Talk:History of the Romani people

Timeline Information/Merger
The information on Roma History in Timeline of Roma history should probably be moved to this article? Themightyquill 15:01, 2006-04-7  (UTC)
 * Agreed. I think the articles should be merged. Sadly, I din't know how to set all that stuff up.Wachholder0 21:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I have tagged the articles to be merged- I believe the timeline should be part of this article & not vice versa. Comments, anyone?Wachholder0 14:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Approve. I suggest merging the general history information from the timeline article into the body of this article, and adding the actual timeline as a separate section on this article. -- TheMightyQuill 16:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I changed my mind. Keep them separate, but expand both. I'm removing the tags. -TheMightyQuill 22:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Corrections and missing info
I'd corrected few things. The article as a whole is (IMHO) poster caricature without much of substantial info.

Not all Roma believe that "Roma" is the right name and see it as derogatory and prefere the traditional Gypsy.

Central Europe is quite large region that didn't disappear from the world.

The myth of forced sterilisation of huge number of Roma in Czechoslovakia was artificial construction of few loud groups to get more attention and possibly extract easy money. These claims had made quite a splash in the country with nothing discovered - an it was hoped for a lot.

The history from arrival to Europe until WW2 is practically all missing, except for few poster slogans. During this period many different policies has been tried, many pogrom occured, states tried to expell them or assimilate them. Literature exists on this topic and some material is even on the net.

The massive worsening of life style after falls of communist regimes around 1989 is missing - and this affected millions of people. The factories have no longer duty to employ all people or simply crashed and Roma were among the first unemployed. Later, temporary workers from former Soviet Union displaced the rest from traditional occupations (in Czechoslovakia it was construction industry and Ukrainians).

There's absolutely no description of details of nomadic style. The large migration patterns are not described. There is no description of internal structuring of Gypsy society over time. Description of Roma as group from sociological style of view is missing. Romani language, its dialects and development over time is not referenced at all in the article - they were probably all mute.

Last but non least, if someone would like to get real and valid info he will not find even single reference book or at least website. Pavel Vozenilek 13:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. This article definitely needs a lot of work, and I'm glad to see it started. On the other hand, there was a reference to the sterilization in Czechoslovakia, so removing it because you disagree is a little POV. Seriously though, thank you for the work on this, and other Czech related articles I've noticed you working on, like Czechoslovak Hockey Riots (1969). -- TheMightyQuill 14:33, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes there was refrence and really it got quite strongly voiced some 2 years ago. Trying doesn't cost anything. IMO the misery Roma live and the absolute alienation of the rest of the society is real problem, not someone's smell of court ordered compensation. Pavel Vozenilek 18:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Longer timeline
Someone on the main Roma people just posted this |link

I've copied the information here History of the Roma people/Timeline, incase the above goes dead. I know it's plagiarism, but I thought we could use it to round out the article? -- TheMightyQuill 19:54, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Removed do to copyright violation. Oh well, the original link seems to be working again anyway.TheMightyQuill 22:34, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Roma and Sinti in the Wehrmacht
Roma and Sinti were recruited for the Wehrmacht and served there, unlike the Jews. And sterilisation had already started. Perhaps this complex situation should be reflected. Wandalstouring 22:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Islamic theories hold no water.
Most assuredly, Roma came with the Huns/Avars/Turks/Mongols etc. as other Asians made wave upon wave of invasion in Eastern Europe. There is no connection between Araby and Gypsies; that is a misconception--as much a misconception that the Middle East is Asian and not European. Specifically Jews and Muslims have more relation to the mystified concept of "Araby" (Arabia) and "Gypsy" (Egypt) Lord Loxley 13:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio
Unfortunately, I had to tag History of the Roma people/Timeline for copyright violation. The complete list is, however, still available in the articles' history: and on these websites: Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 14:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Roger Moreau theory?
Does anyone give any credence to the suggestions put forward in the book "The Rom: Walking the Path of the Gypsies" by Roger Moreau? Or are his ideas considered to speculative to be worth a mention, or else has the publication of this book been into oblivion? 141.243.112.20 (talk) 05:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * From my part you can put it. Mr Moreau's theory is speculation, but pretty much everything about the origin of the Romanis is speculation. Kenshin (talk) 12:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Redirect for Simon Simeonis
Simon Simeonis was linked from History of the Romani people and was a redlink. The same person was referred to as Symon Semeonis in Romani people, so I made a redirect on that basis. Rifter0x0000 (talk) 22:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Romani people which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 06:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

India -> Europe
How did they get from India to Europe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.121.3.65 (talk) 12:54, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The language comparison chart gives false impression
I think the language chart comparing Romani to Domari give a very false impression. It makes it appear that Romani is close to Domari which is wrong. Romani will appear to be very similar to Domari at a glance due to both being from the Hindustani language group but if we bring other Indian languages such as Rajasthani and Panjabi into the equation it will show the two aren't closely connected which is not the impression the chart presents.

Any two Hindustani languages can be made to look the same when compared to other languages that are outside India.

