Reichstags at Landau and Freiburg in 1496-1498 declared the Roma as spies of the Turks). This determined in Western Europe a violent history of persecution and attempts of ethnic cleansing until the modern era. As the time passed, other accusations were added against local Roma (accusations specific to this area, against non-assimilated minorities), like that of bringing the plague, usually sharing their burden together with the local Jews.

Later in the 19th century, the immigration of the Romani people was forbidden on racial basis in areas outside Europe, mostly in Anglosphere (in 1885 USA forbids the entry of the Roma) and also in some Latin American states (in 1880 Argentina adopts a similar policy).

Holocaust

Main article: Porajmos

File:Porajmos.jpg

Romani arrivals at the Belzec death camp await instructions.

Persecution of Roma reached a peak during World War II in the Porajmos, the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust. In 1935, the Nuremberg laws stripped the Romani people living in Nazi Germany of their citizenship, then they were subjected to violence and imprisonment in extermination camps. The policy was extended in areas occupied by the Nazis during the war, and it was also applied by their allies, notably the Independent State of Croatia, Romania and Hungary.

Because no accurate pre-war census figures exist for the Roma, it is impossible to accurately assess the actual number of victims. Ian Hancock, director of the Program of Romani Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, proposes a figure of up to a million and a half, while an estimate of between 220,000 and 500,000 was made by the late Sybil Milton, formerly senior historian of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.. In Central Europe, the extermination in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was so thorough that the Bohemian Romani language became totally extinct.

Contemporary issues

A young Romani woman from the Czech Republic (2005)

In the UK, "travellers" (referring to Irish Travellers and New Age Travellers as well as Roma) became a 2005 general election issue, with the leader of the Conservative Party promising to review the Human Rights Act 1998. This law, which absorbs the European Convention on Human Rights into UK primary legislation, is seen by some to permit the granting of retrospective planning permission. Severe population pressures and the paucity of greenfield sites have led to travellers purchasing land, and setting up residential settlements almost overnight, thus subverting the planning restrictions imposed on other members of the community.

Travellers argued in response that thousands of retrospective planning permissions are granted in Britain in cases involving non-Roma applicants each year and that statistics showed that 90% of planning applications by Roma and travellers were initially refused by local councils, compared with a national average of 20% for other applicants, disproving claims of preferential treatment favouring Roma. [9]

They also argued that the root of the problem was that many traditional stopping-places had been barricaded off and that legislation passed by the previous Conservative government had effectively criminalised their community, for example by removing local authorities’ responsibility to provide sites, thus leaving the travellers with no option but to purchase unregistered new sites themselves. [10]

In Denmark there was much controversy when the city of Helsingør decided to put all Roma students in special classes in its public schools. The classes were later abandoned after it was determined that they were discriminatory, and the Roma were put back in regular classes.

However, the practice of placing Roma students in segregated schools or classes remains widespread in countries across Central and Eastern Europe. In Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, many Roma children have been channeled into all-Roma schools that offer inferior quality education and are sometimes in poor physical condition, or into segregated all-Roma or predominantly Roma classes within mixed schools. In Hungary and Bulgaria, many Roma children are sent to classes for pupils with learning disabilities, regardless of whether such classes are appropriate for the children in question or not. In Bulgaria, they are also sent to so-called "delinquent schools", where a variety of human rights abuses take place.

Despite the low birth rate in the country, Bulgaria's Health Ministry was considering a law aimed at lowering the birth rate of certain minority groups, particularly the Roma, due to the high mortality rate among Roma families, which are typically large. This was later abandoned due to conflict with EU law and the Bulgarian constitution.

Roma in European population centers are often accused of petty crimes such as pickpocketing. This is an important justification for the anti-Romani persecution and such accusations use to preced the anti-Romani violence. In 1899, the Nachrichtendienst in Bezug auf die Zigeuner ("Intelligence Service Regarding the Gypsies") was set up in Munich under the direction of Alfred Dillmann, cataloguing data on all Romani individuals throughout the German lands. It did not officially close down until 1970. The results were published in 1905 in Dillmann’s Zigeuner-Buch , that was used in the next years as justification for the Porajmos. It described the Romanies as a "plague" and a "menace", but presented as Gypsy crime almost exclusively trespassing and the theft of food (caused themselves by the discrimination policies). A UN study found that Roma in Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria are arrested for robbery at a much higher rate than other groups. Amnesty International and Roma groups blame widespread police and government racism and persecution.

