In the XIV-XV centuries. in Europe, a nomadic people appeared, known as gypsies, whose origin, life and language remained a mystery for a long time. Their ancestors did not leave behind a written history, so a variety of theories arose about the origin of the people. It is as if doomed to eternal wanderings and has its own special civilization.
Gypsies are scattered all over the world. They can be found on any continent, but nowhere do they mix with other peoples. Even the number of gypsies could not always be established in certain countries. They often tried to explain the origin of the gypsies with absurd theories, looking at their ancestry from German Jews , even mentioning the inhabitants of the legendary Atlantis.
The emergence of a host of other theories was generated from the undeveloped complex issues of ethnography and history of Europe's largest national minority group, which was the gypsies. The origin of the people was reduced to three main versions. The theory of Asian roots was supported by Henri de Spond, who associated the gypsies with the medieval Attingan sect. Many scholars associated this people with the Near Asian tribe of the Siggins, mentioned by the ancient authors Strabo, Herodotus and others. The Egyptian origin theory was one of the earliest, dating back to the 15th century. Moreover, the first gypsies who arrived in Europe themselves spread these legends. This version was supported by English scientists who claimed that the gypsies, on their way to Europe, visited the country of the pyramids, where they acquired their unlimited knowledge and skills in the field of sleight of hand, divination and astrology.
The Indian origin theory arose in the 18th century. The basis for this version was the similarity of the language of India with the language spoken by the gypsies. According to this version, the origin of the people is now practically generally accepted. The question of the localization of the ancestors of the Gypsies in India and the exact time of their exit from the country remains difficult.
The ambiguity of the source of the emergence of this people has always been intertwined with the definition of the very concept of "gypsies", the origin of this name was often considered not as an ethnic, but as a social phenomenon. In various sources, the name "gypsies" is applied to social groups leading a wandering lifestyle, which are characterized by similar features and specific methods of earning a living, such as fortune-telling, small crafts, songs and dances, begging and others.
Indeed, the gypsies, who are mosaically settled throughout the world, are heterogeneous in composition, and it is not always easy to understand how great the differences are between them. They are divided into a number of ethnic groups, which are distinguished by dialects and other local ethno-cultural characteristics. Their traditional wandering cannot be seen as a kind of romantic wanderlust or chaotic aimless wanderings. The way of life of the people was based on economic reasons. It was necessary to constantly look for markets for the products of the tabor artisans, a new audience for their performances.
Ethnocultural contacts of a certain group of gypsies with the surrounding population led to a number of borrowings. An interesting fact is that the gypsies were in no hurry to leave the inhabited territories, even when they got into rather unfavorable conditions. It is known that in many countries they were subjected to severe persecution. And yet, even in the very epicenter of organized violence, whole survivors appeared. These are Calais in Spain, Sinti in Germany, Travelers in England.
While in the Catholic West the appearance of the Gypsies led to the adoption of laws for their expulsion, in Byzantium no such law was passed. Craftsmen, metalworkers, people who are in charge of animal trainers were highly valued here.
In Russia, the emergence of new ethnic groups of gypsies was associated with the expansion of the territory. In 1783, according to the decree of Catherine II, the gypsies of Russia were included in the peasant class, they were ordered to collect the appropriate taxes and taxes. At will, they were also allowed to attribute themselves to other classes, except for the nobility. So, by the end of the 19th century, there were many Russian gypsies among the merchant and petty-bourgeois classes.
In the 19th century in Russia, there was a steady process of gypsy integration, their settling in permanent places, which was explained by the improvement in the financial well-being of their families. Natural artistry, which absorbed a lot from the cultures of different countries, attracted genuine attention to this people. Russian romances performed by gypsies acquired a different color. A genre of gypsy romance appeared, founded by Russian composers and poets who were passionate about this culture. A layer of professional artists began to appear.
Each of you, more than once in your life had to meet with these people. In my childhood, post-war years, I happened to live for some time in the same village with the Gypsies. Those who lived with us did not cause any rejection or disgust in me. On the contrary, I learned a lot from the old people. I remember how I couldn’t manage to tame a young stallion in the herd, and what I didn’t do, and my grandfather, Gypsy, instantly took him, put on a bridle and brought the stallion to me. And not only the Gypsies taught me how to handle horses, but I guess I was just lucky in life. There were other meetings, but I don’t even want to remember them.
