The Romani (also spelled Romany; /ˈroʊməni/, /ˈrɒ-/), or Roma, are a traditionally itinerant ethnic

group, living mostly in Europe and the Americas and originating from the northern Indian
subcontinent,[55][56][57] from Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Sindh regions of modern
day India and Pakistan.[56][57] A recent DNA study conducted by Indian and Estonian research facilities
shows that the Roman/Romani/Gypsy and Sinti people originate from the
Untouchable Dalit community from India.[58]
The Romani are widely known among English-speaking people by
the exonym Gypsies (or Gipsies), which some people consider pejorative due to its connotations of
illegality and irregularity.[59] They are a dispersed people, but their most concentrated populations are
located in Europe, especially Central, Eastern and Southern
Europe (including Turkey, Spain and Southern France). The Romani originated in Northern India and
arrived in Mid-West Asia, and Europe around 1,000 years ago.[60] They have been associated with
another Indo-Aryan group, the Dom people: the two groups have been said to have separated from
each other or, at least, to share a similar history.[61] Specifically, the ancestors of both the Romani
and the Dom left North India sometime between the sixth and eleventh century.[60]
Since the 19th century, some Romani have also migrated to the Americas. There are an estimated
one million Roma in the United States;[6] and 800,000 in Brazil, most of whose ancestors emigrated
in the nineteenth century from eastern Europe. Brazil also includes some Romani descended from
people deported by the government of Portugal during the Inquisition in the colonial era.[62] In
migrations since the late nineteenth century, Romani have also moved to other countries in South
America and to Canada.[63][page needed]
In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, the Indian Minister of External
Affairs stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India.[64] The conference
ended with a recommendation to the Government of India to recognize the Roma community spread
across 30 countries as a part of the Indian diaspora.[65]
The Romani language is divided into several dialects, which add up to an estimated number of
speakers larger than two million.[66] 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.[67]

Contents
[hide]

 1Names
o 1.1Exonyms
o 1.2Endonyms
o 1.3Romani usage
o 1.4English usage
o 1.5Other designations
 2Population and subgroups
o 2.1Romani population
o 2.2Romani subgroups
o 2.3Diaspora
 3Origin
o 3.1Shahnameh legend
o 3.2Linguistic evidence
o 3.3Genetic evidence
o 3.4Possible migration route
 4History
o 4.1Arrival in Europe
o 4.2Early Modern history
o 4.3Modern history
 4.3.1World War II
 4.3.2Post-1945
 5Society and traditional culture
o 5.1Belonging and exclusion
o 5.2Religion
 5.2.1Beliefs
 5.2.2Deities and saints
 5.2.3Ceremonies and practices
 5.2.4Balkans
 5.2.5Other regions
o 5.3Music
 6Contemporary art and culture
 7Language
 8Persecutions
o 8.1Historical persecution
o 8.2Forced assimilation
o 8.3Holocaust
 9Contemporary issues
o 9.1Forced repatriation
 10Organizations and projects
 11Artistic representations
 12See also
 13Notes
 14References
 15Sources
 16Further reading
 17External links

Names[edit]
Main article: Names of the Romani people

Exonyms[edit]
 French bohème, bohémien, from the Kingdom of Bohemia, where they were incorrectly believed
to have come from,[68][69] carrying writs of protection from King Sigismund of Bohemia.[70]
 French gitan, English gypsy, Spanish gitano, Italian gitano, Turkish kipti, all
from Greek Αἰγύπτιος Aigýptios "Egyptian" (corrupted form: Γύφτος Gýftos),
and Hungarian fáreónépe from Greek φαραώ pharaó "pharaoh" – referring to their allegedly
Egyptian provenance.[70] Usage of "gypsy" and similarly derived words differs between groups as
some Roma groups use this word as a self-identifier while others consider this word a racial slur.
 English tzigane (for Hungarian
gypsies), Spanish zíngaro, cíngaro or húngaro, French tzigane, Old High
German zigeuner, GermanZigeuner, Dutch zigeuner, Danish sigøjner, Swedish zigenare, Norwe
gian sigøynere Old Church
Slavic ациганинъ atsyganin, Italianzingaro, Romanian țigan, Hungarian cigány, Serbo-
 Croatian cigan, Polish cygan, Czech cikán, Portuguese cigano, Turkish çingene, Slovak cigán or
cigáň, Venetian singano, Russian цыгане tsygane, Ukrainian цигани tsyhany, Lithuanian čigon
ai, Georgian ციგანი; from Greek ἀθίγγανος athínganos (corrupted form: τσιγγάνος tsingános),
"untouchable".[70][71][72][73] Due to the negative connotations of referring to an ethnic group as
"untouchable" words derived from this source are usually considered derogatory and outdated
by modern Roma peoples.
 Arabic Nawar and Zott.
Endonyms[edit]
 Rom means man or husband in the Romani language. It has the variants dom and lom, related
with the Sanskrit words dam-pati(lord of the house, husband), dama (to
subdue), lom (hair), lomaka (hairy), loman, roman (hairy), romaça (man with beard and long
hair).[74]
 Another possible origin is from Sanskrit डोम doma [member of a low caste of travelling
musicians and dancers].
 Sanskrit सिनधु (sindhu) is a river or stream of water in general. In particular, it denotes the
river Indus and the country around it (commonly called Sindh).[75]
Romani usage[edit]
In the Romani language, Rom is a masculine noun, meaning 'man of the Roma ethnic group' or
'man, husband', with the plural Roma. The feminine of Rom in the Romani language is Romni.
However, in most cases, in other languages Rom is now used for people of all genders.[76]
Romani is the feminine adjective, while Romano is the masculine adjective. Some Romanies
use Rom or Roma as an ethnic name, while others (such as the Sinti, or the Romanichal) do not use
this term as a self-ascription for the entire ethnic group.[77]
Sometimes, rom and romani are spelled with a double r, i.e., rrom and rromani. In this case rr is
used to represent the phoneme /ʀ/ (also written as ř and rh), which in some Romani dialects has
remained different from the one written with a single r. The rr spelling is common in certain
institutions (such as the INALCO Institute in Paris), or used in certain countries, e.g., Romania, to
distinguish from the endonym/homonym for Romanians (sg. român, pl. români).[78]