Law enforcement agencies in the United States hold regular conferences on the Roma and similar nomadic groups. It is common to refer to the operators of certain types of travelling con artists [11] and fortune-telling [12] businesses as "Gypsies," although many are Irish Travellers or not members of any particular nomadic ethnic group.

Assimilation

In the Habsburg Monarchy under Maria Theresia (1740-1780), a series of decrees tried to force the Roma to sedentarize, removed rights to horse and wagon ownership (1754), renamed them as "New Citizens" and forced Romani boys into military service if they had no trade (1761), forced them to register with the local authorities (1767), and prohibited marriage between Roma (1773). Her successor Josef II prohibited the wearing of traditional Romani clothing and the use of the Romani language, punishable by flogging.

File:Spanish Romani Girl.jpg

Spanish Romani woman

In Spain, attempts to assimilate the Gitanos were under way as early as 1619, when Gitanos were forcibly sedentarized, the use of the Romani language was prohibited, Gitano men and women were sent to separate workhouses and their children sent to orphanages. Similar prohibitions took place in later in 1783 under King Charles III, who prohibited the nomadic lifestyle, the use of the Calo language, Romani clothing, their trade in horses and other itinerant trades. Ultimately these measures failed, as the rest of the population rejected the integration of the Gitanos.

Other examples of forced assimilation include Norway, where a law was passed in 1896 permitting the state to remove children from their parents and place them in state institutions. This resulted in some 1,500 Roma children being taken from their parents in the 20th century.

Romani people by geographic area

Central and Eastern Europe

Romani woman from the Czech Republic (2005)

Main article: Roma in Central and Eastern Europe

A significant proportion of the world's Roma live in Central and Eastern Europe, often in squatter communities with very high unemployment, while only some are fully integrated in the society. However, in some cases—notably the Kalderash clan in Romania, who work as traditional coppersmiths—they have prospered. The current and historical situation of Roma in the region differs from country to country.

Finland

Roma in Finland are known as mustalaiset and Romanit. Currently, there are approximately 10,000 Roma living in Finland, mostly in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.

Turkey

Roma in Turkey are known as Chingene (mostly), Chingen or Chingan (Mostly), Chingit (West Black Sea region), Dom (East Anatolia), Posha (East Anatolia), Abdal (Kahramanmaraş), Roman (Izmir) . Estimates of the population vary from 300.000 to 5 million, dispersed all across the country. They have integrated fully to the ethnic make up of the country, and in later years have started to recognize, and cherish their Romani background as well.

Spain

Main article: Roma in Spain

Roma in Spain are generally known as Gitanos and tend to speak Caló which is basically Andalusian Spanish with a large number of Romani loan words. Estimates of the Spanish Gitano population range between 600,000 and 800,000 with the Spanish government estimating between 650,000 and 700,000.[13]

The United Kingdom

Main article: Romnichal

Roma in England are generally known as Romnichals or Romany Gypsies, while their Welsh equivalent are known as Kale. They have been known in the UK since at least the early 16th century and may number up to 120,000. There is also a sizable population of East European Roma who immigrated into the UK in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and also after EU expansion in 2004.

There are records of Romani in Scotland in the early 16th century, the first recorded reference to "the Egyptians" would appear to be in 1492, in the reign of James IV, when an entry in the Book of the Lord High Treasurer records a payment "to Peter Ker of four shillings, to go to the king at Hunthall, to get letters subscribed to the 'King of Rowmais'". Two days after, a payment of twenty pounds was made at the king's command to the messenger of the 'King of Rowmais'.

It is difficult to be clear about the numbers of Roma today in Scotland, according to the Scottish Traveller Education Programme, there are probably about 20,000 Scottish Gypsies/Travellers.. Although it is unknown how many of this number are Romani and it is recognised that Gypsies and Travellers in Scotland are not one homogenous group, but consist of several groups each with different histories and cultures.