Gyga;ne (Roma) - one of the largest ethnic minorities in Europe, a layer of the ethnic population of common Indian origin. A common self-name is Roma, Roma, although other ethnonyms are also used: Sinti, Manush (“people”), Kale. As a generalized name at the human level for all European gypsies, the designation Roma (English Roms, Romanies) is used.
The origin of the name "Gypsies", as an exonym (that is, from the side of the surrounding population), is conditionally raised to the 11th century, approximately in 1100 AD, George Athos describes the events that took place in 1054. It was from this description that the opinion about the Egyptian origin of the Gypsies appeared. This is how it always turns out, someone put up a beautiful story, and everyone liked it, but in reality, it turned out that everything was completely wrong.
The British traditionally called the Gypsies Gypsies (from Egyptians - "Egyptians"), the Spaniards - Gitanos (also from Egiptanos - "Egyptians"), the French - Boh;miens ("Bohemians", "Czechs"), Gitans (distorted Spanish Gitanos) or Tsiganes (borrowing from Greek - ;;;;;;;;;, scurvy; ni), Germans - Zigeuner, Italians - Zingari, Dutch - Zigeuners, Hungarians - Cig; ny or F; ra; kn; pe ("Pharaoh's tribe ”), Finns - mustalaiset (“black”), Kazakhs - sy; Andar, Lezgins - karachiyar (“hypocrites, pretenders”); Basques - Ijitoak; Albanians - Jevgjit ("Egyptians"); Jews - ;;;;;; (tso'ani;m), from the name of the biblical province of Tsoan in Ancient Egypt; Persians - ;;;; (if;); Lithuanians - ;igonai; Bulgarians - Tsigani; Estonians - "mustlased" (from "Must" - black). At present, ethnonyms from the self-name of a part of the gypsies, “Roma;” are becoming more and more widespread in various languages.
Thus, in the "external" by origin names of the gypsy population, three prevail:
reflecting the early idea of them as coming from Egypt;
distorted versions of the Byzantine nickname "atsinganos" (meaning "fortunetellers, magicians");
designations of "blackness" as a distinctive feature of appearance, made in different languages (which is typical, one of the self-names of gypsies is also translated as "black")
According to various estimates, the number of European gypsies ranges from 8 million to 10-12 million people.
In the former USSR, there were officially 175.3 thousand people (1970 census).
In Russia, according to the 2010 census, there are about 220,000 Roma.
The most common self-name of the gypsies, which they carried out from India, is “rum” or “roma” among the European gypsies, “house” among the gypsies of the Middle East and Asia Minor. All these names go back to the Indo-Aryan "d'om" with the first cerebral sound. Cerebral sound, relatively speaking, is a cross between the sounds "p", "d" and "l". According to linguistic studies, the Roma of Europe and the Dom and Lom of Asia and the Caucasus were the three main "flows" of migrants from India. Under the name d'om, low-caste groups appear in various areas of modern India today. Despite the fact that the modern houses of India are difficult to directly correlate with the gypsies, their name has a direct bearing on them. The difficulty is to understand what was the connection in the past between the ancestors of the Gypsies and the Indian houses. The results of linguistic studies conducted back in the 20s of the 20th century, and which are shared by modern scientists, show that the ancestors of the gypsies lived in the central regions of India and several centuries before the exodus (approximately in the 3rd century BC) migrated to Northern Punjab.
