Posted on 09/06/2004 3:51:50 PM PDT by blam
Romany Gypsies came out of India
Anna Salleh
ABC Science Online
Monday, 6 September 2004
A Romany woman dances in downtown Prague during the third annual Khamoro Festival of Roma music and culture (Image: Reuters/Petr Josek)
Legend has it that European Gypsies came from Egypt but a new genetic study has shown they came from a small population that emerged from ancestors in India around 1000 years ago.
The research, by Professor Luba Kalaydjieva of the University of Western Australia and team, looked at the origins of eight to 10 million people in Europe commonly known as Gypsies.
Roma, Romani or Romany are other names for this community, which has featured in movies such as Latcho Drom.
"[The research] is the best evidence yet of the Indian origins of the Gypsies," the researchers write in an article published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
The researchers were first alerted to the idea that the Romany may be descended from a small founder population when they discovered that certain genetic mutations in the population were shared in people who were not directly related.
This occurs in other groups that have developed from small founder populations such as the Finns, Ashkenazi Jews, the population of Quebec in Canada and possibly the Australian island state of Tasmania, Kalaydjieva, told ABC Science Online.
Kalaydjieva and team have been studying the genetics of Romany people for over 10 years.
In this recent study, which will be published in the October issue of the journal, the researchers analysed five genetic mutations linked to certain diseases, such as the neuromuscular disorder myasthenia.
The aim was to try and estimate when the original founder population arose and when it split off into different groups of Romany.
The researchers studied the diversity of the chromosomes that carry the genetic markers. Over successive generations, the region around the genetic markers become more and more diverse.
By applying a known rate of genetic change in DNA, the researchers worked out the founder population emerged from the ancestral population 32 to 40 generations ago, or 800 to 1000 years ago.
An Indian origin
As well as looking at over 1100 samples of Romany from Europe, they studied six samples from India and found that the similarity in genetic markers supported the theory that the founder group, of perhaps under 1000 people, came from India.
The idea that Romany people came from India was first proposed 200 years ago based on similarities between their language and the Indian language Sanskrit, said Kalaydjieva. But such studies were inconclusive.
"There are quite a few examples where a population adopts a language but this does not necessarily mean its biological roots belong to the same place as the larger population that speaks this language," she said.
"So from the biological point of view we have provided we have provided the best evidence so far that this is indeed a population that derives from the Indian subcontinent."
Kalaydjieva and team's analysis of disease genetic markers supported the scientists' previous research on male and female genetic markers.
"It all points in the same direction," she said.
Gypsy: a loaded term
Kalaydjieva said scientists commonly used the term "Gypsy" but this was politically and historically loaded.
"Initially Gypsies were called Gypsies because Europeans believed, and this was a legend that the Gypsies maintained themselves, that they came from Egypt," she said.
But she said Gypsies had been persecuted due to superstition, racism and prejudice. The term Gypsy had become increasingly given a pejorative meaning, being used to describe a social category with a wandering nomadic way of life, rather than a biological population. Many people from that group now preferred to be called Roma, Romani or Romany.
She said the term Romani or Romany, strictly speaking linguistically and historically, described Balkan Gypsies. These people were a sub-group of European Gypsies and the scientific term Gypsy was a more generic term to cover the biological population.
Today people descended from European Gypsies live all over the world, even Australia. In Bulgaria alone there are at least 50 groups with different traditions, cultures, dialects and adopted religions.
I know the idea about hte words sounding alike is not real evidence, but it is a similar sound in Hungarian and other eastern european countries
I assure you that if "real" Gypsies grounded in the art of deceptive theft had hit Nordstroms, no one there would have noticed it.
One afternoon I was with the inlaws at a major department store in San Diego when three semi-pro thieves hit the area where we were shopping. One thief was "bolder" than the others ~ her job was to distract the security people. The other two began putting on clothing.
The decoy was quite successful. She ended up with several security people following her around the store and out of that area. As they left, the other two left, with the loot.
These thieves were not Roma. Else I wouldn't have noticed them at work.
My parents rented a house to some non-Gypsies 5 years ago, and they trashed the place, then left without paying their rent.
And to think, while these dirty slobs were at school it was probably THEM calling the GYPSY kids "thieving, dirty Gypsy!"
Perpetuating sterotypes is the mark of an ignorant person, and a cause of much grief for good and honest Romanies.
The Gypsies wouldn't have you! They think gaujas (non-Gypsies) are unclean and untrustworthy.