English usage[edit]

A Gypsy wagon pictured in 2009 in Grandborough Fields (Grandborough Fields Road is a popular spot for
travelling people)
In the English language (according to the Oxford English Dictionary), Rom is a noun (with the
plural Roma or Roms) and an adjective, while Romani (Romany) is also a noun (with the
plural Romani, the Romani, Romanies or Romanis) and an adjective. Both Rom and Romani have
been in use in English since the 19th century as an alternative for Gypsy. Romani was initially
spelled Rommany, then Romany, while today the Romani spelling is the most popular spelling.
Occasionally, the double r spelling (e.g., Rroma, Rromani) mentioned above is also encountered in
English texts.
The term Roma is increasingly encountered during recent decades,[79][80] as a generic term for the
Romani people.[81][82][83]
Because all Romanies use the word Romani as an adjective, the term became a noun for the entire
ethnic group.[84] Today, the term Romani is used by some organizations – including the United
Nations and the US Library of Congress.[78] However, the Council of Europe and other organizations
consider that Roma is the correct term referring to all related groups, regardless of their country of
origin, and recommend that Romani be restricted to the language and culture: Romani
language, Romani culture.[76]
The standard assumption is that the demonyms of the Romani people, Lom and Dom share the
same origin.[85][86]

Other designations[edit]
Main article: Names of the Romani people

A Romani wagon in Germany in 1935

The English term Gypsy (or Gipsy) originates from the Middle English gypcian, short for Egipcien.
The Spanish term Gitano and French Gitan have similar etymologies. They are ultimately derived
from the Greek Αιγύπτιοι (Aigyptioi), meaning Egyptian, via Latin. This designation owes its
existence to the belief, common in the Middle Ages, that the Romani, or some related group (such
as the Middle Eastern Dom people), were itinerant Egyptians.[87][88] According to one narrative they
were exiled from Egypt as punishment for allegedly harbouring the infant Jesus.[89] As described
in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the medieval French referred to the
Romanies as Egyptiens. The word Gypsy in English has become so pervasive that many Romani
organizations use it in their own organizational names.
This exonym is sometimes written with capital letter, to show that it designates an ethnic
group.[90] However, the word is sometimes considered derogatory because of its negative and
stereotypical associations.[82][91][92][93] The Council of Europe consider that 'Gypsy' or equivalent terms,
as well as administrative terms such as 'Gens du Voyage' (referring in fact to an ethnic group but not
acknowledging ethnic identification) are not in line with European recommendations.[76] In North
America, the word Gypsy is most commonly used as a reference to Romani ethnicity, though
lifestyle and fashion are at times also referenced by using this word.[94]
Another common designation of the Romani people is Cingane (alt. Tsinganoi, Zigar, Zigeuner),
which likely derives from Athinganoi, the name of a Christian sect with whom the Romani (or some
related group) became associated in the Middle Ages.[88][95][96][97]

Population and subgroups[edit]

Romani population[edit]
Main article: Romani populations
For a variety of reasons, many Romanis choose not to register their ethnic identity in official
censuses. There are an estimated 3.8 million Romani people in Europe (as of 2002),[98]although
some high estimates by Romani organizations give numbers as high as 14 million.[99] Significant
Romani populations are found in the Balkans, in some Central European states, in Spain, France,
Russia and Ukraine. Several million more Romanies may live out of Europe, in particular in the
Middle East and in the Americas.[100]

Romani subgroups[edit]
Like the Roma in general, many different ethnonyms are given to subgroups of Roma. Sometimes a
subgroup uses more than one endonym, is commonly known by an exonym or erroneously by the
endonym of another subgroup. The only name approaching an all-encompassing self-description
is Rom.[101] Even when subgroups don't use the name, they all acknowledge a common origin and a
dichotomy between themselves and Gadjo (non-Roma).[101] For instance, while the main group of
Roma in German-speaking countries refer to themselves as Sinti, their name for their original
language is Romanes.
Subgroups have been described as, in part, a result of the Hindu caste system, which the founding
population of Rom almost certainly experienced in their South Asian urheimat.[101][102]

Debret, Jean-Baptiste (c. 1820), Interior of a gipsy's house in Brazil.