North America

The first Romani group arriving in the North America was the Romnichels, at the beginning of the 19th century. In the second half of the century, the immigration of Romani groups from Eastern Europe began, especially from Romania, the ancestors of the majority of the contemporary local Romani population. Among them were Romani-speaking groups like the Kalderash, Machvaya, Lovari, Churari, and Romanian-speaking groups, like the Boyash (Ludari). They arrived after their liberation from slavery in 1840-1850, directly from Romania, or after living some years in neighbouring states (the Russian Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Serbia). The Bashalde arrived from what is now Slovakia around this same time. This immigration decreased drastically during the Communist regime in Eastern Europe, in the second half of the 20th century, but resumed in the 1990s, after the fall of Communism. Presently there are about one million Roma in the USA and 80,000 in Canada .

Latin America

• Brazil- Romani groups (mostly from Romania) settled the Brazilian states of Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais in the late 19th century.

The Middle East

A community related closely to the Roma and living in Israel and the Palestinian territories and in neighboring countries are known as Dom people. Before 1948, there was an Arabic-speaking Dom community in Jaffa, whose members were noted for their involvement in street theatre and circus performances. They are the subject of the play "The Gypsies of Jaffa" (Hebrew: הצוענים של יפו), by the late Nissim Aloni, considered among Israel's foremost playwrights, and the play came to be considered a classic of the Israeli theatre (see [14]). Like most other Jaffa Arabs, much of this community was uprooted in the face of the Israeli advance in April 1948, and its descendants are assumed to be presently living in the Gaza Strip; it is unknown to what degree they still preserve a separate Domari identity. Another Dom community is known to exist in East Jerusalem. In October 1999, the nonprofit organisation "Domari: The Society of Gypsies in Jerusalem" was established by Amoun Sleem to advocate on this community's behalf. [15]

Some Eastern European Roma are known to have arrived in Israel in the late 1940s and early 1950s, being from Bulgaria or having intermarried with Jews in the post-WWII Displaced Persons camps or, in some cases, having pretended to be Jews when Zionist representatives arrived in those camps. The exact numbers of these Roma living in Israel are unknown, since such individuals tended to assimilate into the Israeli Jewish environment. According to several recent accounts in the Israeli press, some families preserve traditional Romani lullabies and a small number of Romani expressions and curse words, and pass them on to generations born in Israel who, for the most part, are Jews and speak Hebrew. The Romani community in Israel has grown since the 1990s, as some Roma immigrated there from the former Soviet Union.

In Iraq, the Qawliya people are a small Roma minority group who trace their history back to Spain.

Fictional representations of Roma

Main article: Fictional representations of Roma

A Roma family travelling (1837 print)

Many fictional depictions of the Roma emphasize their supposed mystical powers. They often appear as nomads.