In the Indo-Aryan sources of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, which until now have not been considered as relevant to the genesis of the so-called "protoromes" in India, there are many connecting questions. A number of data indicate the settlement in the central and northwestern regions of India of a population with the self-name d'om / d'omba starting from the 5th-4th centuries BC. e. These populations were originally tribal groups of common origin, possibly related to Austroasiatics. Later, with the gradual development of the caste system, d'om / d'omba occupied the lower levels in the social hierarchy and began to be recognized as caste groups. At the same time, the integration of houses into the caste system took place primarily in the central parts of India, while the northwestern regions remained a “tribal” zone for a very long time. This tribal character of the areas of origin was maintained by constant contact with the Iranian nomadic tribes, whose resettlement in the period before the migration of the ancestors of the Gypsies from India assumed a massive character. These circumstances determined the nature of the culture of the peoples of the Indus Valley zone (including the ancestors of the Gypsies), a culture that for centuries retained its nomadic and semi-nomadic type. Also, the very ecology of Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat, arid and infertile soils near the Indus River contributed to the development of a semi-pastoral, semi-commercial mobile business model for a number of groups of the local population. Some authors believe that during the period of the exodus, the ancestors of the Gypsies were a socially structured ethnic population of common origin (rather than a series of separate castes), engaged in trading transportation and trade in transport animals, and also, if necessary, as auxiliary occupations - a number of crafts and other services, which were part of everyday skills. The authors explain the cultural and anthropological difference between the Gypsies and the modern houses of India (having more pronounced non-Aryan features than the Gypsies) by the indicated strong Aryan influence (in particular, in its Iranian modification), characteristic of the northwestern regions of India, where the ancestors of the Gypsies lived before the exodus. . This interpretation of the ethno-social origin of the Indian ancestors of the Gypsies is supported by a number of foreign and Russian researchers.
Krymsky gypsies; not, also Krys; we, Tatars; rsky gypsies; not, Tatars, Ayuji (gypsy. Kyrymitika Roma, Crimean Sea) - a gypsy sub-ethnic group that is part of the "large" Roma group. Formed in the Crimean Khanate. Nowadays, he lives in many countries of the former USSR, including Russia. They speak their own dialect of the Romani language, with lexical borrowings from the Crimean Tatar and Russian languages.
In 1944, the Crimean Gypsies, as well as the Crimean Tatars, were deported to Central Asia, which was due to the fact that most of the Crimeas in Soviet passports were recorded as Tatars. However, already in 1948-1949 they began to appear again in the Crimea. Currently, most of the Crimeans live outside the Crimea - in the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation. The traditional occupation is petty trade, performing music, various kinds of handicrafts, jewelry, blacksmithing, fortune-telling, begging (still practiced. Gypsy orchestras traditionally served Tatar weddings. Nowadays, music and dances of Russian gypsies or modern ones) are also the most a common occupation of the Crimean gypsies.
Sometimes the Crimean gypsies are also confused with the Crimean Gurbets (a separate gypsy Turkish-speaking subethnos, they are recorded as Crimean Tatars in the census).
European geneticists analyzed the gypsy genome and found that this people originated in northwestern India about 1.5 thousand years ago and entered Europe 900 years ago, according to an article published in the journal Current Biology.
"From the point of view of genetics, all gypsies are related to each other by two things - they come from northwestern India and their ancestors intermarried with representatives of other peoples during migrations across Europe.
Over 10 million people who identify themselves as Roma live in the European Union. Most of them live in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Romania and Hungary. The ancestors of the Gypsies did not leave any monuments of written history behind them, which is why their historical homeland and the history of migrations remain unknown.
Scientists formed a group of 206 gypsy volunteers living in different countries of Western and Eastern Europe, collected DNA samples and deciphered their genomes.
Then the geneticists compared the genomes of the volunteers with each other and with the virtual DNA of five thousand gypsies and other peoples living outside Europe. This allowed them to identify about 800,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms - differences in one "letter"-nucleotide, which were later used as a "roulette wheel" to assess the genetic distance between peoples.
According to the calculations of geneticists, the most likely homeland of the gypsies are the territories of the modern states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Kashmir in northwestern India. It is here that several isolated peoples live, such as the Meghawals in Gujarat and the Pandits in Kashmir, whose genome is most similar to the gypsy DNA. the version about the Egyptian origin of this people is clearly erroneous.
According to scientists, shortly before entering Europe and some time after this event, the gypsies experienced two sharp population declines. This is evidenced by a fairly small number of differences between the genomes of different representatives of this people.
