THE GYPSY LORE SOCIETY, an intl assoc of those interested in Gypsy Studies, was founded in England in 1888. Since 1989 it has been headquartered in the US. Its goals include promotion of the study of Gypsy, Traveler, and analogous peripatetic cultures worldwide; dissemination of accurate info aimed at increasing understanding of these cultures in their diverse forms; and establishment of closer contacts among scholars studying any aspects of these cultures. The Gypsy or Traveler cultures covered include those traditionally known, or referring to themselves, as Rom, Romanichels, Cale, Sinti, Ludar, Romungre, Irish Travellers or Scottish Travelers, and many others. gypsyloresociety.org 

Gypsies are an amazing people - the only group of people living in every corner of the earth without the benefits of power, money, armies, or ever fighting a war. Wherever you travel - to the plains of Hungary, the steppes of Siberia, the gates of Marakesh, the highlands of Guatemala, or the frozen tundra of Alaska - everywhere you'll find Gypsies. They are always on the move and have an ever abiding need for freedom and independence. 

Where did they come from? Some believe they are the last survivors of Atlantis. Others suggest that they are the people of the biblical town of Babel. To the gypsies it does not matter. They readily learn the language of their host country, but no govt and no monarch has been able to break the Gypsy spirit - not with gifts of land and seed and not with brutal persecution.

Gypsy and Traveler Groups in North America. Several grps, generally known to outsiders as "Gypsies," live today in North America. In their native languages, each of the groups refers to itself by a specific name, but most translate that name as "Gypsy" when speaking English. The distinct groups of Irish Travelers and Scottish Travelers do not refer to themselves as Gypsies, however. 

Each of these groups had its own cultural, linguistic, and historical tradition before coming to this country, and each maintains social distance from the others. They differ from one another in social organization: form of marriage, internal politics and social control. With the exception of the Hungarian-Slovak musicians, Gypsy and Traveler groups share elements of economic organization. 

The Rom and Romnichels share elements of an ideology which stresses the separation of pure from impure and Gypsy from non-Gypsy. The Rom, Romnichels, and Hungarian-Slovak musicians share a linguistic prehistory, but their ethnic languages are not, for practical purposes, mutually intelligible. The scattered and, for the most part secondhand, reports of Gypsies in North America before the middle of the nineteenth century, while frequently repeated, have not been examined critically nor verified independently. 

What has been demonstrated is that the present pop of North American Gypsies and Travelers date from immigrations of 1850 and thereafter.

The terms used here, Black Dutch, Ludar, Rom, and Romnichel, are those members of these groups use to refer to themselves. In keeping with linguistic convention, the term Romani (also spelled Romany in the literature) is used to refer to any or all of the Romani dialects or languages. We use "Gypsies" to refer to the totality of all groups except the Irish and Scottish Travelers, and where the identity of the group is unverified.

In some recent works the terms Rom, Roma, and Romani (as a plural noun) have been used to refer to the totality of "Gypsy" groups, that is, to replace the term "Gypsies." The following brief descriptions are intended to help acquaint readers with the groups referred to in the works entered in the bibliography and with the terminology found in the literature; they are by no means full discussions of each culture. 

Romnichels: The Romnichels, or Rom'nies, began to come to the United States from England in 1850. Their arrival coincided with an increase in the demand for draft horses in agriculture and then in urban transportation, and many Romnichels worked as horse traders, both in the travel-intensive acquisition of stock and in long-term urban sales stable enterprise. After the rapid decline in the horse trade following the First World War, most Romnichels relied on previously secondary enterprises, "basket-making," including the manufacture and sale of rustic furniture, and fortune telling. 

The slight literature on this group was produced steadily but sporadically from 1880 to 1920; after that date material appeared rarely until the 1980s. With the exception of one language study, this literature is intended for a popular audience; only recently has scholarly work treated this group. The literature usually refers to this group as English Gypsies. The Romnichel language, which native speakers refer to as Rom'nes (used as a noun), uses common Romani lexical terms in a matrix of English grammar and syntax. The literature refers to this language as Angloromani (or Anglo-Romani).

Rom: The Rom arrived in the US and Canada from Serbia, Russia and Austria-Hungary beginning in the 1880s, part of the larger wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th cen. Primary immigration ended, for the most part, in 1914, with the beginning of WWI and subsequent tightening of immigration restrictions. Many in this group specialized in coppersmith work, mainly the repair and refinning of industrial equipment used in bakeries, laundries, confectioneries, and other businesses. The Rom, too, developed the fortune-telling business in urban areas.

Virtually all the anthropological and sociological work on North American Gypsies concerns the Rom, an emphasis which has led a British observer to label the N.Amer academic tradition "Kalderashocentric," Kalderash being one of the Rom subgroups. The first work covered in this biblio to concern the Rom appeared in 1903. 

Material appeared sporadically after that, and steadily from 1928 onward. This group is also referred to in the literature as Nomads, Coppersmiths, Nomad Coppersmiths, Vlach (or Vlax) Gypsies, or by reference to a country from which they immigrated to North America, as Brazilian Gypsies, Bulgarian Gypsies, and so forth. The individual subgroup terms Kalderash and Machwaya are also used. While in the Kalderash dialect of the Romani language, Rom is both singular and plural, the Machwaya dialect has plural Roma, which is also found in the literature.

The inflected language of the Rom belongs to the "Vlach" branch of the Romani language family. Native speakers refer to "speaking Romanes" (adverb) 'in the Gypsy fashion.' A group of Rom who began immigrating to the United States and Canada from eastern Europe in the 1970s is represented primarily in the police literature, where they are referred to as Yugoslavian Gypsies.

The Ludar, or "Rumanian Gypsies," also emigrated to North America during the great immigration from southern and eastern Europe between 1880 and 1914. Most of the Ludar came from northwestern Bosnia. Upon their arrival in North America they specialized as animal trainers and show people, and indeed passenger manifests show bears and monkeys as a major part of their baggage. Only a handful of items covering this group have been published, beginning in 1902. The ethnic language of the Ludar is a form of Romanian. They are occasionally referred to as Ursari in the literature. 

"Black Dutch" Gypsies from Germany, generally referred to in the literature as Chikeners (Pennsylvania German, from German Zigeuner), sometimes refer to themselves as "Black Dutch." (While the term "Black Dutch" has been adopted by these German Gypsies, it does not originate with this group and has been used ambiguously to refer to several non-Gypsy populations.) They are few in number and claim to have largely assimilated to Romnichel culture. In the past known as horse traders and basket makers, some continue to provide baskets to US Amish and Mennonite communities. The literature on this group is very sparse and unreliable.

Hungarian Gypsies: The Hungarian (or Hungarian-Slovak) musicians also came to this country with the eastern European immigration. In the United States they continued as musicians to the Hungarian and Slovak immigrant settlements, and count the musical tradition as a basic cultural element. The sparse lit on this group begins in 1921. Curiously the proportion of scholarly efforts is higher than for the literature on other groups: three sociological studies (although two are unpublished master's theses), and one survey focused on music.

The Irish Travelers immigrated, like the Romnichels, from the mid to late nineteenth century. The Irish Travelers specialized in the horse and mule trade, as well as in itinerant sales of goods and services; the latter gained in importance after the demise of the horse and mule trade. The literature also refers to this group as Irish Traders or, sometimes, Tinkers. Their ethnic language is referred to in the literature as Irish Traveler Cant.

Harper's ethnographic and sociolinguistic studies and Andereck's in the sociology of education are the few serious studies of this group. The popular literature on Irish Travelers includes articles in Catholic periodicals.

Scottish Travelers: The present population of Scottish Travelers in North America also dates from about 1850, although the 18th-century transportation records appear to refer to this group. Unlike that of the other groups, Scottish Traveler immigration has been continuous. Also unlike the other groups, Scottish Travelers have continued to travel between Scotland and N.America, as well as between Canada and the US, after immigration. 

Scottish Travelers also engaged in horse trading, but since the first quarter of the 20th century have specialized in itinerant sales and services. With the exception of one researcher's master's and doctoral theses and material culture studies, the literature on this group consists almost wholly of warnings to prospective consumers accompanied by information, derived from consumer protection agency records, of doubtful accuracy.

--------------------------------------------------------- Review of Officer Louis Sgro's speech on FORTUNE TELLING AND THE LAW by Eric Krieg 

On April 20th at the Bensalem Library, a number of us were treated to a riveting talk about criminal aspects of fortune telling and other crimes. Lou is a 30 veteran of the Philadelphia force and a member of several law enforcement groups focused on confidence crimes.

Officer Lou quickly narrowed in on just the ancient race of people known as Gypsies. He said they constitute the majority of fortune tellers and use a rather standard con to take advantage of people who have fallen on tough times or are lonely. He reported that this group of uncounted people are not merely 'banjo playing buffoons but people raised from a young age believing that it is their god-given mission in life to cheat the rest of us. Although it didn't sound politically correct, he went on to say that unlike us they don't obey laws, or attend more than 7 years of school. He reported they are inbreed, loaded with money, constantly move, frequently jump bail, attempt to bribe their way out of jail (some times with phoney bonds) and are involved in far more crime than the mafia. He said their are many different clans of them, for example the Tinkerers (aka travellers) come from the northern UK and specialize in repair scams (this reporter had some of them try to rip him off in a massive driveway repair scam in Upper Dublin). 

Although Lou has put many gypsies behind bars including a Gypsy policeman who tried to bribe him, he said it is very difficult to hold them responsible for their crimes because: they have thousands of years of practice, change names, move around, hide behind the practice of religion, and speak a language only they know. Lou says they try to rationalize their crimes since they don't use violence - however the deep hurt that people go through is very severe. Some people caught in faith healer scams have ended up losing both their vision and tens of thousands of dollars. 

Their fortune telling scam mostly takes advantage of educated women and involves the following deceptions: at an initial meeting they cold read and convince the victim that 'evil' is following them - but could be stopped with help from the gypsy: Simple slight of hand tricks (making an egg appear to transmogrify, making water appear to boil etc.) enhance the gypsies appearance of power. A quick swap of a donated envelope of money with a fake burned the burning of "hundred dollar candles" asking that a large sum of money be buried somewhere. 

Apparently, in NJ, all they need are pictures of Jesus everywhere and the law won't touch them; but in PA only fraud be need proven to convict faith healers, fortune tellers, phrenologists, graphologists, or astrologers. Officer Lou sounds like a seasoned skeptic, he's remarked to alleged psychics, "if your are a psychic, why didn't you know I was coming to arrest you" 

A report from another detective who worked with gypsies: Mr. Krieg, I appreciate the fact you would like to remain open minded on the issue of the Gypsies. As a former police detective in ... and an Insurance Fraud investi- gator for the past several years, I passed that stage years ago. The Gypsy people believe it is there divine right to commit what they consider to be petty property crimes against the "Gadjo". (Any non Gypsie) I have conducted hundreds of Interviews and Interrogations involving gypsies. Young, old, male and female. 

In general they are polite and surprisingly candid about their activitys. It is no different from your basic religous convictions, or lack of. They just believe that is the way things are. I now deal with them in the area of Insurance Fraud. There is nothing a gypsy will not do in order to obtain a large settlement from and insurance company. I have seen adults pull the teeth out of small children prior to staging an accident in a store or office building. All part of the scam. 

There is a great deal of info concerning Gypsies, both on the net and in print. Just one last thought. You would be a prime target for a gypsy. Your open minded, and they are very good. They have years of practice under sometime harsh conditions. (Gypsies were persecuted in large numbers by the nazis in WW2) 

All the gypsies I have delt with are very slick and street smart. They can pass lie detectors, because they don't believe what they do is wrong. If you decide to investigate any gypsies "up close" hold onto your wallet. Good Luck. I would be glad to write about some of my investigations when I have more time. I didn't intend to state "All" gypsies are thiefs. I know there is a gypsy Police Officer that lectures on the topic. I believe he is with the Kansas City KS, police department, but don't hold me to that. 

Speaking of open-minded skepticism, I personally don't know for sure one way or the other if the majority of gypsy people are dishonest. I'd like to explore the question farther. The book "the secrets of Gypsy fortune telling may offer more thoughts. See Gypsy web sites at metro.turnpike.net/R/rtracy/romright/rrwmain.html/ and http://www.cybergypsy.com/AGRI.html. One of the sites responded to my inquirers saying that there are many wrong maligning stereotypes of other people groups and went on to request that we pray for the persecuted gypsy people. 