Display the fact differently and we get a different outcome

Brother: Romani = Phral Panjabi = Phra Sanskrit = Bhratr Hindi = Bhai Domari = Bharos

here we can see very clearly that Domari does not have the Panjabi regional corruption as seen with Romani. Romani sharing regional corruption on words and grammar with Rajasthani & Panjabi is something seen throughout Romani and is not just this one illustration. A simple look into the different languages can prove this. Romani grammar is mostly Rajasthani.

Also Romani is the same as modern Indian languages such as Rajasthani and Panjabi as it is two gender. A very important fact is that Domari is like the much earlier Indian languages as it is three gender even though they have been living in what was Persia which is like later Indian languages and is two gender. Domari has kept its three gender since India.

Romani left India a lot later when the three gender was replaced by two gender.

I think the research and the way it is presented needs correcting or else it is giving a false illustration Tsigano (talk) 13:06, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Well they didn't fix it and I agree Mcnordine (talk) 09:59, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

New research on Indian origins
This new research might be useful for this article: —Chris Capoccia T⁄C 13:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Holocaust
Why is there no section mentioning the Holocaust (Porajmos)? Rather significant part of Romani history. Interlaker (talk) 11:50, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Hephthalites
There is a theory that the Roma migration has something to do with the occupation of Northwest-India through the Hephthalites. Genetic tests also prove that the Romani people left India around the 5th century.

Please involve this in your article.

--95.112.67.194 (talk) 10:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * 95.112.67.194, can you point to any research regarding this theory and how widely accepted it is? Neither can I assert the there is DNA 'proof' unless it is documented via reliable and verifiable sources. You're also welcome to develop the article provided you base it on secondary sources and not on WP:OR. Cheers! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:19, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Rajasthani
The article stated: ''Linguistic evidence indicates the Romanis originated from the Rajasthani people, emigrating from India no earlier than the 11th century. '' There is not any quote and or a reference to any consent in research either. I have taken it out.

It proceeds: ''Linguistically speaking, the Romani language is a New Indo-Aryan language (NIA) − it has only two genders (masculine and feminine). Until around the year 1000, the Indo-Aryan languages, named Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA), had three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter). By around the start of the 2nd millennium, they changed over to the NIA phase, losing the neuter gender.''

''Most of the neuter nouns became masculine, while a few became feminine. For instance, the neuter अग्नि (agni) in the Prakrit language, became the feminine आग (āg) in Hindi and jag in Romani. The parallels in grammatical gender evolution between Romani and other NIA languages suggest that the change occurred in South Asia.''

I cannot tell whether this is legitimate or not. But I see that citations are missing, especially for the conclusion stated at the end. If it is, some kind soul should fit it in.

The next part gave a similar impression: ''Vagish Shastri posits that it is impossible that the ancestors of the Romani people left India prior to AD 1400. They then stayed in the Byzantine Empire for several hundred years. However, the Muslim expansion, mainly under the Seljuk Turks, into the Byzantine Empire recommenced the movement of the Romani people. ''. He posits that the Romani people left later than their recorded appearance. The publisher Yogic Voice Consciousness Institute hardly points to peer reviewed journals.

It ends with: ''The majority of historians accepted this as evidence of an Rajasthani origin for the Romanis, though some scholars maintained that the Romanis acquired the language through contact with Indian merchants. ''. While not looking like a standard source on the issue, it shows quickly that there is no mention of the Rajasthani theory in the text referred to. It is fabricated. -- Zz (talk) 18:51, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 06:21, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Homeland of Romani people according to autosomal DNA.png

Inherent Prejudice in parts of this article
"Other theories suggest that the name derives from a form ḍōmba, "man of low caste living by singing and music", attested in Classical Sanskrit.[8] Many also believe that Gypsies are descendants of Dalit because of the word zingaro (ατσίγγανος) (untouchable) that was used to designate gypsies in Greece."

Any theory is simply that. But theories that project an entire group of people by an outside group to be lowly, of low class, untouchable, etc., should be clearly stated as prejudices. The Roma were persecuted and nearly annihilated from Europe. If any Roma person would come forward and say that Roma people are of low caste or untouchable then this quoted paragraph could stand as simply a theory. Please fix this it is offensive. Mcnordine (talk) 09:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Should there be a section about why they migrated?
I think that having a section on why they migrated is important to have. The Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life(Vol. 5: Europe. 2nd ed.) (2009) on page 394 says"

"In the 10th century, a Muslim kingdom arose in what is now Afghanistan, with its capital at Ghasni. This was called the Ghaznavid Empire, and in 1017, its ruler, Mahmud Ghazni, launched a series of massive raids into India. He and successive rulers entered India, plundering and massacring the people, carrying off thousands of slaves, and laying waste to the countryside. The Rajputs contested these raids, and many battles took place, during which groups of people were displaced or forced to move out of desolated areas. At some point during the 11th century, the ancestors of the Roma made their way into the Upper Indus Valley from Gurjara and spent some time in this region, whose inhabitants spoke Dardic languages, which had an effect on their own.