Comparing the differences in the structure of the genomes of European and non-European gypsies, scientists found that the first representatives of this people reached the borders of Europe about 900 years ago. As geneticists suggest, the gypsies first penetrated the Balkans, and only then spread throughout Western Europe.
Back in the early 70s, I read in the journal "Priroda" a large article about gypsies was published. And it was written there that the gypsies were one of the castes in India. For unacceptable behavior, they were expelled from India, which was the reason for their migration towards Europe. And at first they appeared in Spain, where they were met quite friendly, but quickly spoiled their attitude towards themselves with theft and deceit. The gypsies did not leave written sources about themselves, but their adventures are recorded in European sources. Perhaps the gentlemen of genetics only confirmed what has long been known. The article in the magazine was quite large.
The above remark adds to the delusion of Hitler's Nazism: * Hitler was 1/2 - 1/3 Jewish and hated Jews. * A fan of the "Aryan race", but the Aryans are exclusively Indo-Iranians and a little Slavs, who genetically have nothing to do with the Germans. Actually haplogroup Y-DNA of the German-Scandinavian peoples I is closest to the Semitic haplogroup J. * It turns out that Hitler - He hated the gypsies and loved the Indians, and this is one and the same people.
Before geneticists, their origin was not clear. For example, in European they are called Gipsy, from the word "Egypt", because they believed that they were the descendants of the ancient Egyptians - magicians, akin to the Jews who came from ancient Egypt.
Another study of the last 10 years - linguistic, also proved that the language of the gypsies appeared about 1.5 thousand years ago in India. It was believed that these were the Dravidians - the indigenous pre-Aryan population of India, whom the Aryans, having captured India, made a lower caste. But if they come from the northwest of India, then they are Aryans, and not Dravidians? ...
The ancestors of the gypsies did not leave behind any monuments of written history, which is why their historical homeland and the history of migrations remain a mystery. "And in people's memory of them there is only the negative of tramps, thieves, murderers, deceivers.
E; niches (German Jenische, also self-name), "nomadic", "white gypsies" - an ethnographic and social group of heterogeneous origin, living in Central and Western Europe, mainly in the area around the Rhine (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Belgium). Historically, the Yenishi arose in the early 18th century as descendants of marginalized population groups (mostly German-speaking), although a number of researchers suggest that the Yenishi may be descended from a Germanic Celtic-speaking population. Only a small part of the Yenishes switched to a nomadic way of life.
Yenish speak a special Yenish slang, grammatically close to the Swiss dialects of German.
Apart from Switzerland, the Yenish are not recognized in any of the countries of Europe as a national minority.
During the Second World War, the Nazis persecuted the Yenish along with the Gypsies who were close to them in terms of their way of life. In modern Switzerland, the Yenishi are regarded by the authorities as one of the Gypsy groups. The Swiss Yenish actively interact with the Sinti Gypsies, while in other European countries the Yenish actively separate themselves from the Gypsies.
(Moldavian principality). Slavery in Romania, at that time a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, was legally banned only in February 1856, but in fact it disappeared only in the mid-1860s. At the same time, along with the slaves in the Romanian lands, there were Romanian serfs (known as tsarany, vechiny, serfs); and in Transylvania - "Romanians", Yobags, etc.) The basis of the local master class (boyars) was ethnic Romanians (in Wallachia and Moldavia), in Transylvania - ethnic Hungarians.
Story
Despite all the difficulties of statistical accounting, as well as socio-political contradictions in the country, Romania is the largest and most famous region of the gypsy culture in the world. This circumstance is not accidental. Gypsies settled in medieval Romanian lands in unusually large numbers. They were undoubtedly attracted here by the great tolerance of the Romanesque population, which has been preserved here since antiquity. Indeed, compared with the Vlachs, who were also partially engaged in nomadic pastoralism, the later peoples who settled in the Balkans were much less tolerant of the nomadic lifestyle of the gypsies, their language and culture. Romanian gypsies currently number at least two million people. The first gypsies entered the Romanian lands in the 12th century from the south. Starting from the 13th century, the gypsies found themselves in the position of slaves of the local Romanian and Hungarian boyars. It was then that their gradual enslavement by the local Slavic-Roman elite began in a very peculiar form, reminiscent of slavery in Brazil. The first written mention of Romani slaves in Romania appeared on October 3, 1385. At various times, put forward also hypotheses that the Mongols or the Turks, who brought them from Asia, supplied the Gypsies to Romania. After turning Romania into a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, the country became part of the Mediterranean slave trade with the Maghreb countries.