The following response comes from Eddie Wharton: I have read your article on the (Roma) gypsys.And have found everything I have read to be legends, wives tales, and fables.FORTUNE TELLERS? How about getting the psychic hotlines that for e.g DION WARWICK has,off the air.Or is that ok because shes not a gypsy? ORGANIZED CRIME? Only as much as the govenment is.Or was it ok for "Kennedy" to be involved with the mafia, and still be president.(and Frank Sinatra). As far as i knew racism was against the law. I bet you wouldnt put your name next to an article like that about the Jews or the BLacks ect. and why? Because that my friend would be racism! So why do you think you have the right to condemn us for things you have made up or here say. Before you write an article dont you research it first? Obviously not!One last thing before i go. Do I look like Im illiterate? No,just another rumor. you still dont explain why the gypsys are the only people being disputed with about fortune telling but its ok for non gypsys to do so.further more,not all gypsys are into illegal activities,a very high percentage are settled down with very reputable businesses and are very much christians with their children going ALL the way through school.includeing college.Many are lawyers,doctors, teachers,and ect. you shouldnt be so stereotypical about a race you havent even begun to know. 

a response from Angus: Pubs by Angus Bancroft 'Gypsies To The Camps!': Exclusion And Marginalisation of Roma In The Czech Republic Originally published in Sociological Research Online, September 1999 Under Communism the Roma minority in the Czech Republic were subject to severe state directed assimilation policies. Since the end of the Cold War they have endured a combination of labour market exclusion and racially motivated violence. The apparent historical discontinuity between the Communists' strategies of assimilation and the current forms of exclusion and marginalisation is often explained by pointing to the social and economic upheaval caused by the transition to capitalism, or the resurgence of 'ancient ethnic hatreds.' When examining anti-Roma racism (or other examples of ethnic conflict) in the former Communist countries of Europe, commentators tend to regard it as signifying the backwardness of these nations. These perspectives ignore racism's modern aspect. In contrast this paper seeks to highlight some of the continuities between the situation of Roma today and their historical position. It uses Simmel's concept of 'the Stranger' as applied by Bauman to understand the ambivalent place of Roma in European modernity, at times subject to coercive assimilation, at other times on the receiving end of racial violence. It challenges narratives which attempt to Orientalise racism as the preserve of 'uncivilised and backward' nations or a white underclass. It seeks to put racism in its place as a part of European modernity and its deployment of assimilative or exclusionary strategies against 'Stranger' minorities.

This paper was written as part of a project comparing the exclusion and marginalisation of Roma in the Czech Republic with that of traditional Travellers in Britain. The project seeks to describe how the constitution of European modernity excludes outsider groups within Europe. It takes the perspective that regulatory functions and narratives make and remake Europe as a restricted ideological space and geographic entity, a space from which Roma and Travellers are excluded. The paper examines the upsurge in anti-Roma violence and discrimination in Central and East European countries since the revolutions of 1989, focusing on the Czech Republic. When explaining the extent of anti-Roma feeling in the post-Soviet states West European commentators in particular have tended to assign it either to the transition problems they have faced in switching from command to free market economies, or to the revival of 'tribal' ethnic hatreds (e.g. "From Our Own Correspondent", BBC World Service 13/11/97). These narratives are familiar from descriptions of the fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia, which regularly describe the tragic events there in terms of the resurgence of ancient ethnic enmities which had supposedly been suppressed by the Communist Party government (Glenny 1993; Calhoun & Pfaff 1998).

 The purpose of this paper is to counter these assumptions, which attempt to Orientalise racism as the preserve of the 'backward' nations of Central and Eastern Europe. It seeks to place anti-Roma feeling squarely within the traditions of European racism and European modernity. To do so it examines the role of 'the Stranger' in European thought, drawing on the work of Simmel (1950) and Bauman (1995). It acknowledges the long history of anti-Roma racism in Europe. Contrary to the opinions mentioned above it argues that anti-Roma racism in the Czech Republic has to be understood in terms of the modernisation of the former Communist states and in the context of the 'new racism' which has emerged in Western Europe. It also acknowledges the continuing legacy of 'old' Communist racisms for Roma. 

The Roma Of Europe The Roma are peoples who speak various dialects of the Romani language and are part of a recognisable culture, distinct from that of the societies in which they live. Linguistic (Hancock 1997), anthropological (Lee 1997) and some genetic (Bernasovsky et al., 1994) evidence indicates they are descended from nomadic groups who were displaced from India beginning in the 10th Century. At that time, they began a great migration north and west, eventually entering Europe through the Balkans and also possibly crossing the Straits of Gibraltar from North Africa. The majority of Roma are based in Central and Eastern Europe, and have largely ceased to be nomadic in their lifestyle. 

In some cases this is because of government policies of forced settlement, such as those which affected most of the Czech and Polish Roma under Communism (McCagg 1991; Jurova 1993). Historically, both Roma and Travellers have had an impact on the history of the societies they encountered that often goes unacknowledged, except when they are considered as a social problem. They are seen as a people without history (Trumpener 1992). Yet national folk cultures have been strongly influenced by them. 

In countries such as Russia (Lemon 1991), Scotland (Braid 1997) and Spain (Soravia 1984), Roma and Travellers became indispensable to the survival and revival of the national culture of folk music, storytelling and dance. They have carried out significant economic functions, some groups being nomadic craftspeople whose services were important to feudal and early-modern societies (Tomka 1984). 

Although traditional trades have declined in utility they have been quick to adapt to changing economic circumstances where possible (Sway 1984). Despite the contribution Roma and Travellers have made to European life, throughout the continent they are reviled as scroungers and parasites, as incorrigibles and, in the words of the former Slovakian Premier Vladimir Meciar, 'social unadaptables' (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 31/6/98). In Britain, Travellers are increasingly restricted from pursuing a nomadic way of life (Hawes & Perez 1995; Bancroft 1996). In the former Communist countries of Europe Roma are excluded from the labour market, and are frequently the object of populist violence supported by police indifference (Barany 1994, 1998; European Union 1997).

The Area Of Research Currently, there are some 250-300,000 Roma in the Czech Republic (Liegeois & Gheorghe 1995). It was considered important to investigate the situation of Roma in the Czech Republic specifically for a number of reasons, principally ease of access, but also the nature of the country itself. It occupies a significant position in the mental geography of Europe, having been a part of Soviet Eastern Europe, but also considered to be the most Western of the former Soviet states. 

The Czech Republic's position on the border (Mendras 1994)  or buffer zone (Wallace et al., 1996)  between the two symbolic halves of Europe makes it an especially illuminating area to work in, allowing the racialisation and marginalisation of Czech Roma to be placed in a wider European context. The paper is not the report of an empirical study of Czech Roma. Rather it attempts to place their experience within a broader analysis of the situation of Roma in the former Communist countries. To do so it draws on a variety of sources, including documentary material, journalists and commentators, to try and develop some themes and concepts relating the position of Czech Roma to that of Roma in Eastern Europe.


Using these themes and concepts it seeks to contribute to a broader analysis of the position of Eastern Europe's Roma and the problems and challenges which they face. Research consisted of an investigation of various documentary sources: contemporary newspaper and wire service reports, discussions with informants via e-mail and in electronic newsgroups, as well as an examination of government documents, reports of human rights monitoring groups and newspaper archives (see bibliography for specific details). 

These were supported by a number of interviews with informants in the Czech Republic, in addition to a period of fieldwork there during summer 1998. The specific sources were chosen with the intention of placing developments affecting Czech Roma within the context of the resurgence of anti-Roma racism in Europe. I have quoted from several interviewees here. 'Mirka', 'Kara' and 'Lana' are Czech journalists working with Roma. They were asked questions relating to the overall position of Roma in the Czech Republic and relations between Roma and Czechs. The geographical area covered in the field research took in Prague as well as towns in Bohemia and Moravia.

 It included Usti nad Labem, whose town council planned to build a wall separating a Roma community from its neighbours. Although the plan was abandoned recently, similar schemes to ghettoise Roma have since been announced in other parts of the country. It was considered important to examine the situation of Roma both in areas that were well off and those that were comparatively poor. This would allow some consideration of the relationship (if any) between anti-Roma sentiment and the rapid social and economic changes that the Czech Republic  and the rest of the former Communist states  have gone through during the 1990s.

Race, European Modernity And The Stranger It is a contention of this paper that the exclusion of Roma can only be properly understood in terms of an examination of European modernity. Modernity is understood here as a set of organising principles which revolutionised the relationship between individuals and society, and especially between internal outsiders and nationalised-states. It includes the establishment of nation states and bureaucratic systems of surveillance and categorisation. 

The period of 'classic' or 'high' modernity may have passed (Harvey 1989), but its legacy remains strong. Certain processes of regulation characteristic of classic modernist principles, especially those of spatial division and management (Sibley 1981, 1988), have resonance for the contemporary racialisation and exclusion of Roma, particularly relating to the construction of the category of the 'Stranger.' It has been shown that the development of European modernity and of the concept of race are intertwined, the project of modernity including race as a core innovation in its conceptual framework (Goldberg 1993: 3-4, 15-20; but see also Malik 1996: 39-43). Yet race or ethnicity are not fixed identities. The meaning of race has varied throughout modern European history (Banton 1980: 31-7; Solomos & Back 1996), as has the social meaning attributed to phenotypical differences such as skin colour within racialisation practices. 

Racial categories are formed and deployed as practical strategies of boundary maintenance. They are constituted in terms of state structures and practices, intellectual and everyday discourses, and balances of social power. They have the particular utility of providing a 'common sense' theoretical and practical way of dealing with the tensions between universality and specificity which characterise modernity. Like other ethnic minorities, Roma in Europe have been the object of racial practices and racialised conceptual structures. Unlike most other ethnic minorities, they have existed at a curious juncture between racial categories, sometimes held up as romantic bohemian outsiders, at other times subject to rapid processes of racialisation and destruction. 

Nazi ideology combined both perspectives, romanticising 'true Aryan Gypsies' at the same time as Roma and Sinti were herded into the concentration camps (Willems 1997: 222-6, 45). The connection between Nazi racial science and pre-Nazi mainstream social thought has been made many times (Friedlander 1995: 248-9). Less often examined is the degree of continuity between the racialisation of the Roma before, during and after the Nazi regime, which continues to have a legacy for Roma today. There are common themes running through the state's treatment of Roma and Sinti in Wilhelmite Germany, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime and the Federal Republic.

The Nazis were able to rely on the work of the Munich police centre dedicated to monitoring Roma and Sinti (1997:197) which was set up in 1899 and remained in place until the 1970s. Post-war German courts also accepted the Nazis' claim that Roma had been interned as members of a 'criminal underclass' (1997:196). The continuity between the racialisation of Roma by the Nazis and that in pre- and post-war Germany should alert us to the possibility of similar continuities in other countries. 

After WW II the Communist state in Czechoslovakia set about developing a state science of marginalised populations which bore some resemblance to Nazi racial science. It defined the Roma as a social problem to be dealt with by a series of coercive measures which included forced sedentarisation and sterilisation. The attitudes of the bureaucracy underpinned a generalised social contempt for the Roma among the population which transferred fairly smoothly to an explicit racism after the fall of Communism (Kohn 1995). 

Although the racialisation of Roma fits into the general deployment of racial categories within European modernity, it also has some characteristics of its own relating to their position as a Stranger minority: "The Stranger is thus being discussed here, not in the sense often touched upon in the past, as the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but rather as the person who comes today and stays tomorrow. He is, so to speak, the potential wanderer. He is fixed within a particular spatial group, or within a group whose boundaries are similar to spatial boundaries. But his position in this group is determined, essentially, by the fact that he has not belonged to it from the beginning... He is near and far at the same time" Simmel, The Stranger (Simmel 1950) 

The Stranger is a fixed member of a spatially located group, but is not of it. Strangers represent a combination of proximity and apartness, closeness and distance. Simmel takes European Jewry as the archetype of the Stranger, noting several defining characteristics. The Stranger minority possesses a strangeness of origin. The Stranger is also no owner of soil. 

The term is usually taken literally to mean that the Stranger is not an owner of land. It has more resonance when taken metaphorically to mean that the Stranger is not identified with the land. He or she is not attached to the meaning of locality by bonds of shared identity. 

They are out of place. Perhaps most important, the Stranger is disturbing through proximity. The distance of a being from us signifies in everything the psychological unity of that being (Simmel 1994) and it is the proximate other which is disturbing, threatening to overthrow that psychological unity (Beck, U. 1998: 127). 

Although Marlene Sway (1981) overstates the case to some degree, the concept of the Stranger helps to explain the continued paradoxical position Roma have in countries in which they have lived for centuries. They possess a strangeness of origin, of which there are still many myths in circulation. They are also no owners of soil, and again this can be taken literally and metaphorically, though it is in the second sense that it is most important. They are rarely if ever accepted as part of the locality, part of its meaning of place. 

They are not fixed within a spatial context. Certainly, Czech Roma feel that they have no attachment to the place. They were quite literally uprooted (from Slovakia) and as various informants stated boldly, are still not seen as part of the Czech nation. In Karas words: "[In answer to the question Do most Roma see themselves as part of the Czech nation? Do most Czechs see the Roma as part of the Czech nation?] 

