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.
g
Is it true that all of their daughters are foxes?
One of the trades seems to be "house robbery". Count on it when the carnival comes to town. That doesn't mean all the folks in the carnival do that ~ just that some do.
I once watched as a group of young gypsy people did their "shopping" at a local Giant grocery store. The old folks were having coffee down at the Starbucks because a thunderstorm had shut down the carnival.
They ended up paying me alms ~ pulled my wallet out of my pocket, removed all the threads, and placed a brand new $1 bill folded up in a laundry ticket I had.
I was shown several ways to steal whole hams, jars of caviar, and so forth. Some of the young women asked me in Roma if I were a Gypsy, and I told them no ~ which didn't seem to satisfy them at all! (ROTFLMAO).
Here's the deal ~ in America Gypsies are much more diverse and racially mixed group than in the Old World. Numerous people of all kinds have managed to join up with them.
Further, there are four large peripatetic groups in America. The Gypsies are but one of those groups. The others are American Indians, Irish Travelers, and Sa'ami (and probably other Northwest Eur/Asian tribal folk).
Way back in the 1850s the US Government convened the American Indians at Chicago and another location further South for the purpose of paying them for their land.
The Indians then left those places and removed to Oklahoma.
Guess who else was there in Chicago at the time? Anyway, they followed the Indians. The Sa'ami had already intermarried extensively with the Pennsylvania tribes (having been in America since the 1600s), and many mixed Sa'ami/Indian folks went to OK.
Although I can't begin to track it all down, you do sometimes find an individual like Bill Clinton who has known roots among the Sa'ami (through the Church of the First Born), the Irish Travelers (try to find his Rileys in Ireland ~ they're all over the place ~ on the road!), the Roma (back through the Blythes to Billy Blythe, Kind of the Gypsies), and, according to his mother, a Cherokee here or there.
I suspect things are even more complex than that. But when the carnivals come around here in the Spring, the local news tells us that the house robberies start, the elderly get fleeced, the pigeon drop is practiced, and the Apostolic Charismatic Church of the First Born in the Fullness of Time, Teaching Christ's Commandments, Army Cross Training leaves it's brochures in the restrooms at Wal-Mart (possibly in memory and honor of their patron saint, Sam Walton).
Life can be good.
I can't believe this is actually being posted as recent news. This information has been available for years. All the Human or Cultural Geography books address the Gypsy culture and their origins. There are also lots of books about Gypies that have been out for years which also suggest they originated in India or Egypt.
"Some of the young women asked me in Roma if I were a Gypsy, and I told them no ~ which didn't seem to satisfy them at all! (ROTFLMAO)."
Do you speak the language?
They probably would given the opportunity, but other than that they run scams and would steal your "I" teeth if they had some value.
If all Gypsies looked like this they probably would not have such a bad reputation.
Info bump.
Fascinating information here! The things I learn from you FReepers! Thank you!
Have bookmarked this....
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
That's a very old,English superstition and is even in an English poem.
Hungarian gypsy music is NOT at all similar to Spanish gypsy music,or Russian gypsy music,nor Irish gypsy music.
"BURY ME STANDING UP" is an interesting book about gypsies.
A friend of mine who worked in a grocery store told me this story: One day a large gypsy family entered the store at a time when there happened to be an empty display table. The family gathered various items from around the store and then used the table to prepare a large number of sandwiches. When the store manager came upon this picnic he said, "Tell me this isn't happening."
In the same store a gypsy woman changed her tampon for one off the shelf - in the aisle.
At one time I worked near a large state mental hospital and knew some people who worked there. On a street nearby there was a small travel trailer in the front yard of a house, which apparently was owned by some gypsies. The workers from the mental hospital told me that one of their patients who was allowed to walk off campus had been captured by the gypsies and held prisoner in the trailer where she was forced into prostitution.
Did it have a camper shell with locks on both the back and side windows? I have read on some websites about the travelers that these side locks are a characterisitic sign.
Bury Me Standing:
The Gypsies and Their Journey
by Isabel Fonseca
Yes, Gypsies really are related!
Previously there was some doubt.
No!
However, I do know when I am being asked if I am one. No doubt Bill Clinton gets asked this question a lot ~ although I assure you this only happens in America and not in Europe.
BTW, I also know how to split a dollar bill in two, front from back.
Oh, yes--I've read about them. There's a whole town--an acquaintance of mine accidently tried to go to Mass as a travelling-through visitor in a strange town in South Carolina. The congregation stopped everything when they came in and stared at them--including the "priest"--until they left!! They may be Irish, and they may have bright blue eyes--but they're also Gypsy. Many Gypsies came to the US by way of Ireland.
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