Gypsy estates
In Romania, the following professional classes of gypsies were formed:
kalderashi (literally. "copper craftsman"),
lautars ("musicians"),
boyashi or lingurars ("spoonmen")
ursars ("bears"),
fierars ("blacksmiths"), as well as "horses".
From the very beginning of the history of slavery in Romania, many slaves, as in Roman Dacia, worked in the salt and ore mines. Gypsy women who belonged to the boyars were servants, often concubines. Official marriages between Romanians and Gypsies were not encouraged, however, illegitimate children from such unions filled the streets of Romanian cities, exacerbating the problem of child homelessness, which continues to this day. This problem was acute in Brazil and other Latin American countries, which for a long time cultivated the institution of place.
After the abolition of slavery in the Danube Principalities, at least 250 thousand gypsies, or about 10% of the population of Wallachia, received freedom. In Russian Bessarabia in 1858, the census also counted 11,074 gypsy slaves. The release of the Roma did not improve their economic situation. As in Brazil, freed slaves did not receive land, which means they were forced to join the ranks of the urban poor or modify the scope of their activities. For example, fierars combined shoeing with horse stealing.
Gypsies are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world that do not have their own state. They can be found in any country in Europe, the CIS, in the countries of America, and their number is about 8-10 million people. How did it happen that the gypsies began to lead a nomadic lifestyle and settled in many countries of the world, while their closest relatives continue to live in their homeland?
According to geneticists, the ancestors of modern gypsies left India around the 6th-10th centuries and moved to Persia (the territory of modern Iran). According to one version, 1000 people were transferred by the padishah of India as a gift to the Shah of Persia. According to historical information, they were jewelers and musicians, and the donation of representatives of valuable professions was a common thing for that time. After living there for about 400 years, the gypsies headed west and soon ended up in Byzantium.
On the territory of Byzantium, they adopted Christianity and lived along with other peoples, being full members of society. According to written sources, the gypsies were famous blacksmiths. In addition, they were engaged in the manufacture of horse harness, breeding horses, and also trained animals and gave performances.
But after the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century, the gypsies, in search of work and food, left their inhabited places and moved to the north and west of Europe. In Europe itself, there were quite difficult times and the settlers were not very happy. The situation was complicated by the fact that the first gypsies who arrived in new countries were, as a rule, not the best representatives of gypsy society. Unburdened by family and household, seekers of an easy life, they were engaged in theft, swindling and begging. This led to the reputation of vagrants and swindlers for the Roma, it was increasingly difficult for them to find work and become part of European society. In search of a better life, gypsies from Spain and Portugal began to move to Latin America.
Thanks to a difficult history and constant wanderings, the gypsies found themselves in genetic and linguistic isolation from the closest native speakers of their language - the Indians. The Romani language belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indian languages. The language itself has several dialects, formed in different regions of the compact residence of gypsies. In addition to their native language, gypsies often speak the language of the country in which they live.
According to statistics, the largest number of gypsies live in the United States, where there are about 1 million of them. More than 500 thousand gypsies live in Brazil, Spain and Romania, and about 200 thousand representatives of this people are registered in Russia. Today, April 8, is considered the Day of the Gypsies and, despite the fact that this people does not have their own state, they have their own flag, in the center of which is a symbolic wagon wheel.
More than 12 million Roma live in many countries around the world. There is no way to calculate their exact number, because many of them are not registered in general civic censuses. Many Roma themselves do not recognize their true national origin due to economic and social reasons.
Gypsies are a many-sided and diverse people, accommodating a number of sub-ethnic groups. This is a nation scattered around the world, whose representatives belong to various religious denominations and even speak different languages.