They are not given a place in the nation, they have no identity as Czech... their conditions are so terrible that they cant really identify with the Czech nation. Czechs dont see the Roma as Czech either. They seem them as something else, they dont let them be a part of the nation." Kara (Interview April 1999) The way Czechs see Roma may be in part be related to their Slovakian origin and so more to do with Czech nationalism than anti-Roma racism, but it doesnt seem to explain the extent of the antipathy they face compared to non-Roma Slovakians living in the Czech Republic. Roma are seen neither as Czech nor as Slovak. 

They are Strangers, neither foreign nor part of the nation. They are not defined as belonging somewhere else, they are seen as belonging in no place. Zygmunt Bauman (1995) defines two approaches to the Stranger within European modernity, the assimilation of the liberal project which destroys the Strangers strangeness, and the exclusion of the racist-national project which excises him/her altogether. Both approaches he identifies have historically been deployed against Roma in the Czech Republic. 

Roma In The Czech Republic Roma were well established in Bohemia by the 14th Century (Fraser 1992: 111). They carried out many functions valuable to the feudal lords of the Czech Lands, serving as blacksmiths, soldiers and so on. However, records indicate an increasing level of hostility towards them from the time when the first anti-Gypsy legislation was passed in Moravia in 1538 (Crowe 1995: 34). 

In the upheaval following the Turkish conquest of central Hungary, Roma were targeted as Turkish spies and murdered by local mobs. Following Maria-Theresas accession to the Austro-Hungarian throne in the 18th Century they became the objects of a reformatory policy which was designed to sedentarise nomadic Roma and assimilate them into the settled population. The supposedly enlightened policies of the Habsburgs were abandoned in the 19th Century. 

Reactionary absolutism was re-established after the end of the French Revolutionary wars in 1815 and the project to assimilate Roma came to an end until the second half of the 20th Century. 

The Magyarisation of Hungary after 1867 also affected Slovakia and Slovakian Roma, as the rights they could claim as Slovakians were diminished in the face of Magyar cultural assimilation. After the establishment in Czechoslovakia in 1918 the Roma made some headway, the countrys Constitution giving them full rights as citizens and recognition as a national minority, and although they made no great gains from the new state, they were allowed considerable space to develop. 

However, dark clouds began to gather in 1927, with the revival of anti-nomadism ordinances. In 1928 an anti-Roma pogrom in Slovakia signalled the worsening of relations between Roma and their Czechoslovak neighbours (Crowe 1995: 45-8). With the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 the net began to close around the Czech Roma. 

The Nazis defined the Roma as a threat to the German race and subjected them first to internment and then annihilation. Beginning in 1940, many were rounded up and forced into labour camps along with Jews. 2,400 were sent to the Czech concentration camps of Lety and Hodonin. In 1943 the inmates of these camps were taken to Auschwitz along with another 3,000 Czech Roma who had retained their liberty up to that point (Kenrick 1998: 43-4). Few Czech Roma survived the war, most murdered in the Porajmos (devouring) (Novitch 1984). 

Altogether between a quarter and half a million of Europe's Roma were killed, compared to population of between eight and nine million resident in Europe today (Kenrick 1998: 4). Slovakian Roma escaped extermination, the puppet state established by the Nazis subjecting them to harassment but not, for the most part, participating in their systematic destruction as a people (Nir 1993). They were moved into the Czech lands after the war to become shock labour. 

After WW II the Roma became the objects of an assimila- tive state policy under the Communist Party government: "[Under the Communist Party government] we Roma weren't hounded through the streets by skinheads, we apparently got support, and we had social privileges of all kinds. On the other hand, for fifty years we were also inadaptable, we stole, we were crooks, and I don't know what else. Well, just Gypsies. Instead of elementary school, our children went to special schools and that was just fine with everyone. How perverse ... as if we had never lived in this country. 

Right from the beginning, the Communists shoved us out to the edges of society. And woe to anyone that might want to change their label of inadaptable person" Anna Polakova, Radio Prague Nomadic Roma were forced to settle, and then pushed into low wage jobs to replace the Sudeten Germans who had been expelled from the country (Kostelancik 1989). With the exception of a few years following the Prague Spring they were denied official recognition as a minority. 

A campaign of forced sterilisation of Roma women was put in place in the 1950s and continued into the 1980s. There was a deliberate attempt to destroy Roma culture through forced assimilation, as much as the Nazis had attempted to eliminate them physically through extermination (Ulc 1991). After Communism was overthrown in 1989 there was some optimism that the Roma would be able to take an accepted place in national life, with the formation of the Roma Civic Initiative. It was not to be, and the Roma have paid a heavy price for democracy, in the form of unemployment, discrimination and racial violence: "In the middle of 1991, I began to feel in society a certain tension in people's behaviour. During afternoon walks, I noticed swastikas and under them anti-Roma slogans like gas the gypsies. It was horrible, because Marecek and Helenka [her children] were already able to read. And the children in school started to be more aggressive than before. They started to have bigger problems in school because they were Roma" Anna Polakova Notoriously, many Czech Roma were denied citizenship of the newly formed Czech Republic under the Citizenship Law of 1993 (Beck, J. 1997): "The citizenship law still excludes [the Czech Roma]. There has been much criticism of this, and the government has made some changes but they are mainly cosmetic. 

Most Roma still do not have citizenship, and this excludes them from many rights which Czechs take as normal" Kara (Interview February 1999) The complex processes by which the meaning of place is established can be seen in the workings of the Czech citizenship law of 1993. It excluded many Czech Roma from citizenship, pushing many further to the margins of society. Many Roma living in the Czech Republic were technically considered Slovakians, having been moved there from Slovakia after the Second World War. They were not given automatic citizenship of the new Republic. 

To apply for it they had to leap a series of hurdles which seemed to be designed to prevent them gaining citizenship status. As Kara emphasises, some Roma have asserted their right to be part of the Czech nation. In contrast, many others reject this identification as unrealistic: "Some Roma activists, such as Emil Scuka, say we are Czechs  other Roma criticise them for saying that, saying that they have no place in the Czech nation. They dont feel Czech." Kara (Interview April 1999) 

Racial Discrimination In The Labour Market In the former Communist countries labour market discrimination has been a fact of life for Roma: "[The Czech Republic has] 4% unemployment, but among Roma it is 80%. Not very many of them can find jobs, even when they do get the right education. The Czech Roma were brought in from Slovakia to replace the Sudeten Germans. After the freeing up of the labour markets in 1989 most Roma lost their jobs. With the liberalisation of the labour market, Czech Roma were laid off. Employers sacked them, and were not prosecuted for it. They still discriminate against Roma, and they are not punished when they reject Roma who try to get jobs. Most of the unskilled jobs the Roma used to do were replaced with the labour of people from [further] Eastern Europe, Romanians, Hungarians, etc." Lana (Interview February 1999) The employment situation of Roma in the Czech Republic has been the result of the historical interaction between ethnicity, state-politics and labour market processes. The expulsions of the Sudeten Germans created a demand for labour in the former Sudetenland (Cornwall 1997). The Communist government brought in Slovakian Roma as shock workers (Kalvoda 1991). They were part of a large movement of people into the former Sudetenland (Crowe 1995: 54) but in the case of the Roma the Communists had a distinct social engineering aim in mind. Working as unskilled labour would help extract social and labour conformity from Gypsies, and as the Communists control of the National Front government intensified during and after 1946 so did the harshness of government policies towards Gypsies and other workshy vagabonds (1995: 55). To enforce their participation in the socialist labour system, the Czechoslovakian government passed the 1958 Act on Permanent Settlement of Nomadic People. Under it, nomadic Roma were subject to a policy of forced settlement which lasted from the 1950s to the 1980s (Crowe 1995: 60). 

Their horses were killed and their caravans destroyed. Their basis for independent economic activity was much reduced (see also (Mirga 1992), and many had no choice but to take up the low paid posts on offer. The Czechoslovakian government represented this as a success. To them, the Roma were normalised and had become a part of the socialist labour force. What the government had failed to do was to tackle the anti-Roma prejudice which pervaded Czechoslovak society. Indeed its actions had if anything reinforced that prejudice by forcing many Roma into low wage and low status occupations. 

When the labour market was freed up after the Velvet Revolution most Roma were thrown out of their jobs and became unemployed. Their positions were filled not by other Czechs but by unskilled labourers from Romania, Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe which have suffered badly in the transition. Czech and Slovak Roma in the Czech labour market have been first mis-placed and then dis-placed. They were forcibly inserted into jobs in the former Sudetenland by the Communists. When Communism fell, they were left without work of any sort, having been replaced by non-Roma immigrant labour. As a result the level of unemployment among Roma is enormous, and this in a society which has for the most part benefited from the transition to capitalism. The situation is similar in most of the former Communist states (Gheorghe 1991).

Anti-Roma Violence And Police Indifference "The Documentation Centre for Human rights estimates 107 attacks against Roma last year (1998) in the Czech Republic." Lana (Interview February 1999) Racial violence has been on the rise throughout Europe during the 1990s, with Roma across Europe being the object of racist mobilisation (Project on Ethnic Relations 1997; CSCE Digest 4/98). "The law does not recognise racial attacks. They [Czech police and courts] tend to blame the victim. I mean, the statutes are there but they are not enforced, and anti-Roma violence is not punished. They dont prosecute racial attacks as such, they tend to deny the racial motive as such." Mirka (Interview March 1999) "Many Roma [in Bulgaria] are familiar with police violence. They are beaten in pubs, at marketplaces, in the street, and in their own homes. Scores have been shot dead or beaten to death by law enforcement officials" (Petrova 1997: 1) There seem to be two processes by which the police institutionalise racial violence against the Roma in the post-Soviet states. 

In certain countries, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, they apply a tacit or active indifference to the actions of skinhead mobs (ERRC Press Release 3/6/97 Anti-Roma Violence In Poland; Press Release 2/3/98 Racial Discrimination In The Czech Republic). The latter are left to do their business in the knowledge that they will be largely unchecked (Edginton 1994). In others the police take an active role in applying random violence and disruption to Roma communities in order to keep them in line (e.g. ERRC Press Release 23/3/99 Police Violence In Hungary). 

It is as if there is a tacit understanding between the population and the police that the latter will do the job for them: "In Romania the mob violence against Roma that was typical from 1990 to 1993 was replaced in 1994 by a pattern of police raids on Romani communities." (Petrova 1997: 1) It has been said that the police in parts of Central and Eastern Europe  especially Romania, but also Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Ukraine  seem to be taking on the role of racially motivated mobs, carrying out extra-legal attacks on Roma neighbourhoods.

 The decline in popular mob actions against Roma in these countries does seem to be directly linked to the willingness of the police to carry out a similar role (European Roma Rights Center 1998). It is the nature of these mobs which will be looked at in more detail next, since they still play an important role in anti-Roma violence in the Czech Republic. An examination of the role of skinhead groups in the Czech Republic will show how racist cultural phenomena resonate across Europe, but are also interpreted and applied under local conditions. 

