The Romani, also spelled Romany or Rromani (/ˈroʊməni/ROH-mə-nee or /ˈrɒməni/ROM-ə-nee) and colloquially known as the Roma (sg.: Rom), are an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin[71][72][73] who traditionally lived a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Romani originated in the Indian subcontinent, in particular the region of present-day Rajasthan.[74] Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed by historians to have occurred c. 1000 CE.[75][76][77] Their original name is from the Sanskrit word डोम, ḍoma and means a member of the Dom caste of travelling musicians and dancers.[78][79] The Roma population moved west into the Ghaznavid Empire and later into the Byzantine Empire.[80][81] The Roma are thought to have arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th century.[82] Although they are widely dispersed, their most concentrated populations are located in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Spain, and Turkey.
In the English language, Romani people have long been known by the exonymGypsies or Gipsies,[83] which most Roma consider a racial slur.[84][85] The attendees of the first World Romani Congress in 1971 unanimously voted to reject the use of all exonyms for the Romani, including "Gypsy".[86]
Since the 19th century, some Romani have also migrated to the Americas. There are an estimated 1million Roma in the United States[6] and between 800,000 and 1million in Brazil, most of whose ancestors emigrated in the 19th century from eastern Europe. Brazilian Romani are mostly descendant from German/Italian Sinti (in the South/Southeast regions), and Roma and Calon people. Brazil also includes a notable Romani community descended from Sinti and Roma deportees from the Portuguese Empire during the Portuguese Inquisition.[87] In migrations since the late 19th century, Romani have also moved to other countries in South America and Canada. Though often confused with Irish Travellers and the Yenish people in western Europe, the Romani are culturally different.[88][89][90]
The Romani language is an Indo-Aryan language with strong Balkan and Greek influence.[91] It is divided into several dialects, which together are estimated to have more than two million speakers.[92] Because the language has traditionally been oral, many Romani are native speakers of the dominant language in their country of residence, or else of mixed languages combining the dominant language with a dialect of Romani in varieties sometimes called para-Romani.[93]
^Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2009). "Ethnologue: Languages of the World"(online) (16th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL. Retrieved 15 September 2010. Ian Hancock's 1987 estimate for 'all Gypsies in the world' was 6 to 11 million.
^"Falta de políticas públicas para ciganos é desafio para o governo" [Lack of public policy for Romani is a challenge for the administration] (in Portuguese). R7. 2011. Archived from the original on 11 January 2012. Retrieved 22 January 2012. The Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality estimates the number of "ciganos" (Romanis) in Brazil at 800,000 (2011). The 2010 IBGE Brazilian National Census encountered Romani camps in 291 of Brazil's 5,565 municipalities.
^"The Situation of Roma in Spain"(PDF). Open Society Institute. 2002. Archived from the original(PDF) on 1 December 2007. Retrieved 15 September 2010. The Spanish government estimates the number of Gitanos to be a maximum of 650,000.
^"Situation of Roma in France at crisis proportions". EurActiv Network. 7 December 2005. Retrieved 21 October 2015. According to the report, the settled Gypsy population in France is officially estimated at around 500,000, although other estimates say that the actual figure is much closer to 1.2 million.
^Gorce, Bernard (22 July 2010). "Roms, gens du voyage, deux réalités différentes". La Croix. Retrieved 21 October 2016. [Manual Translation] The ban prevents statistics on ethnicity to give a precise figure of French Roma, but we often quote the number 350,000. For travellers, the administration counted 160,000 circulation titles in 2006 issued to people aged 16 to 80 years. Among the travellers, some have chosen to buy a family plot where they dock their caravans around a local section (authorized since the Besson Act of 1990).
^"Greece NGO". Greek Helsinki Monitor. LV: Minelres.
^"Roma in Deutschland", Regionale Dynamik, Berlin-Institut für Bevölkerung und Entwicklung, archived from the original on 29 April 2017, retrieved 21 February 2013
^ abcGall, Timothy L, ed. (1998), Worldmark Encyclopedia of Culture & Daily Life, vol. 4. Europe, Cleveland, OH: Eastword, pp. 316, 318, 'Religion: An underlay of Hinduism with an overlay of either Christianity or Islam (host country religion)'; Roma religious beliefs are rooted in Hinduism. Roma believe in a universal balance, called kuntari. ... Despite a 1,000-year separation from India, Roma still practice 'shaktism', the worship of a god through his female consort...
^Ena, Giacomo Francesco; Aizpurua-Iraola, Julen; Font-Porterias, Neus; Calafell, Francesc; Comas, David (8 November 2022). "Population Genetics of the European Roma—A Review". Genes. 13 (11): 2068. doi:10.3390/genes13112068. ISSN2073-4425. PMC9690732. PMID36360305. Based on genome-wide SNP arrays and whole-genome sequences, it has been determined that the Romani people carry approximately 20–35% South Asian ancestry [4,7], and North-West India constitutes the major source of this component [4,7,54][...] In general, Romani people carry approximately 65–80% West Eurasian (European, Middle Eastern and Caucasian) ancestry, estimated to have been acquired by extensive gene flow.
^Hernández-Arrieta, Stefany (7 August 2023). "The definition of being Romani". Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) - El·lipse. Retrieved 16 February 2024. This population[...] migrated from northern India to Europe over 1,500 years ago[...] The Romani community are genetically diverse, and Romani groups established in different locations are highly varied.
^Beňo, Matúš (5 November 2022). "Romani disappearing from Roma communities". The Slovak Spectator. Retrieved 16 February 2024. What is the current state of the language? It is used less and less today in Romani communities. The young generation in some localities, such as Humenné, Michalovce, or Trebišov in eastern Slovakia, no longer speak the language at all.
Hancock (2002), p. xx: 'While a nine century removal from India has diluted Indian biological connection to the extent that for some Romani groups, it may be hardly representative today, Sarren (1976:72) concluded that we still remain together, genetically, Asian rather than European'
^Hancock, Ian; Dowd, Siobhan; Djurić, Rajko (2004). The Roads of the Roma: a PEN anthology of Gypsy Writers. Hatfield, United Kingdom: University of Hertfordshire Press. pp. 14–15. ISBN978-0-900458-90-3.
^"Romani"(PDF). Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier. p. 1. Archived from the original(PDF) on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 30 August 2009. In some regions of Europe, especially the western margins (Britain, the Iberian peninsula), Romani-speaking communities have given up their language in favor of the majority language, but have retained Romani-derived vocabulary as an in-group code. Such codes, for instance Angloromani (Britain), Caló (Spain), or Rommani (Scandinavia) are usually referred to as Para-Romani varieties.
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