Gypsies are a distinct ethnic minority, distinguished from others at least by their gypsy blood and gypsy language. This people originated on the Indian Peninsula more than a thousand years ago. No one knows exactly why the first Gypsies began their long wandering from India to Europe and beyond. Despite centuries of persecution and oppression, they spread throughout the world.
The Romani language consists of many surprisingly different dialects, which are united by the fact that they are all derived from Sanskrit, have almost the same grammar and many related words.
Like every nation, the gypsies have their own scale of values. The main gypsy values, in order of importance, are: Family, Professional success, Religion.
A reverent attitude towards such a value as a family is expressed in love for children, respect for older family members, recognition of the interests of the family above personal ones, and in many other ways that differ slightly among different gypsy peoples.
Professional success, regardless of the chosen profession, is also a very important value. There are two ways to demonstrate it: wealth, prosperity (after all, income directly depends on professional success, the better you know your business, the higher it is) and fame. Glory is all the more valuable because the approval of society is very important for a gypsy, which has always contributed to successful integration into non-gypsy society with a normal attitude of society towards gypsies.
Religion is more important for a Roma than non-Roma usually think and tell. The attitude of the gypsies to faith was revealed during the years of persecution of religion by the Soviet government. Gypsies who rejected God could be counted on the fingers, while the rest of the country's population actively atheized. Now this gap in faith between the Gypsies and the Gadje (the traditional name for non-Gypsies, also has a professional origin and comes from the word "peasant", "farmer") is decreasing.
The uniqueness of the gypsies is also in the fact that the gypsies are a consciously non-territorial nation. We are united not by the country of residence, but by our romanipe - the gypsy spirit. Romanistan is not a place, but people.
There have been several great waves of migration in Romani history. The first exodus from India took place about 1000 years ago. Some scholars suggest that there were several successive groups that left India. The second great wave, known as ARESAJIPE, took place in the 14th century. in the direction from Asia to Europe, from the southwest. The third wave is from Europe to America in the 19th and early 20th century after the abolition of gypsy slavery in Europe in 1856-1864. There is now talk that the next great wave of migration is underway as a result of the fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe.
The Romani language is of Indo-Aryan origin. It has many spoken dialects. Its ancestors are the ancient Punjabi or Hindi languages. Spoken Romani is varied, but all dialects contain a few common words used by all Romani. Based on the linguistic analysis of the dialects, the gypsies are divided into three groups. This:
- DOMARI living in the Middle East. In their language, the word "gypsy" sounds like "house".
- LOMARI living in Central Europe. In their language, "gypsy" - "scrap".
- ROMANI inhabiting Eastern and Western Europe. In their dialect, "gypsy" is "rum". There is no single common written language used by all among the gypsies. However, at present, the Linguistic Commission of the International Gypsy Union is working to standardize the language, its written and oral norms.
Gypsies are one of the most, perhaps, incomprehensible and mythologized peoples on our planet, and this has been the case for many centuries. There are rumors around the world that when gypsies come to town, they seduce men and women and then steal everything they see, including children. There are also many myths about cunning and mysterious gypsy fortune-tellers and gypsy camps. In any case, even if we put all the myths and misconceptions aside, the gypsies remain one of the most interesting ethnic groups in history.
1. Where did they come from
The origin of the gypsies is shrouded in mystery. Sometimes it seemed that they appeared on the planet in some mysterious way. This in itself may have evoked a sense of fear among the Europeans and contributed to an atmosphere of mystery around the Roma. Modern scholars suggest that the Gypsies originally migrated en masse from India in the fifth century.
This theory suggests that their flight was due to the spread of Islam, which the Roma were desperate to avoid in order to protect their religious freedom. This theory claims that the Gypsies migrated from India to Anatolia and further to Europe, where they split into three separate branches: Domari, Lomavren, and the Gypsies themselves. Another theory suggests that there were as many as three separate migrations over several centuries.
2. Gypsy nomadic lifestyle
Many stereotypes have been formed around the gypsies for a long time. Who does not know the phrase "gypsy soul" (which is applied to freedom-loving people). According to these stereotypes, gypsies prefer to live out of what is called the "mainstream" and eschew social norms in order to be able to lead a nomadic lifestyle teeming with fun and dancing. The truth is much darker.