Post-Modern Lynching: Skinheads And The Respectable Mob "The situation in the Czech Republic was dangerous for me and for my children, as it is for most Roma living there. It is not possible to live over there. I had to accompany my children to school. My father was attacked. I was too. Ive been attacked by skinheads several times. They threw petrol bombs into our flat. The last time I was attacked, six months after the previous attack, they told me that beating me was not enough and they called me a Gypsy whore. If I were to go to the doctor after being attacked, and say that I had been attacked by skinheads then he wouldnt examine me. Ive got scars on my body and Ive had my leg broken by skinheads. We couldnt go out into the street at all. We were living like animals in a cage." "In the Czech Republic, when we used public transport, sometimes people would spit on my wife, and on my children. I have been beaten up several times by skinheads on the bus. Once I was coming back from my mothers, who is ill, and they beat me up on the platform. If you go to the police, they make a report, or dont make a report, and they say theyll look into it later. If you go to the doctor, hell examine you, but if you ask for a report, hell say, Sorry, but I cant give you that, because I dont want problems with the police and I dont want problems with the skinheads." Czech Roma refugees, November 1998 (quoted in European Roma Rights Center 1999) The skinhead subculture emerged from the peculiar cultural and sub-cultural mix on the inner city streets of Britains cities during the 1960s (Walker 1980). The phenomenon  movement perhaps implies too much coherence  spread throughout the world, in particular attracting young people from unstable backgrounds (Baron 1997) and in areas undergoing rapid socio-economic upheaval (Walsh 1992). However, it is hasty to dismiss skinheads as merely a delinquent subculture. German neo-Nazi skins represent their actions as in the interests of the nation (Ostow 1995). Skinheads in general think of themselves as defending respectable working class values (Brake 1974; Farin 1995). It is equally misleading to imagine that what are called skinhead mobs in the Czech Republic constitute an a-social underclass. It is a contention of this paper that the anti-Roma violence in Central and Eastern Europe is not aberrant, but is socially legitimated. "Gypsy! Gypsy! to the camps!" Chant of Czech mob, Rokycany, Czech Republic (Fieldwork notes August 1998) The following incident involving Czech skinheads and Roma was recorded during a train journey from Prague to Rokycany: "The train carriage was full of a large number of young men and women. Some of the men had close shaven haircuts, and some had t-shirts displaying the British flag, others had the colours of British football teams. These were not the black uniformed skinheads I had seen in other parts of the country, sporting neo-Nazi badges, carrying truncheons and holding large dogs on the leash. They were loud and a little rowdy, but nothing to seriously disturb any of the other passengers, who found their antics amusing. I stepped off the train at Rokycany, a small, quiet town which one of my informants had recommended to me as being a model of co-operation between the Roma and Czech communities. There were two Roma, a young man and a woman, in the train station. Immediately the skinheads began a torrent of abuse." Fieldwork notes (August 1998) Throughout the journey the skinheads had been noisy and boisterous but not aggressive towards other Czech passengers. The term skinhead has slightly misleading connotations. To West European ears the term suggests a sub-proletariat, highly alienated, highly visible and rejecting dominant social values. The people who are referred to as skinheads in much of the Czech and most of the West European media do not fit this stereotype. They are much more a part of the ordinary population, displaying an accepted and indulged laddish masculinity, rather than being a delinquent or degenerate grouping. Their result of their actions, in encouraging Czech Roma to leave the Czech Republic are tacitly approved and accepted, even if their methods are not. Racial violence has had a definite effect on the Roma population: "Many Roma are still leaving, in the face of violence and lack of sympathy. They leave for Britain, Ireland, USA, Australia, and New Zealand, which doesnt have a visa requirement. They feel that things are not going to get better." Lana (Interview February 1999) The violent actions of skinhead groups in the Czech Republic do appear to be having the desired effect of rendering some areas Gypsy-free. In doing so they are working with the general desire of a large part of the population that the Roma simply disappear.

The Orientalisation Of Racism West European thought tends to construct skinheads and racists as other (Pred 1997). Within West European countries racism is projected onto the white underclass (Pred 1998). Concern about it is also transferred onto the uncivilised Balkans, and the boundaries of Europe are redrawn to separate the barbarous and backward East from the civilised West (Kurti 1997). West European elite discourse in the 1990s has sought to Orientalise racism, and has a tendency to leap on instances of ethnic cleansing and ethnic conflict as evidence of the backwardness of East European societies (Todorova 1994). 


 The opposite process can be observed in some East European states, whereby racist violence is narrated as a product of Western decadence and national degradation. For example, the Serb Minster of Human Rights, Ivan Sedlak, was concerned to establish the skinhead issue as not being a Serbian problem, saying the skinhead movement is not an authentic product of our society but is brought from the West (Nasa Borba, 1/12/98). He wanted to de-nationalise the skinhead movement, and Occidentalise them as the product of a decadent Western Europe. 

The focus of this paper on the Czech Republic should not be take to suggest that anti-Roma and anti-Traveller racism is not prevalent in West European countries (see for example Lloyd 1996; MacLaughlin 1998; O'Connell 1998; Bancroft 1999). Robbie McVeigh (1992) in his examination of prejudice against Irish Travellers describes the way in which settled society engages in projecting its own insecurities on to them. In his words, "In pathologising the out-group the community de-pathologises itself" and, it might be added, establishes itself as a community. His statement could easily describe the attitude of many Czechs towards Roma. In Lanas words, "Czech people look down on them, say they are backward, they wont work, they are part of the past, they dont know how to live normally, how to live in houses. The Roma are associated with criminality, with ideas of primitivity, and danger." 

Conclusion: Nothing Happens The end of the meta-narratives which had dominated intellectual life in Europe, the decline in power of the nation-state over national life, and the general divergence between globalisation on the one hand and neo-tribalist social fragmentation on the other, have created numerous collective and individual identity crises (Alund 1995). At the same time new and new-old identities are being constructed, often in terms which are exclusionary and heterophobic. The resurgence of identity politics within Europe has produced numerous Strangers (Dessewffy 1996) and increasingly there is within Europe no single narrative of strangeness, no single scapegoat or enemy. Rather: "Individual, social and national insecurity, the preoccupation with law and order, jobs and the nation arecombined into one complex syndrome in which external threats and internal doubts are hard to disentangle" Peter Hassner (quoted in Welsh 1994: 53) Writing at the end of the 1990s, it is easy to forget that the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communism heralded an enormous wave of optimism about the future of Europe (Rittberger 1993). The various Civic Forum movements, which had begun in Leipzig and spread rapidly throughout the Communist states, suggested new models of politics and citizenship. Their success in toppling a set of fifty year old totalitarian regimes was unexpected and unpredicted by most theories of social change (Mazlish 1990; but see also Mouzelis 1993). What was less surprising and perhaps all too predictable was that the optimism about new social forms generated by the revolutions disappeared fairly rapidly (Bozoki & Sukosd 1993), for Roma in particular. Not only did many of them lose their jobs, they were also the target of racial violence from their fellow countrypeople and, in some instances, the police. As has been shown in here, the difficulties they have faced have not been only or largely due, as is often asserted, to the reassertion of ancient ethnic hatreds supposedly characteristic of East European countries. Rather they have been a part of these countries modernisation, their development from the institutional stasis of totalitarianism. As such, the denial and exclusion of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe can be related to the forms of exclusion Travellers have faced in Britain and in Western Europe as a whole. They are both constructed in terms of the basic structures of European political life, of state, nation and citizenship (Melcic 1994). "Czech Roma are on the edge of society, with very low social status, suffer poverty and low social status  For example, there was an opinion poll carried out in November 1997. 7% had a sympathetic view of Roma, 69% could not tolerate them." Lana (Interview February 1999) A common assumption about racism and ethnic prejudice is that it is the preserve of backward peoples. The evidence gathered for this paper indicates that this comfortable assumption is not the case. Racism in Western Europe is enhanced and legitimated by the establishment of a policy of Fortress Europe (Bunyan 1991) and the construction of a Euro-racism (Webber 1991). Ruud Koopmans (1996) relates increasing racial violence in Western Europe to the behaviour of political elites which have shaped opportunities for racial mobilisation, for example by co-ordinating action against low-skill labour migrants and asylum seekers. Recent developments in the Czech Republic at a political level have given some opportunities for new directions in ethnic and national politics, but there is some concern as to the extent to which the changes initiated by the new Czech government can combat racism and discrimination on the ground: "The government hasnt taken any concrete steps yet to solve high unemployment among, the Roma, to prosecute racially motivated crimes. Czechs feel that the government is doing a lot for the Roma, but if you ask Roma they will say that the situation is getting worse, not better. They say, nothing happens, the situation is getting worse, despite the statements of the government, we cant find work, our children are still sent to special schools, the racist murders of Roma are not prosecuted. In the street they are still attacked by the skinheads." Mirka (Interview January 1999) As well as highlighting a separation between actions at a government level and outcomes at a local level, the above informants remarks indicate that Czech Roma and the rest of the Czech public continue to occupy two worlds. In the former there is discrimination, racial violence and police indifference. In the latter, there is economic progress and the bright future of EU membership. "Roma do not have hope in a better future, so many are leaving the Czech Republic. But the Czech people will answer you that the situation is getting better, because they hear so much about the affairs of the Roma. Czech people and Roma people are living in two different worlds, and Roma are very sceptic about the future and Czech people are more optimistic." Mirka (Interview January 1999) Under pressure from the European Union and the Organisation For Security And Co-Operation In Europe the Czech government has instituted a number of programmes to improve relations between Czechs and Roma (Government Of The Czech Republic 1997). As Mirka points out, they seem to be more concerned with giving the Czech public and the EU and OSCE the impression that something is being done than with having a practical effect. She also indicates that the divisions between Czech and Roma communities are likely to become wider. As the Czech Republic develops socially and economically the Roma are likely to be left further behind, unless the patterns of violence and discrimination that have been described here change. 

A Wandering Voice: The Language of the Gypsies by Giulio Soravia 

The Rom or Romany people provide a particularly striking example of the notion that language is a key to a people's identity. Scattered all over the world in a diaspora which has lasted many centuries, the Rom are united only by a common origin for which their language has provided decisive proof. Subdivided into as many dialects as there are groups of Rom on the five continents, this common language bears the imprint of their travels and links them to India, their original homeland. 

What is remarkable, and what surprised the first students of the subject, is the persistence of grammatical forms which are in many ways similar to those of the Indo-European languages spoken in India today, and of a basic vocabulary which, in spite of certain phonetic changes, contains words found in Hindi, Punjabi, and the Dardic languages. 

This is not surprising. When, a thousand years or more ago, the nomadic ancestors of today's Rom began their long journey westwards, they often had to halt, sometimes for a long period, in regions where they lived in proximity to peoples of different languages and customs from whom they borrowed certain cultural and linguistic traits. As a rule, however, they did not stay in these countries long enough to become totally assimilated or to become so far integrated as to lose their identity or their originality. 

But even when they paused in a given region they continued to practise nomadism on a local scale. In the Middle East were groups which were given various names by their neighbours (such as Nawar in Palestine) but called themselves Dom. In Armenia they changed this name to Lom. A few decades later, in Greece, they became the Rom, a name they would retain throughout Europe and elsewhere in the world, thus breaking with their origins. 

The phonetic evolution of their ethnic name makes it possible to trace the history of the Rom right back to the beginning. Thus, the language spoken by European Rom today contains many words with an R; words quite similar to these are found in Indian languages, containing a corresponding phoneme, the cerebral d. There is even a group of Indian nomads today who call themselves the Dom.


Many other nomadic peoples of India recall what must have been the origins of the European Rom. The most notable of these peoples are the Banjara and Lamana, who speak a language which is quite distinct from that of their European brothers and is closer to Hindi, for although they have remained in their country, their language has been influenced by the strong pressure of the sedentary culture. This explains its gradual divergence from the Rom language, while not invalidating what has been said above. 

The course followed by the European Rom was slow but inexorable. Their traversal of Asia did not leave a profound mark on their language, in spite of the affinity between Indian and Iranian languages. However, Romani Chib, the language of the Rom, undoubtedly contains Iranian and Armenian borrowings. 

Words of Iranian origin are found in all the dialects such as baxt (luck, fortune), ambrol (pear), khangeri (church), angustri (ring), ruv (wolf), vurdon (waggon). Words of Iranian or Armenian origin are: zor (strength), cikat (front). Words of Armenian origin are: bov (oven) and grast (horse). 

The language of the most westerly group of Rom was decisively influenced by their sojourn in Greece, which was probably one of their longest and which brought about the assimilation of a vocabulary and grammatical forms to be found later in all the Rom dialects of Europe. 

The following words are of Greek origin: drom (path, road), karfin (nail), klidi (key), kokalo (bone), papin (goose), petalos (horseshoe), tsox (skirt), zumi (soup), (v)amoni (anvil), and isviri (hammer). 

Many Rom dialects have morphemes of Greek origin including: -me, which is used to form the past participle (ramome: written; pahome: frozen; vezlime: embroidered) and -mos, which is used to form nouns derived from verbs or adjectives, taking the place of the suffix -pe, which is of Indian origin and is still used in certain dialects (pimos or pibe: beverage, from pi-: to drink; nevimos or nevipe: novelty, news, from nevo: new; ternimos or ternipe: youth, from terno: young; barvalimos or barvalipe: wealth, from barvalo: rich).


From the fourteenth century on, the language of the Rom was transformed, sometimes profoundly, in the different European countries they "visited". It is a rich and flexible language, with complex declensions for nouns and verb conjugations which allow for a very wide degree of communication. In the Balkan dialects, where declensions have survived, a masculine or feminine noun, singular or plural, may have eight cases. Let us take the example of the plural of phral (brother): 
  nominative: phrala (brothers) genitive: phralengo (of the brothers) dative: phralenge (to the brothers) accusative: phralem (the brothers) vocative: phralale (brothers!) ablative: phralendar (by the brothers) locative: phraleste (at the brothers') instrumental: phralentsa (with the brothers)

Verbs have five tenses: present: kerav (I do) imperfect: keravas (I was doing) past: kerdem (I did) perfect: kerdemas (I have done) future: kam-kerv (I shall do) 

The declension of nouns survived with less difficulty in eastern Europe because of the influence of the Slav Languages in which the noun is fully declined. Other dialects, however, such as that of the now extinct group of Welsh Gypsies, preserved declensions of remarkable richness. Nevertheless in western Europe the tendency was for declensions to disappear and for the noun to be "declined" using prepositions. In some Sinto dialects of central Europe prepositions taken from German are used: fon u pral (of the brother) an u pral (to the brother) mit u pral (with the brother ) 

The Romani vocabulary was enriched by many borrowings from the Slav languages, from Hungarian, from Romanian, from German, from Italian and from other European languages. 

