Romany Gypsy Language: 5-6 million Roma people in Europe and the United States speak Romani, an Indo-Aryan language. Turkey, Spain, and Romania have the biggest concentrations of Roma residents. These individuals are commonly referred to as “Gypsies” in the media. Northern Indian Punjabi is closely connected to the language of the Roma and it is widely believed that they Originated there.
A set of dialects may be considered Romani, but some believe there are a number of distinct Romani languages. People from all throughout India came to Anatolia as Muslims conquered northern India about the year 1000 AD. This includes the Roma people, who are supposed to have originated in northern India. Roma arrived westward into Europe approximately 1300 after the Mongolian invasion of Europe and adopted a predominantly nomadic lifestyle.
Scripted in Romani
Some Roma writes in Romani, despite the fact that the language is primarily spoken. It is primarily written in Latin, but it is also written in Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, and Devanagari scripts to a lesser extent. Non-Romani scholars like Andrew Borde compiled word lists in the 16th century, and this was the first time Romani was written down. Several orthographic norms have developed since then, but no single system of spelling has been established.
The Romani Pan-Vlax alphabet
A collection of orthographic methods employed in the study of Romani languages by linguists, this alphabet has a fundamental core of shared graphemes and a few places of minor variance.
Alphabet of the International Romani Union
The Romani language uses this script as its official standard. In 1990, at the Fourth World Romani Congress in Serock, Poland, the language was standardized. Except for Carpathian Romani and Finnish Romani, this alphabet can be used by all Romani languages and dialects. Other names for Romani people include gypsies, Gypsies, Gypsies and Roma, Tsingani in Central and Eastern Europe (and variants), Zangari and gitano in Italy, Gitano in Spain, Gitano and Gitano in Portugal, and Cigano in Portugal.
The Romani people are also known by many other names. In Central and Eastern Europe, the term “Roma” is often used. The Romani in England are known as Romanichal, while those in Scandinavia are known as Romanisl in the Scandinavian Romani dialect. It is Sinti, Manush, Kalo/Kale, and Kalo/Kale for Sinti in Germany, Spain, Wales, and Finland (from Kalo meaning “black” in Romani language). These include Kalderash, Machvaya, Boyish, Lovari, and Modyar clans, as well as the Xoraxai and Lăutari clans.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Rom is both a noun and an adjective in English, while Romany is both a noun and an adjective in the Romany language. Since the late 1800s, both Rom and Romany have been used as synonyms for Gypsy in the English language. This word Romany can also be written as Romani or Rommany. As a way to distinguish from the Romanian endonym (români) for rom and Romani, rrom and rromani are spelled with a doubler. / is also written as rh in various Romani dialects, therefore this is well-established in the Romani language itself as a phoneme representation.
Romani people are commonly referred to as “Roma” in political contexts. Although certain Romani subgroups do not identify as Roma, some scholars avoid using the name Roma because not all Romani subgroups embrace the label. Since the word Romani is used as an adjective by all Romani people, the term has come to refer to the entire ethnic community. There are several organizations that still use the name Romani today; for example, the UN and the US Library of Congress. Roma is a term used by the Council of Europe and other organizations to refer to all Romani people worldwide, however, the Council of Europe recommends that the name “Romani” be limited to those who speak or live in Romani.
Etymology
There is a common etymological root for the Romani names Lom and Dom. Sanskrit oma “a man of low caste, living by singing and music” reflects the Sanskrit oma. However, it is unclear from which Munda or Dravidian language the Sanskrit term “oma” originates. ‘To sound (as a drum)’ is a Sanskrit root, and the word ‘om’ is thought to be a borrowing from Dravidian, as in Kannada ‘Amra’ and Telugu ‘ama’ama, which mean a drum and a tomtom, respectively.
People of Gypsies and Gypsies
The term “Gypsies” is used in this context to mean something quite different. Gypsy can be used in a variety of contexts (disambiguation). Gipsy or Gypsy is a common English term for Romani people, Tinkers, and Travellers; several Romani organizations use it in their own organization names because of its widespread use in modern-day English. Even though some Romani people accept the phrase, others consider it objectionable because of its use as a racist term and a negative connotation signifying illegality and irregularity, according to the speech of those who research the Romani people. Some modern dictionaries advise against using the word gypsy at all, while others label it with caution or a negative connotation.
Bohémiens
The term “Bohémiens” was coined since many Romani immigrants to France had originated from Bohemia. To describe a distinct artistic and impoverished way of life, the French used the term “Bohemianism.”
“We asked several members of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities how they chose to call themselves,” reads a report from the British House of Commons Committee on the inequities experienced by the country’s Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities (released 2019). “Gypsy” is a term that some may find objectionable, yet many stakeholders and witnesses were proud to use this term, therefore we’ve opted to use it in the report whenever it is relevant.
OED defines a “Gipsy” in the Oxford English Dictionary
a member of a migratory race of Indian origin that first arrived in England in the early 16th century. Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare both used the word, which was first used in English in 1514, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). In order to show that it refers to an ethnic group, this exonym is sometimes spelled with a capital letter. The etymology of the Spanish and French words gitano and gitan, as well as the Basque word ijito, is the same.
Use in English legal systems
Under English law, the term “gypsy” can have a variety of different connotations. Caravan sites and control of development Act 1960 defines gypsies as “those of nomadic habitual life, whatever their ethnicity or origin; but does not include members of an organized group of travelling showmen, or persons engaged in the travelling circuses, travelling together as such”. Those that fall under this umbrella term include people who identify with the New Age movement, as well as Irish and Romany immigrants. Since Commission for Racial Equality v Dutton 1989, Romany “Gipsies” and Irish Travellers in England and Wales have been recognized ethnic groups under the Race Relations Act 1976. (having already gained recognition in Northern Ireland in 1997).
There were many different spellings of the name throughout this period: Egyptian, Egyptian, and ‘Egyptian. As a result, the word gypsy/gypsy is sometimes spelled with the beginning g in lowercase, as it was originally spelled with the capital E missing. Other connected stereotypes such as nomadism and exoticism came to be associated with “the gypsy/gypsy” as time went on because of this shift in perception. Gypsies are referred to as “Wise Women” by John Matthews in The World Atlas of Divination. Anyone believed by the speaker to suit the preconceptions of a gypsy is referred to as a gypsy/gypsy.
