Gypsy Folk Band Crown Inn

by John Straton

Title

Gypsy Folk Band Crown Inn

Artist

John Straton

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

The Romani are a diasporic ethnicity of Indian origin, living mostly in Europe and the Americas.[24][25] Romani are widely known among Anglophonic people by the exonym "Gypsies" (or Gipsies) and also as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms. In their own language, Romani, they are known collectively as Romane or Rromane (depending on the dialect).[citation needed]

Romani are widely dispersed, with their largest concentrated populations in Europe�especially Central and Eastern Europe and Anatolia, the Iberian Kale and Southern France. They originated in India and arrived in Mid-West Asia, then Europe, at least 1000 years ago,[26] either separating from the Dom people or, at least, having a similar history;[27] the ancestors of both the Romani and the Dom left North India sometime between the sixth and eleventh century.[26]

Since the nineteenth century, some Romani have also migrated to the Americas. There are an estimated one million Roma in the United States;[4] and 800,000 in Brazil, most of whose ancestors emigrated in the nineteenth century from eastern Europe. Brazil also includes Romani descended from people deported by the government of Portugal during the Inquisition in the colonial era.[28] In migrations since the late nineteenth century, Romani have also moved to Canada and countries in South America.[29]

The Romani language is divided into several dialects, which add up to an estimated number of speakers larger than two million.[30] The total number of Romani people is at least twice as large (several times as large according to high estimates). Many Romani are native speakers of the language current in their country of residence, or of mixed languages combining the two; those varieties are sometimes called Para-Romani.[
The English term Gypsy (or Gipsy) originates from the Middle English gypcian, short for Egipcien. It is ultimately derived from the Greek Αἰγύπτιοι (Aigyptioi), via Middle French and Latin. This designation owes its existence to the belief, common in the Middle Ages, that the Romanies, or some related group (such as the middle eastern Dom people), were itinerant Egyptians.[47] According to one narrative they were exiled from Egypt as punishment for allegedly harbouring the infant Jesus.[48]

This exonym is sometimes written with capital letter, to show that it designates an ethnic group.[49] The term 'gypsy' appears when international research programmes, documents and policies on the community are referred to. However, the word is often considered derogatory because of its negative and stereotypical associations.[37][38][39][40][41][42][50]

As described in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the medieval French referred to the Romanies as egyptiens. The term has come to bear pejorative connotations. The word Gypsy in English has become so pervasive that many Romani organizations use it in their own organizational names.

In North America, the word gypsy is most commonly used as a reference to Romani ethnicity,[51] though lifestyle and fashion are at times also referenced by using this word.[52] The Spanish term gitano and the French term gitan have been sometimes thought to have the same origin as a reference to Egypt,[53] though they are much more likely to have been derived from Athinganoi, the name of a medieval Christian sect that became associated with the Gypsies in Europe whether of the same Romani group or a different one

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May 22nd, 2014

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