The flexibility of Romani is also revealed in a capacity to create new forms, sometimes by means of astonishing combinations of words of different etymological origin. In one Sinto dialect, for instance, the word svigardaj (mother-in-law) has been composed from daj (mother a word of Indian origin, and an adaptation of the German word Schwieger (Schwieger-mutter: mother-in-law). The word ledome (frozen) occurs in the dialect of a group of Muslim Gypsies in the south of Yugoslavia; it is composed of the Slav word led (ice) followed by the suffix me, which is of Greek origin, as we have seen. 

Thus, instead of degenerating, the language of the Gypsies changes in tune with a process similar to that undergone by other languages. Its vocabulary is enriched and adapts in accordance with new needs, changes in living conditions, periods and environments. But clearly this also makes the difficulties of understanding between the different groups more acute, since there is increasing divergence between the dialects. 

What are these dialects? 

At least two-third of the world's three million Rom (this is the most conservative estimate; it is impossible to give precise statistics) speak the Danubian dialect which the English specialist B. Gilliat-Smith named Vlax, a term which emphasizes the notable Romanian contribution to its vocabulary but which is today perhaps no longer appropriate. Certain groups, in spite of their Rom origins, have abandoned their language and adopted that of their sedentary neighbours (one example is that of the Rudari and Romanian). The other dialects are presented in the following list, which is not exhaustive. It should also be remembered that classification by geographical groups is today only used for the sake of convenience, since these dialects have spread all over the world with those who use them. 
  1) The Danubian group (Kalderash, Lovara, Curara, etc.); 2) The western Balkan group (Istrians, Slovenes, Havates, Arlija, etc.); 

3) The Sinto group (Eftavagarja, Kranarja, Krasarja, Slovaks, etc.); 

4) Rom groups of central and southern Italy; 

5) British (Welsh, now extinct; today only Anglo-Romani survive, speaking a mixture of English and Romani); 

6) Finnish; 

7) Greco-Turk (their existence as a separate group is debatable); 

8) Iberian (today represented by Calo, the Hispano-Romani dialect of the Gitanos).

According to a theory set forth by R.L. Turner, the origin of the Gypsies should, in view of their language, be sought in central India. Others maintain that they originated in northwestern India. Because of their constant mobility and the fact that at least ten centuries have gone by since their exodus from their homeland, it is difficult to say with certainty whether or not they originated in the Punjab. What is not in doubt is the number of Indian words that occur in the vocabulary of this so-called "European" people to express the most common concepts: house: kher (Hindi ghar) tree: rukh (Hindi rukh) salt: lon (Hindi lon) land: phuv (Hindi bhu) man: manus (Hindi manus) spoon: roj (Hindi doi) black: kalo (kala in Punjabi) white: parno (panar/parana in Dardic) young: terno (tarun in Hindi) walk: ga (Hindi ja) sleep: sov (Hindi so) outside: avri (Hindi bahir). 

In recent years a marked desire for union has appeared among the Rom of different countries; not for political or territorial union, but for cultural union based on their common origins and values. Although this movement is still restricted to a circle of intellectuals, there are some indications that it is growing. 

The problem of the unification of the Romani language has been discussed in various Rom congresses held in Paris, Rome, Geneva and Gottingen. For the moment this remains a legitimate but scarcely feasible aspiration; the unification of a language cannot be decided in an office, and it is not enough simply to discuss the theoretical side of the question. 

On the other hand, there is an increasingly widespread tendency to write in Romani, a language which has hitherto been oral. Not only are the words of Gypsy songs and fables being transcribed, but also "private" documents and even literary works which have little to do with traditional folklore. Periodicals are also being published and in Yugoslavia a Romani grammar written in Romani has been published. The study of Romani grammar is thus no longer the exclusive privilege of non-Rom students. 

Even though still confined to a handful of dialects, the publication of literary works in Romani and the propagation of the language in written form may be a first step towards its unification and may lead to a deeper self-awareness among this people in search of itself. 

Today this movement is contributing to a transformation of the traditional, not always positive, image, of the Gypsy (whether he be called a Tsigane, a Gitan, a Zigeuner, or a Cygan) with a view to his becoming a full member of modern society, strengthened by his culture and his capacity to communicate in his own language.

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 Duty and Beauty, Possession and Truth: The Claim of Lexical Impovershment as Control 

by Ian Hancock 



This article was first published in Gypsies: A book of interdisciplinary readings (Garland Publishers, New York, 1996) edited by the late Diane Tong. Dr. Ian Hancock has generously allowed Patrin permission to reprint this article.

--------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- The manipulation by societies in power of the identities of subordinate groups is achieved in many ways. One such way is through discriminatory legislation, such as that enacted against the Romani people in almost every land, including the United States. Another is through media representation, both factual and fictional. This last category, the portrayal of Gypsies in poetry, film and novels, is the most effective in establishing such negative feelings because they are absorbed subliminally by children, at a time when they are most susceptible to acquiring society's attitudes. Apart from descriptions of Romani people and their life, which are legion, the Romani language has also been the target of comment, always worded as fact rather than supposition. In his Tales of the Real Gypsy, Paul Kester gives his readers those "real" facts about it (1897:305): 
  The Gypsies, like the birds and all wild things, have a language of their own, which is apart from the language of those among whom they dwell... the Gypsy['s]... language is deep and warm and full of the charm of the out-of-doors world, the scent of the clover and the ripple of streams and the rush of the wind and the storm. For the Rommany speech is full of all this, and though the Gypsy has few traditions, his rich mother tongue must enbalm in each word a thousand associations that thrill in the soul.

Kesler was not a linguist, and it is easy to see how he was able to allow his fantasies about the Romani people to shape his preconceptions of the language. Doris Duncan, however, presumably is, and can claim no such excuse. Writing seventy years later in a journal of popular linguistics, she made the following observations (1969:42): 

All authentic gypsy [sic] communication is, and must be, oral. As they settle for a time in a new country, they acquire some of that country's words and incorporate them into Roum, more popularly called Romany. It is believed that the Roum language began as a very small one, concerned with the family, the tribe, the horses and herd, words required for a simple existence. It must be very old, for Roum is highly idiomatic, and the complication of verbs and genders is endless. There is no way to write it except phonetically, and some sounds of the gypsy tongue simply defy our twenty-six letter alphabet. . . Roum is a disorderly language, and must be learned phrase by phrase. Even the syntax ditters from one occasion to another. Verbs are very difficult . . . no one can explain why the verb changes so radically. A major problem is that no gypsy really knows what a verb is, and it wouldn't matter anyway if he did, because this is the way it must be said. The idiom is paramount in Roum and cannot be changed.

Duncan is right in maintaining that Romani has adopted words from those with whom its speakers have come in contact - this is a natural process affecting all languages, and one which has caused English, for example, to lose nearly three-quarters of its original Anglo-Saxon lexicon by dictionary count. But Bayle St.John couldn't simply discuss this phenomenon as lexical adoption when referring to Romani (1853: 141), which, he said, 

...contains traces of an original character, [but which] is encrusted, as it were, with words borrowed - it might be more appropriate to say stolen - from a dozen different dialects.

A number of authors have claimed that, because of our character as a people, Roma lack certain virtues, and that this is reflected in the Romani language which cannot even express them. Those which have been discussed by different writers include duty, possession, truth, beautiful, read, write, time, danger, warmth and quiet. How negatively must the non-Gypsy world regard our people, to think that we cannot even express such basic human concepts and skills!(1) 

Over a century ago, Adriano Colocci first introduced a notion which has since become a part of gypsilorist folk wisdom. In his extensive discussion of the Romani people in his 421-page book The Gypsies, he maintained that Roma


... have no more conception of property than of duty; "I have" is as foreign to them as "I ought." (Colocci, 1889:156).

Citing Colocci as his source, Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso elaborated upon the statement in his widely-used book on Gypsies as a criminal race, and made the jump from concept to actual language, by saying that 

The word ought does not exist in the Gypsy language. The verb to have is almost forgotten by the European Gypsies, and is unknown to the Gypsies of Asia (Lombroso, 1918:41).

In 1928, Konrad Bercovici, probably also using Colocci but not acknowledging any source, repeated this notion on the first page (and again on the third page) of his book The Story of the Gypsies, and also interpreted the original observation linguistically, saying 

I am attempting to unravel the story of a people whose vocabulary lacks two words - "duty" and "possession". (Bercovici, 1928:1, 3).

He goes on to rationalize this by explaining that "what we own possesses us, jails us." This was then picked up from Bercovici shortly afterwards by Erich von Stroheim who, in his racist Gypsy novel Paprika, told his readers that 

The Gypsy mind is timeless. The Gypsy tongue has no words to signify duty or possession, qualities that are like roots, holding civilized people fast in the soil (von Stroheim, 1935:12).

Fifteen years later, the anonymous author of an article in Coronet Magazine plagiarized and reworded the same statement: 

Even today, there are two important English words for which the Gypsy vocabulary has no known equivalent, and for which the Gypsy people have never exhibited any desire or need. One of them is the word 'duty,' the other is 'possession.' (Anon., 1950:126).

In a 1962 reissue of Leland's Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling, Margery Silver wrote in her introduction to that edition 

[In Germany], where they had been chronically subjected to the most relentless and brutal oppression of their European experience since their first appearance in 1417, five hundred thousand "sons of Egypt" - whose vocabulary a recent writer has described as "lacking two words: 'duty and 'possession' - died in the Nazi ovens beside six million sons of Jacob, whose history was founded on just those concepts, duty to God and possession of his law (Leland, 1962:xx).

Five years after that, in perhaps the most invidious way of all, since the plagiarism has been recast in such a way as to suggest an actual verbatim interview, the statement turns up again in an article by Marie Wynn Clarke, predictably entitled "Vanishing vagabonds": 

A young Gypsy wife said "there is no word in our language for 'duty' or 'possession,' but I'm afraid there will be soon." (Clarke, 1967:210).

In her introduction to the 1983 edition of Bercovici's Gypsies: Their life, lore and legends, Elizabeth Congdon Kovanen repeats this yet again, though adding the suggestion that because of this, Gypsies themselves are responsible for the discrimination against them: 

The Gypsy vocabulary lacks the words "duty" and "possession." This reflects their unwillingness to settle down, live in houses, obey the law, educate their children, be employed by others - and helps to explain their almost universal persecution (Bercovici, 1983:viij).

The eighth repetition of this strange idea is found in a novel by Piers Anthony, Being a Green Mother. The fact that the words "Gypsies! ...Beware - they steal children!" appear at the very first mention of the Romani characters when they are introduced on page 18 is an indication of the depiction of Roma throughout the rest of the book. The author describes someone's attempt to learn Romani, but who 

...discovered that the Gypsy language had no words for what in her own were rendered as "duty" and "possession." This was because these concepts were foreign to the Gypsy nature (Anthony, 1988:39).

The most recent, though no doubt not the last, is found in Roger Moreau's The Rom: 

One thing the Romani chib never acquired, though, was a future tense. Maybe this was a reflection of their attitude to life?... Neither is there the verb "to have" or a word for "possession" in Romanes, which I suppose makes sense it you don't happen to own anything (Moreau, 1995-.127-128).

Other words which Romani has been said not to have include "truth," "beautiful," "read," "write," "time," "danger," "warmth" and "quiet." The first was maintained by Jim Phelan, author of many books about Romanichals in which he describes his intimate life with British Travellers, and in which he claims to have been "long ago admitted to the brotherhood." In his book Wagon-Wheels he says 

There is no word for "truth" in the romani (sic) language. There is the crux of the matter (1951:81).

The concept "beautiful," is denied in the language in Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando: 
  One evening, when they were all sitting around the camp fire and the sunset was blazing over the Thessalian hills, Orlando exclaimed "how good to eat!." The gipsies have no word for 'beautiful.' This is the nearest (1956:142).

The latest claim to a lack of certain basic human responses or skills is found in Isabel Fonseca's Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey, where she maintains that there are no words in Romani for "read" and "write." Elsewhere in the same book she states that there are no words for "time," "danger," "warmth" and "quiet" either, because these are foreign concepts for Roma (1995-.98). Even before the book reached the bookstores, reviewers were accepting and repeating these false assumptions: 
  "[the Gypsy's] is a world...where there are no words for "time" (or for "danger," "warmth" or "quiet")...where no day is different from any other (Kobak, 1995:14).