References

• Achim, Viorel (2004). "The Roma in Romanian History." Budapest: Central European University Press. ISBN 963-9241-84-9.
• Auzias, Claire. Les funambules de l'histoire. Baye: Éditions la Digitale, 2002.
• De Soto, Hermine. Roma and Egyptians in Albania: From Social Exclusion to Social Inclusion. Washington, DC, USA: World Bank Publications, 2005.
• Fonseca, Isabel. Bury me standing: the Gypsies and their journey. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1995.
• Fraser, Angus The Gypsies : Blackwell Publishers, Oxford UK, 1992 ISBN 0-631-15967-3.
• Genner, Michael. Spartakus, 2 vols. Munich: Trikont, 1979-80.
• “Germany Reaches Deal to Deport Thousands of Gypsies to Romania,” Migration World Magazine, Nov-December 1992.
• Gray, RD; Atkinson, QD (2003). "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin." Nature.
• Gresham, D; et al. (2001). "Origins and divergence of the Roma (Gypsies)." American Journal of Human Genetics. 69(6), 1314-1331. [16]
• Hackl, Erich. (1991). Farewell Sidonia, New York: Fromm International Pub. ISBN 0-88064-124-X. (Translated from the German, Abschied von Sidonie 1989)
• Helsinki Watch. Struggling for Ethnic Identity: Czechoslovakia’s Endangered Gypsies. New York, 1991.
• Leland, Charles G. The English Gipsies and Their Language. London: Trübner & Co., 1873.
• Lemon, Alaina (2000). Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Post-Socialism. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2456-3
• Luba Kalaydjieva; et al. (2001). "Patterns of inter- and intra-group genetic diversity in the Vlax Roma as revealed by Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA lineages." European Journal of Human Genetics. 9, 97-104. [17]
• Marushiakova, Elena; Popov, Vesselin. (2001) "Gypsies in the Ottoman Empire." Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press.
• Matras, Yaron (2002). Romani: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-512-02330-0.
• McDowell, Bart (1970). "Gypsies, Wanderers of the World". National Geographic Society. ISBN 0-87044-088-8.
• "Gypsies, The World's Outsiders." National Geographic, April 2001, 72-101.
• Ringold, Dena. Roma & the Transition in Central & Eastern Europe: Trends & Challenges. Washington, DC, USA: World Bank, 2000. pg. 3,5, & 7.
• Roberts, Samuel. The Gypsies: Their Origin, Continuance, and Destination. London: Longman, 4th edition, 1842.
• Silverman, Carol. “Persecution and Politicization: Roma (Gypsies) of Eastern Europe.” Cultural Survival Quarterly, Summer 1995.
• Simson, Walter. History of the Gipsies. London: S. Low, 1865.
• Tebbutt, Susan (Ed., 1998) Sinti and Roma in German-speaking Society and Literature. Oxford: Berghahn.
• Turner, Ralph L. (1926) The Position of Romani in Indo-Aryan. In: Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 3rd Ser. 5/4, pp. 145–188.
• Danish Broadcasting Corporation A page in Danish about Roma treatment in Denmark

See also

• Antiziganism
• Cem Romengo
• Dazdie
• Decade of Roma Inclusion
• European Roma Rights Centre
• Gypsy Lore Society
• International Romani Union
• King of the Gypsies
• List of Roma settlements
• Romanian towns with large Roma populations
• List of Romani groups
• List of Roma, Sinti and Mixed People
• Nomads
• Porajmos
• Roma flag
• Roma Virtual Network
• Romani language
• Romani music
• Saint Sarah
• Šuto Orizari municipality
• Timeline of Romani history
• Time of the Gypsies

External links

• Amala School for Roma Art, History and Language in Valjevo, Serbia
• Rroma.org Roma organizations, culture and history
• ABC Radio National -Walking in the paths of Gypsies Pt 1
• ABC Radio National -Walking in the paths of Gypsies Pt 2
• Essays on and images of Roma culture in Europe and the United Kingdom
• The World Bank: Roma Population Map
• Map of Gypsy Migration
• European Parliament resolution on the situation of the Roma in the European Union - April 28, 2005
• Final report on the human rights situation of the Roma, Sinti and travellers in Europe by the European Commissioner for Human Rights (Council of Europe) - February 15 2006

Non-governmental organisations

• European Roma Rights Centre - European Roma NGO
• European Roma and Traveller Forum
• Voice of Roma - Roma NGO in the San Francisco Bay Area
• Croatian Roma Union
• Roma Community Centre in Toronto, [[Canada*gods gypsy christian church los angeles

News media sources

• Romea.cz - Romany Informational Service in the Czech Republic
• ROMEA TV - Romany internet TV in the Czech Republic
• Dzeno Association - Roma Rights NGO, Radio & News service in the Czech Republic
• The Rom News Network
• Roma Press Center - Roma Media Agency NGO, News, Radio and Television service in Hungary
• Template:Tr Roma news in Turkey

Museums and libraries

• Museum of Roma Culture in Brno, Czech Republic (in Czech)[18]
• Specalized Library with Archive "Studii Romani" in Sofia, Bulgaria (Bulgarian, English)
• Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg, Germany (German, English)
• Ethnographic Museum in Tarnów, Poland. Click "ROMA (CYGANIE)" on the menu at left. (Polish, English, Romany)