Romany Gypsies Came Out Of India

ABC Science News ^ | 9-6-2004 | Anna Salleh

[nopardons]

It may be a fine point (which I do NOT think it is at all!),but it is NOT "uninteresting",since YOU found it interesting enough to reply to and attempt to refute.Anyone who know what Hungarian gypsy music sounds like and then hears Spanish gypsy music will automatically hear the difference.And there is a massive dissimilarity between the Spanish gypsy dance steps and traditional Hungarian dances,which are folk dances to Hungarian gypsy music and NOT "gypsy dance steps".

As to Russian gypsy music,it is absolutely NOT like Hungarian and played on different instruments.The Hungarian cymbolum,which gives the music its haunting sound,is NOT used by any other gypsies.

As to what gypsies may or may not have added to American culture,outside of a word or two,frankly,I can't think of anything the gypsies have added.

[norton]

"Sometimes I see elderly people in the bank who are withdrawing money and who appear to be accompanied by someone who is waiting for payment. The banks should be very suspicious of this."

Bank DID get suspicious, actually chased EVERYONE out...including their customer who had triggered the event.

Had they reacted and separated the players things might well have come out differently.

It took five hours for anyone to notify me.

[norton]

"Gypsies have no monopoly in that regard."

A little defensive are we?

I'll say it again - not worth the air they breathe.

[norton]

I should probably add that I'm normally a pretty accomodating guy. Typically able to separate individuals from a crowd, or a sect. But democrats and gypsies have given a new lease on my utterly intolernt side.

I hate them for that as well!

[savagesusie]

My dear deceased Dad told me that on Pepin Hill in MN during the
Great Depression every one took care of their neighbors. The only time anything was stolen was when the gypsies would sweep through. Any animals that weren't locked up would disappear. That is a fact he has mentioned many times to me.

[Cronos]

Strangely enough, the Gypsies in India are from the Western state of Rajasthan and are supposed to be descended from nomadic Scyths etc who invaded India in the years pre-Alexander.

[Cronos]

A cryptic culture, with no music, art, storytelling.

huh? Most slavic music is highly influenced by gypsy music -- the Gypsies also brought the Indian sitar to the west where it morphed into the guitar

[Cronos]

more Hungarian than Romani. To be frank, Gypsies have contributed practically nothing to Western culture except their own image as romantic vagabonds.

Not really -- as I said above, Western music before the Gypsies was similar to what you hear in the medieval movies -- twingy lutes. Real mazurka style music comes fro the Gypsies. The Magyar Hungarians, being Turkic/Mongoloid had a differnt, oriental music, similar to what you hear in the steppes of Mongolia or in China today

[Cronos]

Though, that is one pretty girl dancing there in the pic

[Cronos]

Scots-Irish-Welsh are not always blue-eyed and freckled--look at Catherine Zeta Jones

Actually the Welsh are supposed to be dark haired and brown skinned -- the English call them dark welsh (not meaning tha tthey were negroid, just darker than the blue-eyed blonde English) -- the blue eyed blonde Scots are mostly due to intermingling of the blood with Norsemen

[Cronos]

It is most likely that they are descended from one of the many "criminal castes" of India, which you can still read about in the old pre-PC Indian literature.

That is interesting -- I was reading some Indian newspapers and they still refer to criminal tribes. Mayhaps the gypsies were descended from these who were pushed out of India?

[Mamzelle]

Sitar=father of guitar? I think that may have been the lute.

[Mamzelle]

I rather doubt it--but there is certainly no way to disprove it, either. I couldn't disprove that the czardas was Gypsy, just that a lot of Hunkies wouldn't like the idea.

The first thing that happens when a culture comes to America--everybody wants to try the food. No Gypsy food.

Music? From where I sit, and what I've heard, the music people tell me is Gypsy sounds more like what a Western ear might like to think is Gypsy. That is, the vagabond romance of it all, not an authentic sound. I doubt we have anything in our repetoire that is anything but pastiche.

As for poetry--there is none. What we know of Gypsy language is the little that the Gypsies could not prevent our learning.

No art, other than Artful Dodging.

Amazing, is it not? There is no culture like this one--an utter nothing.

[Cronos]

There is no culture like this one--an utter nothing.

WEll, a secretive culture -- you can't call it nothing just 'cause you don't know about it.

I stick by the sitar origins for the guitar (thouh it can't be proved) for the overall design, the similar name. In hungarian, a guitar is a gitár. A lute is an altogether different animal. Plus the spread of the guitar from Eastern Europe to the West is pretty well known.

[Ditto]

When I was a child, my mother told me that Gypsies steal babies.

Don't know about babies, but if you aren't careful when visiting tourist sites in Europe, they will steal your wallet. ;~))

[Mamzelle]

Maybe it was really the samisen that fathered the guitar? (g) They look alike, too. Dulcimers, harps, and lutes were the earliest wooden string instruments used by Western musicians--they became mandolins, guitars, and fiddles.

If a culture inhabits a land for hundreds of years, with no music, art, myths (poetry) or even a good meal...I'd say it's more likely that there's nothing there rather than some treasure remains tantalizingly hidden.

But a lot of academics have made fools of themselves searching.

[AlexW]

I have been spending half of the last 3 years in central Europe. I am now in Cluj Romania until 21st, when I return
to Tennessee.

There is a huge Gypsy population in much of central Europe,
mainly in Romania, and Bulgaria.

I was always told that they came from India.

They are not liked by anyone, as they are mostly thieves and beggars.
It is normal for them to just walk up to you and ask for a handout, and they start doing it from the age they can walk.
They produce many children, then send them out to shill for money.
Some of them do make an effort to do something for money, such as a kid that gets on the tram and plays an accordion, but most just walk around and ask for money. By the way, people that think racism in the US is bad, it is nothing compared to racism in Europe, where one country sometimes thinks of their neighboring country as a different race, and there is a lot of animosity.

[SoCal Pubbie]

If the Gypsies went to LA in WWII, why are there few problems with Gypsies in southern California? I've lived here all my life, and every year there is a story in the papers about the "Johnson families" but Gypsies here, such as they are, seem to stick to fortune telling and related scams. Maybe it's because most driveways here are concrete!

[muawiyah]

You ask a good question. I think the answer is that their venture in Southern California was so good they actually settled down, assimilated, and abandoned their old ways.

Having the opportunity for regular employment at good wages can have that effect. Several years back I met a fellow peddling hightech equipment for a Silicon Valley company ~ he was named Majoram and his father had grown up in a traveling wagon.

You have to remember, Gypsies, as a people, have been subjected to intense persecution and isolation from mainstream life for a long time.

Much of their less savory behavior is a reaction to their lives' conditions.

BTW, not all the folks in fortune telling are Gypsies.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Of course the fortune tellers are not all Gypsies. My late aunt used to give "readings" for pay, but she wasn't really a "fortune teller". Also, some fortune tellers may want to appear Gypsy to project more "credibility" when they are not.

My wife told me they used to have Gypsies come into Nordstrom all the time to shoplift. That and other stories show that there has been some Gypsy problems here, just not the way it has been in other areas. The same holds true for the Mafia, for whatever reasons, and they are many I think.