The assumption that the Romani way of life is evidence of some kind of evolutionary arrested development, which accounts for an inherent disregard for ownership - and by implication a "license to steal" as Marlock & Dowling (1994) call it - has found its way into at least one standard textbook on anthropology. In words recalling those of Charles Davenport half a century before him (1915:10-11), Cyril Dean Darlington wrote that 

the gipsy communities which eventually wandered into Europe . . . still betray the evidence of their paleolithic ancestry . . . the lack of interest in property or understanding of ownership. For this reason, many of them are regarded by settled societies as criminal tribes or castes (1969:364).

Like Bayle St.John, who saw lexical thefts as a more appropriate label than lexical adoptions in his discussion of the non-native element in the Romani vocabulary, none of the above writers sufficiently overcame their stereotypical preconceptions of Gypsies or of what they expected of the language, to ask a Gypsy himself whether these words existed, or even to consult a Romani dictionary, of which dozens exist. For a people who were enslaved in the Rumanian principalities for five and a half centuries, a people whose lives were an interminable succession of duties and obligations, and for whom possessions were a precious thing, it should not be surprising that there are in tact many words for these two concepts. For "duty" there are, in the various dialects, the words musajip?, v?ja, vuzhulim?s, udzhil?tno, udzhilip?, kandip?, sl?zhba, kandim?s, thoxim?s and vudzhlip?; for "possession" there are m?jtko, arachim?ta, sers?mo, trj?bo, butj?, apar?ti, k?la, pr?mi, dzh?la, dzh?lica, jos?go, starim?ta, icharim?s, astarim?s and therip?. The words for "truth" include tachip?n, chachim?s, vortim?, sigurip? and others, while "beautiful" is ?uk?r, m?ndro, r?nkeno, jakhal?, orch?ri, pakv?ro, etc., in the various dialects, while "read" is dzhin- or gin- or chit- or gil?b- or drab-, "write" is ram- or jazd- or lekh- or pi??- or pis?t- or chet- or ?kur- or skrij- or chin-; "time" is variously translated by vaxt, v?kti, vrj?mja or ch?ros, "danger" by str?zhno, "warmth" by tatichosim?s or t?blipen and "quiet" by m?ro or mirnim?s, although in truth, the fallacy of such a belief, i.e. that such words don't exist in the language, should scarcely need refuting. Many of these words come from the ancient Sanskrit stock of the language, while others, like pr?mi or m?ro, have been adopted from Greek and Slavic. Isabel Fonseca concedes in her book that Romani had to adopt the words for "read" and "write" from other languages, but apparently doesn't recognize that English, too, has had to borrow most of its lexicon from other languages (incidentally, the word for "read" is of native Sanskrit origin in Romani). Indeed, a dictionary count of English word origins indicates that only 28% of that language is traceable to its original Anglo-Saxon stock; should we assume from that, therefore, that the concepts of "duty," "possession," "beauty," "quiet," "danger," etc., were foreign to the English, since all of these words have been "stolen" from French? Furthermore, English also "lacks" a future tense, in the sense meant by Moreau, but constructs it, just as Romani does, with a word which expresses the intention or desire to undertake the action ("will" or "shall;" in Romani, ka(m)). There is clearly a double standard operating for these writers. 

The blind repetition of someone's statement without checking the original source is a mark of shoddy scholarship- perhaps it is felt that less rigor is needed in Romani Studies than in other areas of research. A list of writers who, one after the other, have quoted the Romani proverb about not being able to sit on two horses with one backside, could also be assembled - all traceable without acknowledgement to Jan Yoors' book The Gypsies, or the story about the Gypsy in jail who weeps for his jailer who must stay there, or the story of the nails used to crucify Jesus. Victorian writers unashamedly lifted material from each other too. These descriptions of the Gypsy children on the Romanian slave estates are far too similar to be coincidental, and appeared in the British and American press at the time that the fictionalized image of the Gypsy was taking shape, though its inspiration seems to be traceable to a German source dating from 1841:

The children are seldom provided with clothing before they are ten years old. This is especially true of the wandering Gypsies ... they find every kind of meat good: dogs, cats, rats, mice and even sick farm animals are eaten by them (Brockhaus, 1841:801). Thus in British literature just a few years later we find The children wear no clothes until the age of ten or twelve years-, and resemble imps rather than human beings as they run beside the carriage of the traveller shrieking for alms, with their long matted hair flying in the wind, and their black limbs shining in the light (Pardoe, 1848(i):168). The children go naked up to the age of ten or twelve, and whole swarms of girls and boys may sometimes be seen rolling about together in the dust or mud in summer, in the water or snow in winter, like so many black worms (St.John, 1853:140). 

The children to the age of ten or twelve, are in a complete state of nudity, but the men and women, the latter offering frequently the most symmetrical form and feminine beauty, have a rude clothing (Gardner, 1857:58).

Another area in which writers have shamelessly appropriated from each other's work, even to the extent copying each others mistakes, is in Romani lexicography; we find for example the English Romani word for "hedgehog," hochiwichi, turning up in Romanian Romani wordlists such as that by de Kogalnitchan who lists hotschauitscha (1837:60), or Vaillant, who has hoc'awi?a (1861:108) - though the source of the word is in the regional English dialect urchin (cf. "sea urchin"), and it exists only in Britain, having first been recorded by Roberts in 1836, Vaillant's and Kogalnicean's unacknowledged source. There is likewise scarcely a dictionary of Cal? (Spanish Romani) that is original, each one copying freely from the one preceding it, mistakes and all, usually without a word of acknowledgement. Grant has addressed the particular issue of plagiarism in Romani Studies, calling it the researcher's "biggest problem" (1995:53).

In its January 8th, 1992, issue, the New York Times published the results of a public opinion poll surveying national negative attitudes to 58 different racial and ethnic populations in the United States over a 25-year period. For the entire quarter-century, Gypsies were ranked at the very bottom of the list, the most discriminated-against minority in the eyes of the general population. Since most gadzh? have no personal or social contact with the Romani American community, such attitudes in this country can only be based upon how we are presented in literature. The persistent, relentless portrayal of Roma as rootless, lawless, immoral, childlike thieves, as a people for whom the basic human concepts of truth and beauty, obligation and ownership do not exist, and who are ignorant of danger and never seek warmth or peace or quiet, is attributable to such individuals as Colocci, Lombroso, Bercovici, von Stroheim, Silver, Clarke, Kovanen, Anthony, Woolf, Phelan, Fonseca, Moreau, Ehrlich and others, whose investment in defining our character will ensure that anti-Gypsy prejudice will remain firmly a part of Euro-American racist attitudes. (1) The same kind of prejudice that leads people to claim that these words don't exist in Romani is responsible for the reference in the August, 1996 issue of Disney Adventures: The Magazine for Kids on page 24 to a condition called "gypsyitis." The symptoms of this affliction include "an urge to run away from it all and dance among the dandelions," and being "footloose and fancy-free," instead of being a normal "buckle-down, rules-and- regulations kinda person," which is to say one for whom "duty" means something. The objection to this kind of stereotyping seems to have escaped the magazine's editor Phyllis Ehdich, who defended it in a letter to the International Roma Federation as being "on the contrary, a positive portrayal of the Gypsy spirit."

Ian F. Hancock, of British Romani and Hungarian Romani descent, represents Roma on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He is professor of Romani Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and has authored nearly 300 publications. In 1997, he was awarded the international Rafto Human Rights Prize (Norway), and in 1998 was recipient of the Gamaliel Chair in Peace and Justice (USA). This paper is reproduced by the Patrin Web Journal with the permission and assistance of the author, 1 March 1997.

Roma/Gypsies
 Introduction The Roma are an ethnic minority whose origins began on the Indian subcontinent over one thousand years ago. Why the Roma left India is clouded in uncertainty, yet they entered southeastern Europe in the last quarter of the 13th Century. Because they arrived in Europe from the East, they were thought by the first Europeans to be from Turkey, Nubia or Egypt, or any number of non-European places. They were called, among other things, Egyptians or Gyptians, which is where the word "Gypsy" comes from. In some places, this Egyptian identity was taken entirely seriously, and was no doubt borrowed by the early Roma themselves. In Europe, Roma were either kept in slavery in the Balkans from the 14th century (officially abolished in 1864), or else moved into the rest of the European continent, reaching every northern and western country by about 1500. The fragmentation of the Romani population occurred on a major scale after their arrival into Europe in the 14th century. Once in Europe, their particular ability to adjust to outside groups continued, and in some places, the Romani element was dominant enough to assimilate outsiders. In other places, the Romani element was too small to maintain its discrete identity and it was lost, while contributing to the group into which they were absorbed. The Romani population has grown differently in different places, to the point that one group may deny the legitimacy of another group. But all groups maintain to a greater or lesser degree the barrier between who is Roma and who is not. Thus there are populations of Romani who have incorporated a substantial foreign genetic element from outside of India, but who remain in terms of their own self-perception Roma, and who speak Romanes. In the course of time, as a result of having interacted with various European populations, and being fragmented into widely-separated groups, Roma have emerged as a collection of distinct ethnic groups within the larger whole. There are many groups of Roma, including (but not limited to) the Kalderash, Machavaya, Lovari, Churari, Romanichal, Gitanoes, Kalo, Sinti, Rudari, Manush, Boyash, Ungaritza, Luri, Bashald?, Romungro, and Xoraxai. Romani culture is diverse with many traditions and customs, and all groups around the world have their own individual beliefs and tenets. There is no universal culture per se, but there are attributes common to all Roma, including: loyalty to family (extended and clan); Romaniya, standards and norms, varying in degree from tribe to tribe; and adaptability to changing conditions. Integration of many Roma into gajikan? (non-Roma, or foreign) culture due to settlement has diluted many Romani cultural values and beliefs. Not all groups have the same definition of who and what is "Roma." What may be accepted as "true-Roma" by one group may be gadj? to another. It would be invalid to generalize and oversimplify by giving concrete rules to all Roma. Despite what some groups may believe, there is no one group that can call themselves the one, "true" Roma. Today, the following characteristics apply to the many Roma groups and communities around the world: Roma may be nomadic, semi-sedentary, or sedentary; Roma speak many dialects of Romanes, and some Roma may not speak Romanes at all; Roma may live in rural or urban areas; Some Roma groups are predominately illiterate, while other groups stress at least a minimum of literacy in their host country's language for its community members. 

The Romani people have been known by many names, including Gypsies (or Gipsies), Tsigani, Tzigane, Cigano, Zigeuner, and others. Most Roma have always referred to themselves by their tribal names, or as Rom or Roma, meaning "Man" or "People." (Rom, Roma, Romani, and Romaniya should not be confused with the country of Romania, or the city of Rome. These names have separate, distinct etymological origins and are not related.) The use of Rom, Roma, Romani, or the double "r" spelling (Rrom, Rroma, Rromani), is preferred in all official communications and legal documents. The trend is to eliminate the use of derogatory, pejorative and offensive names, such as Gypsies, and to be given proper respect by the use of the self-appelation of Roma, or Rroma. Gypsies, although offensive to most Roma, is still a proper name, and as such, must always be capitalized. The Romani language is of Indo-Aryan origin and has many spoken dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible. The root language of Romani is ancient Punjabi with loan words borrowed from the many countries the migrations of the Roma have taken them. The spoken Romani language is varied, but all dialects contain some common words in use by all Roma. There have been many large-scale, state-sponsored persecutions, or pogroms, against the Roma throughout European history. The Nazi terror of World War II is the most infamous and is responsible for the deaths of up to 1.5 million Roma in the Porrajmos (in Romani meaning the Devouring). The recent collapse of the communist governments of Eastern Europe have rekindled anti-Roma sentiment in Eastern and Western Europe. Violent attacks against Romani immigrants and refugees have been permitted to occur with little or no restraint from government authorities. The Romani people remain the least integrated and the most persecuted people of Europe. Almost everywhere, their fundamental civil rights are threatened. Although the Roma originated from India, they have no homeland they can call their own; therefore they have no government that will speak for them and protect them.

-------------------- http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/vlib/introduction.htm

------------ THE RELIGION AND CULTURE OF THE ROMA (ALSO KNOWN AS THE GYPSIES, ROM, RROMA, ROMANI, RROMA)

Names of the Romani People Many names have been used to refer to the Romani people, including: Cigano, Gypsies, Gipsies, Rom, Roma, Romani, Tsigani, Tzigane, Zigeuner, and others. Most Roma identify themselves either by their tribal name or by one of the names beginning with the prefix "Rom". Frequently, a prefix with a double "R" is used, as in "Rrom". "...the Council of Europe has approved the use of "Rroma (Gypsies)" in its official documents (CLRAE Recommendation 11 - June 1995)" 5 Because of centuries of hatred, the name "Gypsy" has become a "derogatory, pejorative and offensive" name. It was invented by Europeans, who incorrectly believed that the Roma had their origin in Egypt. 