The ancestors of the Roma then left India via the Shandur or Baroghil pass and entered Xinjiang in northwestern China. From there they followed the Silk Road, which led them to ancient Persia, then through Southern Georgia to an Armenian-speaking region around the city of Trebizond, and finally to the Byzantine Empire, borrowing words from these linguistic regions as they slowly migrated over many generations. From Constantinople (now Istanbul) they traveled up the Balkans and reached the Romanian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia by at least the 14th century. Some groups remained in the Balkans below Romania but many moved through Romania, traveling both west and east. By the end of the 15th century, Roma could be found as far west as the British Isles and Spain and as far east as Poland and Lithuania." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shakespeare143 (talk • contribs) 07:17, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

False, the ancestors of the roma people was already in the byzantine empire at 800 AD-803 AD, you see, long before this modern theory from Mahmud Gazni derived, created by Non-Romani.

Nalanidil (talk) 11:28, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

different origin theory's
There is no 100% origin theory that is accepted for all different Romani groups. Almost every Romani group has its own history of origin. It varies a lot, especially between Christian and Muslim Romani. The various theories of origin were put forward by non-Romani people, some with obscure claims.

A large part of the Romani believe their original home is the Sindh region, especially the Sinti, others say Egypt or Iran, this claim is made by the Ashkali and Balkan Egyptians. Many Muslim Romani people deny their origin and pretend to be Turks and speak Turkish only instead of Balkan Romani, others only speak the different Languages of Yugoslavia. This is a common knowledge.

Nalanidil (talk) 23:46, 20 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The encyclopedia content is not based on common knowledge, personal opinion or original research; it is always based in what verifiable, secondary reliable sources say. Netherzone (talk) 00:10, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

But none of the so called sources claim that all different roma groups believe the same thing about their origin, and as you can read for yourself, there are so many sources and so many different theories about if you google them. Nalanidil (talk) 11:20, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Linguistic account of Romani migrations in Campbell's Historical Linguistics 1ed
Pages 363-365 of the first edition of Campbell's Historical Linguistics: An Introduction give a linguistic account of the Romani migrations based on an unpublished 1973 manuscript, "Gypsy wanderings and linguistic borrowing", by Terrence Kaufman. In particular, according to Campbell, the manuscript analyzes word borrowings in different Romani dialects to determine the following history for Romani migrations:


 * A migration to a Dardic-speaking region of northwest India before 200 BCE
 * A migration to and departure from a Persian-speaking region of Iran prior to 900 CE (after which the ancestor of Domari splits off)
 * A migration to an Armenian and Ossetic-speaking region of the Caucasus by 1050 CE (after which the ancestor of Lomavren splits off)
 * A migration to a Greek-speaking region of Anatolia by 1200 CE
 * A migration to a South Slavic-speaking region in the Balkans by 1300 CE (after which different branches of Romani begin to diverge)
 * Except for Spanish and Bulgarian branches of the Romani, some period of time spent in a Romanian-speaking area during the 14th century CE

This seems like highly specific information (in particular, hard dates by which specific migrations took place) that isn't currently available on the page. However, Kaufman's manuscript has never been published, and I'm wondering if subsequent work disproves this analysis or if there's a reason this information cannot be added to the page. I don't know if this analysis was kept in more recent editions of Campbell - Google Books doesn't have a preview of the corresponding pages in the 4th edition, though this link suggests that the manuscript remains in the citations list. GlobeGores (talk page | user page) 00:15, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I found a copy of the 4th edition of Campbell. Here is the timeline it gives:


 * A migration to a Dardic-speaking region of northwest India before 200 BCE
 * A migration to and departure from a Persian-speaking region of Iran prior to 650 CE (after which the ancestor of Domari splits off)
 * According to some scholars, a migration to an area in the Caucasus controlled by the Empire of Trebizond prior to 1040 CE (after which the ancestor of Lomavren splits off). Disputed by other scholars who say the borrowings from Armenian/Georgian/Ossetic could have occurred in eastern and central Anatolia instead.
 * A migration to and departure from a Byzantine-controlled region of Anatolia prior to the growth of Ottoman Turkish hegemony from 1265-1328 CE
 * A wave of migrations to a South Slavic-speaking region in the Balkans by 1350 CE (after which different branches of Romani begin to diverge)
 * A wave of migrations throughout Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries CE

So basically the timelines are tightened up a bit, some questioning has been done of a possible Caucasian migration, the Balkans migrations may have been multiple, and the Romanian aspect is ignored. This talk page has been pretty quiet, so unless someone strongly objects I'm going to add this to the article. GlobeGores (talk page | user page) 01:00, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Roma people
Hello I'm Roma and all the history on my people. Only say or mention us not saying how long we were in India because I feel like back then we still traveled because how could almost whole population leave a country 2601:240:D200:89D0:D42E:6626:42FA:12B3 (talk) 20:01, 18 February 2022 (UTC)