"Gypsies=thieves, liars, con artists, filthy, ugly
They will still your money, your property, they'll break into your house and, usually, they do not speak well the language of the country they happen to live in (plunder)."
Oh, PLEASE, not that old hat again! I know many Gypsies, and I also know many non-Gypsies, and I have to say that of the two, the Romanies are by far the most honest, kind-hearted and well-mannered people I have come across. It's certainly not the Romany kids hanging on street corners smoking weed, drinking vodka and mugging people of an evening in my town. The Romany kids are at home with their families, helping their parents and looking after younger children. It's the Gypsy kids who hold shop doors open for old ladies, instead screaming obscenities, or even mugging them, like so many non-Gypsy kids do.
Please don't pander to racist sterotypes - it's terribly ignorant, frustrating for those of us intelligent enough to see through them, and incredibly hurtful for the innocent people who have to put up with racist abuse (including attacks) on a daily basis.
Yawn. Nothing new about this. We linguists have known for a very long time that gypsies were a migrant population from India. Their language gives 'em away.
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Must've been forced out after finding themselves on the losing end of some tribal feud of some sort. Perhaps the neighboring tribe didn't agree with the founder group's view on thievery, baby snatching, murder, etc. (please note, I'm making no claim about which group endorsed those practices... How's that for political correctness, lol?).
The Welsh are decended from the original British inhabitants of England prior to the Anglo-Saxon Invasions.
They are a Celtic People and it is believed that Celts may have migrated from northern Spain (Gallicia) as well as Gaul into Ancietn Britain.
As Britain was a part of the Roman Empire for a good few centuries, people from all over the ROman world probably settled there and intermarried with the British Celts.
Scotland and Ireland and northern Britain were all at one time occupied by Scandinavians during the Viking Age.
That's probably where they got their red hair and light eyes.
She looks very pretty. Most of the Indian women I have seen are not very attractive.
Where did you have the opportunity to meet real gypsies in America?
Sanskrit was spoken throughout the ancient world, not just in what is today India. Roma may have come out of India some 800 years ago, however, they may not have migrated into India till around the first millennium CE. I suspect that ancient Roma history, per oral tradition is right on target. Roma may well have come out of Egypt, and may be Israelites, possibly part of the 10 lost tribes. Source: Titus Flavius Josephus. Considering the way societies tend to re-brand, label and profile their people during times of hardship and unrest, it would not surprise me if the “Gypsy” of today, has some relation to the Wandering Jew. That may explain whey Rom follow Abrahamic law, and have held on to orthodox Jewish traditions. Roma were also carried off as slaves, some Roma were still held as slaves, up to the mid 1800’s. Roma aren’t the first people to ever be mislabeled. For instance, right now any person who is of a degenerate or dishonest character,the indigent, mentally ill homeless, criminals, anyone without a fixed residence, or anyone who pursues an aberrant life style,petty criminals, and anyone who lives on the shady fringes of society, is currently in the process of being reclassified, and relabeled as a “Gypsy/gypsy” regardless of their genetics. This is being done by mainstream media, and various law enforcement agencies. Within 80 years, there will be millions of falsely classified “gypsies”, who are not genetically related to Sinti or Roma. Until we can differentiate between races and ethnicity’s by way of DNA testing, we may never know the whole truth, as to where the Roma originated. As of right now, there is no way to do that, as far as I know. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/minorities.shtml
Boy, have I learned a lot since I posted this! I wish I could remove this glaring example of my impulsive, knee jerking, big mouthed nature. My assumption was so far off base, it’s humiliating.
I dove into this “Gypsy” topic headfirst due to bait set out for me, by someone determined to play a hoax on me. I fell for it, took the bait and down the rabbit hole I went with it. I only recently uncovered this hoax, set up by someone who wished to humiliate and embarrass me, and also alienate me from law enforcement, by linking me to the criminal “Gypsy’ element.
I took the bait, and true to form put my foot in my mouth, both in fact. What I don’t know is a lot, what I do know is; that I was standing up for a badly downtrodden people, the Romani people, not wanton criminals.
I see now, that I was way too ignorant on this subject to even be talking about it. My heart truly was in the right place, and I’m truly sorry if I offended, or misinformed anyone — due to my ignorance.
That said, it makes me sad that there are such haters and racists out in the world, that they would attempt to link me to a certain race of people, in order to denigrate me as a person. To that person, I can only say, I feel very sorry for you.
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