History of the Roma The Roma first migrated from Hindustan to eastern Europe circa 1000, for reasons that have been lost to history. Some authorities believe that there may have been additional migrations at a later date. During the 14th and 15th centuries, they drifted into western Europe. Some emigrated from Europe to the US and Canada in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Following World War II, and lately the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, there has been an additional westward migration. 

Most Roma settle down in a single location. Only about 5% of European Romanies are believed to be nomads. 

There are three language groups within the Roma: 
 the Domari in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, 
 the Lomarvren in Central Europe, 
 the Romani of Western Europe. 

Within these groups, the Roma are organized into 4 main and about 10 smaller tribes or nations. They have tended to adopt the dominant religion of their country. 

They have suffered severe persecution throughout their history, particularly in Europe: 

 Rumors were spread in medieval times that the Roma were descended from a sexual encounter between a Roma woman and Satan. Christians believed that a conspiracy of blacksmiths, wizards and women had been organized to attack the Church. Since many Roma were blacksmiths, the conspiracy theory expanded to involve the Romani. Another belief was that Roma forged the nails used in Christ's crucifixion. The Roma countered with the rumor that a Roma attempted to steal the nails so that Christ could not be crucified, but was only able to grab one. 
 The Christian genocide against Witches during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance was also directed against the Roma. The courts seized and imprisoned them in Witches' prisons, often without even bothering to record their names. 
 The Diet of Augsburg ruled that Christians could legally kill Roma. Meanwhile, the courts were closed to the Roma who were injured by Christians 
 In 1721, Emperor Karl VI of what is now Germany ordered total genocide of the Roma. "Gypsy Hunts" were organized to track down and exterminate them. 7 
 In 1792, 45 Roma were tortured and executed for the murder of some Hungarians, who were in fact alive and observed the executions. 
 It is believed that as much as half of the Roma in Europe were enslaved, from the 14th century until Romani slavery was abolished in the mid-19th century. 
 During the 1920's, during the Weimar Republic, the Roma were seriously oppressed. They were forbidden to use parks or public baths. Roma were all registered with the police. Many were sent to work camps "for reasons of public security." When the Nazis took power, the Roma were further persecuted under the "Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor" In 1937, Heinrich Himmler issued a decree "The Struggle Against the Gypsy Plague," which increased police monitoring of the Roma. 
 During the Nazi Holocaust, they were declared to be "subhumans". In 1941-JUL, the Einsatzkommandos were instructed to "kill all Jews, Gypsies and mental patients." A few months later, Himmler ordered that all Roma be deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau for extermination. Sybil Milton, a former Senior Historian of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 500,000 Roma and Sinti persons were exterminated. This number is supported by the Romas and Sinti Center in Heidelberg. 
 There are about 5,000 Roma survivors of the Nazi concentration camps. As of mid-2000, none have ever received any of the hundreds of millions of dollars given to other survivors. 7 
 The hatred and physical attacks directed at the Roma within the formerly Communist governments of eastern Europe have intensified in recent years. They are heavily discriminated against in matters of education, employment, health care, and social services. They are a prime target of neo-Nazis and skinheads. Often the governments have done little to guarantee them basic human rights. 
 The situation in Bulgaria in recent years is probably typical of the fate of the Roma in eastern Europe. During the Communist era, Roma culture was suppressed by the government. Their Newspapers and clubs were closed; their language was outlawed. 6 The situation has worsened since the overthrow of Communism. The unemployment rate amongst the Roma is many times the national average. A poll of ethnic Bulgarian adults shows that discrimination and bigotry is widespread: 91% believe that the Roma are predisposed to criminal behavior; 83 that the are "lazy and irresponsible." 59% would not live in the same locale as the Roma; 94% said they would not marry a Roma; 69% would not have a Roma as a friend. The latter two numbers have increased by 5 percentage points since 1992. 
 See Reference (10) for a description of the similar situation in Romania. 
 The situation in Serbia is particularly critical. During the 1990's, Serbian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Muslim religious groups have fueled racial and religious hatred as a means of promoting their own status. The Gypsies have no affinity with any of the political-religious groups. So, they are attacked by all. Since mid-1997, neo-Nazi skinhead street gangs have been active in the cities. Random beatings and killing of Roma men, women and children have become common. Dragan Stankovic, head of the Roma community in Belgrade said: "The discrimination begins as soon as our children enter school. Gypsy kids are made to sit in the back rows or sent to special-education classes. Many are tossed out of school. They are frequently ostracized and insulted by other children and teachers. Our young people cannot find jobs and our complaints to the police are ignored. We have always lived as second-class citizens, but we are not willing now to die because we are second-class citizens." 12
 
 The Roma in Kosovo may be the most oppressed of all. They appear to be hated by both the Albanian/Muslim majority and the Serbian/Christian minority. A series of articles about the Roma in Kosovo has been published by an anti-cult site. 15,16 This web site claims that the Roma totaled at least 10% of the population of Kosovo. Yet they have been essentially invisible and have not been included in population figures. 
 The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe describe the Roma as "the poorest, least healthy, least educated and most discriminated sector of...society." 6 
 In 1997-MAY, President Clinton decided to not reappoint a Roma representative to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. In effect, the many hundreds of thousands of Roma exterminated during the Holocaust have been killed twice: once by the Nazis using poison gas; and a second time by subsequent generations, who have allowed the memory of the victims to fade. 

There are believed to be about 12 million Roma scattered throughout the world. It is impossible to estimate the total population with accuracy since many governments do not record Roma in their census figures. Also, many Roma conceal their ethnic origin out of fear of discrimination. 

Beliefs and Practices of the Roma Centuries in the past, the Roma were some of the last Goddess-worshipers in Europe. Their Goddess, Kali, was viewed as a trinity. Her symbol was a triangle. A male Horned God also played a prominent role. The similarities between ancient Roma belief and that of Wicca are obvious. 

There is today no single Roma culture. Nor is there general agreement on who should qualify to be called a Roma. Romani groups around the world hold different traditions, customs and beliefs. Groups that have settled in one location generally adsorb some of the gajikan (non-Roma) local culture. Some Roma have converted the religions of their host countries, typically Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism), and Islam. Their formal religious affiliation is often supplemented by Roma traditional beliefs: 
 the existence of Del (God) 
 the existence of beng (Satan) 
 the existence of bibaxt (bad luck) and of mul (supernatural spirits or ghosts). 
 the power of good luck charms, amulets and talismans 
 the power of curses 
 the power of healing rituals 
 Marim is a state of impurity brought on a person by the violation of a purity taboo. It also means a "sentence of expulsion imposed for violation of purity rules or any behavior disruptive to the Roma community." Some Roma consider the part of a woman's body below the waist to be dirty or polluted, because it is associated with menstruation. 8 In many tribes, women wear long skirts, the bottoms of which must not touch a man other than her husband. 
 A pregnant woman is considered unclean. She must not give birth in the family home because it would then become impure. Sometimes knots are ritually untied as the birth approaches. This is believed to assure that the umbilical cord will not be tangled. After birth, anything that the new mother touches is later destroyed. This quarantine continues at least until the baptism of the baby. 
 Newborns are baptized, usually in running water, when they are a few weeks old. Often, the infant is massaged with oil; this is believed to make it strong. 
 A Roma typically has three names. The first is known only by the mother; it is given at the time of birth. Its purpose is to confuse evil spirits by keeping the real name of the child from them. The second name is conferred at the time of baptism, and is the commonly used name within the tribe. A third, different name may be given when the child is re-baptized in a Christian church. It has little importance, except when dealing with non-Roma.

 In the past, people were typically married between the ages of 9 to 14. This tradition has changed in many tribes due to the influence of the surrounding culture. Pre-marital sex is strongly forbidden. Marriages to outsiders are heavily discouraged. The wedding ceremony is usually simple. In some tribes, the bride and groom join hands in front of the chief or an elder and promise to be true to each other. In ancient times, they used be married by jumping over a broomstick in the presence of their families. 
 When a person dies, relatives and friends gather around and ask for forgiveness for any bad deeds that they have done to that person. They are concerned that if such grievances are not settled, then the dead person might come back as an evil spirit and cause trouble. In the past, the widow might commit suicide when her husband died so that she could accompany him during the afterlife. Sometimes, the deceased's nostrils are plugged with wax so that evil spirits cannot enter and occupy the body. Clothing, tools, eating utensils, jewelry, and money may be placed in the coffin in order to help the deceased in the next world. The deceased's possessions are burned, broken or sold to non-Roma. 
 They believe that a person can be reincarnated as another human or animal. Alternately, they might appear as a mul or "living dead", seeking revenge on anyone who harmed him during his life on earth. 
 Many Roma rules of behavior relate to the use of water. They normally wash in running water, as in a shower. Baths are not used. Women's and men's clothes are washed separately, because of the impurities of a woman's body. Clothes of a pregnant or menstruating woman are washed furthest downstream from the camp, to avoid contamination. 
 Women must not expose their legs. They wear long, multi-colored skirts. 
 Out of respect for the importance of the horse in assuring Roma mobility, the eating of horse meat is prohibited in some tribes. 
 Many Roma women, called drabardi practice fortune telling. But fortunes are only read for non-Romas. 
 Other women are drabarni or drabengi and practice natural healing techniques. 

Roma in North America: "On January 8, 1998, New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman signed into law Assembly Bill 2654, repealing that state's anti-Roma law adopted in 1917. Governor Whitman's signature effectively repealed the last anti-Roma law on the books" of any U.S. state. 13

A movement to adopt Christianity within the Roma of the U.S. and Canada started in the late 1970s. It replaced almost all of the original Roma beliefs and rituals. A Roma/Christian church opened up in Los Angeles CA in 1997. Since then more than 50 have been established; there is at least one in every major city in the U.S. 14 As of 2000-MAY, 10 congregations have web sites.

Promotion of the concepts of cultural exchange and tolerance is a key feature of the cultural routes working framework. This applies particularly to cultural minorities, and the idea of setting up a gypsy route was consequently a natural development.

The launch of such a route ties in perfectly with the Council of Europes basic aims in areas to which it has always given priority (such as human rights, democracy, education and minorities), providing scope for practical, constructive discussions and activities which can serve as a model in a Europe in which minority issues are all too often seen in a negative light. "Speaking of a Route for these Gypsies and Travellers (whether the travelling is chosen or imposed) is only logical. The history of these itinerants consists of the routes they have followed rather than the physical traces they have left, and what survives from it is the very essence of culture; through social relations, language and other practices, through what others see from the outside, such as the music, the dancing, a way of life; using the term European is also clearly justified in the case of communities which have no territory of their own and whose social and cultural links have been forged across frontiers by people who have for centuries been citizens of Europe rather than of a particular country." (Jean-Pierre Li?geois, ICCE 93.9)

Virtually every state is affected by the cultural development of Gypsies and Travellers. "However, by the very fact that the Gypsies are the carriers of an itinerant culture, they have not, like other communities, been the builders of sites, cities or monuments; as providers of services for those around them, they have scarcely left any products permitting a history to be easily traced; and as bearers of an oral tradition right down to our day, they have not even left any written traces of their own." (Jean-Pierre Li?geois, ICCE 93.9).

The theme of gypsies was proposed to the Secretariat as a result of two meetings on minorities. The first, held in September 1992 and entitled "Democracy, Human Rights, Minorities: Educational and Cultural Aspects", led the group of experts to discuss in its conclusions the need for such a route and the possibility of setting up a European network of gypsy cultural centres. The conclusions of the meeting organised by the Conference of Local and Regional Authorities in October 1992, "Gypsies in the Locality: What Policy?" further reinforced that idea; in 1993, this resulted in the adoption by the Conference of Local and Regional Authorities of a resolution recommending that consideration be given to "the possibility of launching a European Gypsy route as part of the European Cultural Routes Programme". After being presented to the Advisory Committee in April 1994, the theme was selected by the Culture Committee in May 1994. 