For many centuries, the Roma were often forcibly expelled from the countries in which they lived. Such forced evictions continue to this day. Many historians have suggested that the true reason for the Gypsies' nomadic lifestyle is very simple: survival.
3. Gypsies have no homeland
Gypsies are people without a specific citizenship. Most countries refuse to grant them citizenship, even if they were born in that country. Centuries of persecution and their closed community have left the Gypsies with no homeland. In 2000, the Roma were officially declared a non-territorial nation. This lack of citizenship renders Roma legally "invisible".
Although they are not subject to the laws of any country, they cannot access education, health care and other social services. Moreover, the Roma cannot even obtain passports, which makes their travel very difficult or impossible.
4. Gypsy persecution.
It's worth starting with the fact that the gypsies were actually enslaved people in Europe, especially in the 14th - 19th centuries. They were traded and sold like a commodity, and they were considered "subhuman". In the 1700s, Maria Theresa, the Empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, passed a law that outlawed the gypsies. This was done to force the Roma to integrate into society.
Similar laws have been passed in Spain, and many European countries have banned Roma from entering their territory. The Nazi regime also persecuted and exterminated Roma by the tens of thousands. Even today, gypsies are persecuted.
5. Nobody knows how many gypsies there are in the world
No one knows how many gypsies live all over the world today. Because of the discrimination Roma often face, many of them do not publicly register or identify as Roma. In addition, given their "legal invisibility", the birth of children without documents and frequent moves, many Roma are listed as missing.
Also problematic is that Roma are not provided with social services, which would help to paint a clearer picture of their numbers. However, The New York Times estimates the number of Roma worldwide at 11 million, a figure often disputed.
6. Gypsy is an offensive word
For many people, the term "gypsy" means nomad and is not considered a racial slur. But for the "Roma" themselves (or "Romals" - the self-name of the gypsies), this word has ominous overtones. For example, according to the Oxford Dictionary, the English word "gypped" (derived from "gypsie" - gypsies) means a criminally punishable act.
Roma, often referred to as gypsies, were considered losers and thieves, a word burned into their skin during the Nazi regime. Like many other racial slurs, the word "Gypsy" has been used for centuries to oppress the Roma.
7. Future, cheap...
There are many myths surrounding gypsies. One of these myths says that the gypsies have their own magic, which has been passed down for centuries from generation to generation. The myth is associated with tarot cards, crystal balls and fortune-telling tents, as well as other stereotypes. Literature is replete with references to the gypsy language and the magical arts of this people.
In addition, there are many films that show the curses of gypsies. Even in art, there are many paintings describing Roma as mystical and magical people. However, many scientists believe that all this magic is fiction, derived from the fact that people simply did not know anything about gypsies at all.
8. Lack of formal religion
European folklore often claims that the Roma made a temple out of cream cheese. Presumably, they ate it when a period of severe famine set in, so they were left without an official religion. As a rule, gypsies join the church that is the most common in the country in which they live. However, there are many traditional gypsy beliefs. Some scholars believe that there are many links between Roma beliefs and Hinduism.
9. Modesty
Although gypsy weddings are often accompanied by mass festivities and luxurious attire, one of their main life principles, modesty, is reflected in the everyday clothes of gypsies. Gypsy dances are most often associated with women's belly dancing. However, many gypsy women never performed what is commonly considered belly dancing today.
Instead, they perform traditional dances that use only their bellies for movement, not their hips, as hip movements are considered immodest. In addition, the long, flowing skirts commonly worn by gypsies serve to cover their legs, as exposing the legs is also considered immodest.
10. Gypsy contribution to world culture is huge
From the very beginning of their existence, the gypsies have been closely associated with singing, dancing and acting. They carried this tradition through the centuries, significantly influenced world art. Many gypsies assimilated into different cultures, influencing them. Many singers, actors, artists, etc. had gypsy roots.
Mysterious peoples on our planet lived in the past. For example, such as .
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