Bibliography:		 Roma, Gypsies, Travellers, LIEGEOIS, J-P, Council of Europe Press, Strasbourg, 1994, 323 p.	
	Contact: Mr Jean-Pierre LIEGEOIS Centre de Recherches Tsiganes Hameau de Thurissey F-71260 LUDNY
 Gypsies" in the US Several groups, all known to outsiders as "Gypsies," live today in the United States. In their native languages, each of the groups refers to itself by a specific name, but all translate their self-designations as "Gypsy" when speaking English. Each had its own cultural, linguistic, and historical tradition before coming to this country, and each maintains social distance from the others. Rom The Rom arrived in the US from Serbia, Russia and Austria-Hungary beginning in the 1880's, part of the larger wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Primary immigration ended, for the most part, in 1914, with the beginning of the First World War and subsequent tightening of immigration restrictions (Salo and Salo 1986). Many people in this group specialized in coppersmith work, mainly the repair and retinning of industrial equipment used in bakeries, laundries, confectioneries, and other businesses. The Rom, too, developed the fortune-telling business in urban areas. Two subgroups of the Rom, the Kalderash ("coppersmith") and Machwaya ("natives of Machva," a county in Serbia) appear in the photographs in Carlos de Wendler-Funaro's collection. De Wendler-Funaro identified some, but not all, Kalderash as "Russian Gypsies." Another group he identified as "Russian Gypsies" seem to be the Rusniakuria ("Ruthenians"), musicians and singers who settled in New York. Ludar The Ludar, or "Romanian Gypsies," also came to the United States during the great immigration from southern and eastern Europe between 1880 and 1914. Most of the Ludar came from northwestern Bosnia. Upon their arrival in the United States they specialized as animal trainers and showpeople, and indeed passenger manifests show bears and monkeys as a major part of their baggage. Most of de Wendler-Funaro's photographs of this group were taken in Maspeth, a section of the borough of Queens in New York City, where the Ludar created a "village" of homemade shacks that existed from about 1925 to 1939, when it was razed. A similar settlement stood in the Chicago suburbs during the same period.  Romnichels The Romnichels, or English Gypsies, began to come to the United States from England in 1850. Their arrival coincided with an increase in the demand for draft horses in agriculture and then in urbanization, and many Romnichels worked as horse-traders. After the rapid decline in the horse trade following the First World War, most Romnichels relied on previously secondary enterprises, "basket-making," including the manufacture and sale of rustic furniture, and fortune-telling. Horse and mule trading continued to some extent in southern states where poverty and terrain slowed the adoption of tractor power (Salo and Salo 1982).  "Black Dutch" Gypsies from Germany, whom de Wendler-Funaro refers to as Chikkeners (Pennsylvania German, from the German Zigeuner), sometimes refer to themselves as "Black Dutch." They are few in number and claim to have largely assimilated into. They are represented in de Wendler-Funaro's photographs by a few portraits of one old man and briefly referred to in the manuscript "In Search of the Last Caravan." Hungarian Gypsies Hungarian musicians also came to this country with the eastern European immigration. In the United States they continued as musicians to the Hungarian and Slovak immigrant settlements.	

 Origins of the Melungeon-American Subculture by Henry Robert Burke, Historian Executive Director, Society for Intercultural History

Along the Atlantic coastal region of the United States, and in various locations in Appalachia, there is a remnant group of people that are tentatively identified as having the mixed racial heritage Native American, African American and European American. Following the American tradition of labeling people by the color of their skin color, people that obviously are not descendants of purely northern European heritage, but instead seem to have a mixed racial heritage have been variously called; [WIN- White, Indian, Negro], Carmel Indians, Mustees, Brass Ankles, Nanacokes, Jersey Whites, Moors, Tri-Racial Isolates, Melungeons and some other names. 

The skin colors of various individuals within these groups, range from brown to almost white; hair structure varies from curly to straight; and eye colors also may vary from dark brown to pale blue. In other words these physical characteristics have made the heritage of these people the subject to much speculation over the course of U.S. History. Different theories about the origins of these groups are common. Some of these theories seem to offer logical explanations and some seem to be very radical. 

After reading the book - MELUNGEONS- The Resurrection of a Proud People -, by Dr. Brent N. Kennedy, my long curiosity about this subject drew me into speculating about their origins. There a number of people that more or less fit this category in southeastern Ohio, and over the years many of them have been my friends and associates, and frankly, in the past, their heritage and customs were a mystery to me. I wish to add my assessment to the considerable amount of research data already available on the subject of the origins of the Melungeons as defined by Dr. Kennedy, but some or all of my conclusions may apply to other groups mentioned above. 

Generally speaking, people of Melungeon heritage are slightly darker than typical European people. While Melungeons may have some slight African physical characteristics, these traits may have origins in the "Old World. Reddish colored hair occurs , but most Melungeons have straight black hair. Some have blue eyes, but dark brow eyes are most common. 

On first glance, considering the amount of miscegenation that took place in the English Colonies of North America, it seems reasonable to assume that Melungeon people are the descendants of slave owners and slave women, with perhaps some Native American blood mixed in. To be sure, there are many African- American families and family groups that do have this genetic makeup, but recent evidence suggests to me that the Melungeon culture may have originated from quite a different source. Incidentally, it was the observance of Melungeon tradition and culture, rather than their physical traits the are the clues from my theory is based 

Any social researcher will eventually notice that while Melungeons do associate with other ethnic groups, it is an established Melungeon custom to marry within their respective ethnic group whenever possible. Research on Melungeon genealogy proves this point. But if the Melungeon ethnic culture didn't originate in the Americas, then where did it originate? 

I noticed that in some important ways the Melungeon culture resembles that of the Gypsy, or Roma culture, as it should properly be called. Romani people were once a migratory people who originated in northwestern part of the Indian sub-continent. They began to move westward at the beginning of the 11th century, and are now found intermingled with native populations in many parts of the world. Many of them, but not all, speak Romani, a language closely related to Hindi, and most, but not all, are dark-skinned or swarthy. About 80% of the Romani are now sedentary. Their number is now estimated at 8-10 million worldwide, with an estimated 1 million living in the United States. 

Romani origins are linked to northern India by linguistic similarities to Sanskrit. Exactly who the Romani are has remained in contention for hundreds of years. Various commentators have erroneously claimed that the Rom culture was linked to Egyptians; hence the word Gypsy. Other commentators claimed that they were Turks, Jews, or even Africans, which at least had some basis in fact, for the long journey of the Romani did in fact pass through Turkey, they had some associations with Sephardim Jews, and in fact have some ancient ties to Africa. 

By linguistics and physical anthropological evidence, modern research indicates that Romani people probably descend from a composite population of non-Aryan Indians, such as the Dravidians, the Pratihara, and the Siddhi. The Siddhi was a group of African mercenaries assembled in India during the 11th century as a military force, to help India repel the Islamic invasion led by Mahmud of Ghazni. Moving farther and farther west in a long succession of conflicts with the Muslims, the Romani passed through the Byzantine Empire in the 13th century, where they remained for some time before being pushed into eastern Europe where they acquired the name of Gypsies. 

Arriving in Europe at the same time as the Turkish incursions into the Byzantine Empire at the beginning of the 14th century, the Romani were initially thought to be part of the Islamic tide. Some groups of Gypsies became enslaved by people native to the Balkans, while other groups moved farther west, reaching every country in Europe by 1500. Wherever they went they were either shunned or enslaved. Gypsies were forbidden to attend school or participate in national life, at best they only existed on the fringes of European society. Because of their dark skin Romani people became the social outcasts of Europe. Their isolation from the mainstream of the many cultures they encountered on their journeys, reinforced their own culture as a survival tactic. From an early time in their travels, the Romani evolved laws which did not permit their members to become involved with the non-Romani world beyond the minimum required for business. One of the legacies among the Romani, inherited from India and rigorously maintained was the belief in ritual pollution, which regulates interactions between sexes. A modified version of this tendency was evident right up to recent times among Melungeon groups living in Appalachia. 

The discovery of the Americas and the establishment of European colonies in the Americas provided a useful dumping ground for Europe's Romani. The Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and British began transporting Romani along with other undesirables, to the Americas. In the 17th century, Britain exported them to work as slaves on plantations in Barbados, Jamaica, and Virginia. Portugal sent them to Brazil, France transported them to Louisiana, and Germany transported them to Pennsylvania. Even Sweden had a policy of banishment to its short-lived colony on Delaware Bay. The first Romani to set foot on American soil accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1498. Additional small numbers from western Europe arrived in America during the 17th century. These immigrants established pockets of a diverse population of Romani in North America. The group of Romani ancestored people that came to be known as Melungeons was established in Virginia during the very early English colonial period and gradually spread from there into Appalachia. 

Melungeon culture shares so many characteristics with the Romani culture, that it suggests, to me at least, that the two cultures may share a common heritage. Historical documents describe Melungeons in the early English colonies as "living separate" from other colonists, yet speaking perfect "Queen's English". Some Melungeons had a penchant for metal working, a skill acquired from their Romani predecessors during their long stay in the Byzantine Empire, and carried westward across Europe and eventually into the English Colony of Virginia in the 17th Century. Physical and cultural traits of Melungeons are so similar to Romani that it strongly suggest a link between Romani and Melungeons. Perhaps DNA comparative analysis will confirm this hypothesis. 

On the surface, modern Melungeon culture appears to have significantly diverged from the earlier Romani culture. This is also true for other divergent Romani cultures around the World, but certain aspects of the Romani culture are still present in Melungeon culture, particularly in their marriage practices. Marriage customs alone may be the single thread that still binds Melungeons to their ancient Romani culture. In addition, the Romani share a similar history of being discriminated against, just as Jews, African-Americans, and other dark skinned people of the World have been discriminated against by Europeans. While most Melungeons rarely marry outside their culture, those in Appalachia have traditionally had stronger ties with the African American and Native American cultures, than with mainstream American culture. There is even evidence that Romani music has influenced African-American "Soul" music. Severe assimilation policies were enacted by some countries in Europe, most notably in Hungary and Spain, where it was illegal to speak Romani or even call oneself Romani, yet Romani identity and culture continued to survive by the continuation of strong familial bonds and marriage practices evolved from the need for protection against discrimination and violence. Again, perhaps for the same reasons, some of these same practices in modified forms are noticeable in the study of the Melungeon culture in Appalachia. 

As the Romani populations diversified and spread out across Europe, various groups acquired local characteristics just as the Melungeons in Appalachia appear to have done. Romani groups became associated with different countries and some of them intermingled with native populations. For example, Romani that settled in Britain came to differ in appearance and to some extent in the degree of retained culture. Some Romani even came to regard themselves as Britons or Spaniards or Hungarians, although most simply passed themselves as such for purposes of escaping discrimination. 

For many centuries Europe's Romani were able to sustain a livelihood by providing many services to the non-Romani population. Metalworking, horse shoeing, horse trading, repair of cookware, sharpening of tools are but a sampling of the kind of service that sustained the Romani economically. One occupation, that of fortune-telling has survived unimpaired, but while this profession still enjoys prestige in India, from which it came, it was regarded with skepticism and hostility in Europe and North America often leading Romani fortune-tellers into conflicts with the law. 

Numerous attempts have been made either to exterminate the Romani or to assimilate them by force. The most horrific example took place in 20th century Europe, when Gypsies, together with the all Jews, were singled out for annihilation as part of the "Final Solution" undertaken by Nazi Germany. One in four victims of the Holocaust, approximately the same ratio of Romani as of Jews, were exterminated during World War II. 

After World War II the Romani of Eastern Europe who survived the Holocaust were protected to some extent by the Communist governments of the Soviet bloc, but loyalty to the state was required over ethnic identity. With the collapse of European communism in 1989, nationalistic passions reappeared in eastern Europe, and the Romani, easily the largest and most widely distributed ethnic minority in Europe, again became the target of ethnic discrimination especially in regions of eastern Europe. Now a new migration to western countries is in progress. 

A second significant wave of Romani immigrants came from Britain in the mid-1800s. Then with the abolition of serfdom (slavery) in Romania in1864 the third major influx of Romani occurred during the latter half of the19th century. Recently, a fourth wave of Romani have followed with the collapse of European communism and the advent of "Ethnic Cleansing" in eastern Europe. Today, Romani live in all parts of America pursue a wide variety of occupations, and share much of the common American culture. Deep down, the Melungeons of Appalachia still retain the element of mystic along with their Romani cousins. 

A possible scenario is that a relative small number of "Anglicized" Romani indentured servants sent to the early English colony of Virginia, were able to remain together because of their common language and traditions. Of course mixture with Native Americans and African slaves occurred, but the early Romani were able to hold on to a few of their original customs in Virginia, especially those customs that had protected them from discrimination in Europe for centuries. Not having strong ties with mainstream European customs, the Melungeons, who were after all not slaves, tended to move to the fringes of advancing European settlements until they reached the difficult to access regions of Appalachia, where they more or less found a peaceful place to settle. 

Once in Appalachia, it is reasonable to assume that major Romani intermingling with Native Americans and possible limited intermingling with runaway African slaves affected their original culture. In the United States, groups such as the Nanacokes, Moors and Saponi, that reached the English colonies at an early time, the Romani influence has all but been obliterated. Other groups that came to the U.S. later, have had less time to intermingle allowing them to retain more of their Romani traditions. Romani customs have been held together by the oral tradition, since they left northern India a thousand years ago. Gypsies were oppressed and persecuted along with Jews in Europe; likewise oppressed and persecuted with along Native Americans and Negro people in North America. 

In summary, my point is that the Romani culture of Europe was changed into the Melungeon culture in America. O freely admit that the association with other cultures in America have certainly influenced the Melungeon culture here, but deep down I have the feeling that some element of the "free spirited" culture of the Romani-Melungeons will always survive in Appalachia!