Volkers, Emil (c. 1905), Camping gypsies near Düsseldorf, Germany.

Gypsies camping. Welsh Romanies near Swansea, 1953

Many groups use names apparently derived from the Romani word kalo or calo, meaning "black" or
"absorbing all light".[103] This closely resembles words for "black" or "dark" in Indo-Aryan languages
(e.g., Sanskrit काल kāla: "black", "of a dark colour").[101]Likewise the name of the Dom or Domba
people of North India – to whom the Roma have genetic,[104] cultural and linguistic links – has come
to imply "dark-skinned", in some Indian languages.[105] Hence names such as kale and calé may have
originated as an exonym or a euphemism for Roma.
Other endonyms for Romani include, for example:

 Ashkali (or "Balkan Egyptians" [sic]) – Albanian-speaking Roma communities in the Balkans[106]
 Bashaldé – Hungarian-Slovak Roma diaspora in the US from the late 19th century.[107]
 Calé is the endonym used by both the Spanish Roma (gitanos) and Portuguese
Roma ciganos;[108] Caló is "the language spoken by the calé".
 Erlides (also Arlije, Yerlii or Arli) in Greece
 Kaale, in Finland and Sweden.[108][101]
 Kale, Kalá, or Valshanange – Welsh English endonym used by some Roma clans in
Wales.[109] (Romanichal also live in Wales.)
 Khorakhanè, Horahane or Xoraxai, also known as "Turkish Roma" or "Muslim Roma" – Greek
Roma and Turkish Roma.[101]
 Lalleri, from Austria, Germany, and the western Czech Republic (including the
former Sudetenland).
 Lovari, from Hungary,[110] known in Serbia as Machvaya, Machavaya, Machwaya, or Macwaia. [101]
 Lyuli, in Central Asian countries.
 Rom in Italy.
 Roma in Romania, commonly known by majority ethnic Romanians as Țigani, including many
subgroups defined by occupation:
 Boyash also known as Băieşi, Lingurari, Ludar, Ludari, or Rudari, who coalesced in
the Apuseni Mountains of Transylvania. Boyash or băieşi is a Romanian word for
"miners". Lingurari means "spoon makers",[111] Ludar,Ludari, andRudari may mean
"woodworkers" or "miners".[112] (There is a semantic overlap due to the homophony or
merging of lemmas with different meanings from at least two different languages:
the Serbian rudar miner, and ruda stick, staff, rod, bar, pole (in Hungarian rúd,[113] and
in Romanian rudă.[114]
 Churari,[115] from Romanian Ciurari, "sieve makers", Zlătari "gold smiths"[101]
 Ursari (bear trainers, from Moldovan/Romanian urs "bear"),[101]
 Ungaritza blacksmiths and bladesmiths
  Argintari silversmiths.
 Aurari goldsmiths.
 Florari flower sellers.
 Lăutari singers.
 Kalderash, from Romanian caldarar meaning tinsmith, tinker, kettlemaker; also
in Bessarabia and Ukraine.
 Roma or Romové, Czech Republic
 Roma or Romská, Slovakia
 Romanichal, in the United Kingdom,[108][101] emigrated also to the United States, Canada and
Australia[116]
 Romanisæl, in Norway and Sweden.
 Roms or Manouche (from manush "people" in Romani) in France.[101][117]
 Romungro or Carpathian Romani from eastern Hungary and neighbouring parts of
the Carpathians[118]
 Sinti or Zinti, predominantly in Germany,[108][101] and Northern Italy; Sinti do not refer to themselves
as Roma, although their language is called Romanes.[101]
Diaspora[edit]
Main article: Romani diaspora
The Roma people have a number of distinct populations, the largest being the Roma and the Iberian
Calé or Caló, who reached Anatolia and the Balkans about the early 12th century, from a migration
out of northwestern India beginning about 600 years earlier.[119][120] They settled in present-
day Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary and Slovakia, by
order of volume, and Spain. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and, in the
nineteenth and later centuries, to the Americas. The Romani population in the United States is
estimated at more than one million.[121] Brazil has the second largest Romani population in the
Americas, estimated at approximately 800,000 by the 2011 census. The Romani people are mainly
called by non-Romani ethnic Brazilians as ciganos. Most of them belong to the ethnic
subgroup Calés (Kale), of the Iberian peninsula. Juscelino Kubitschek, Brazilian president during
1956-1961 term, was 50% Czech Romani by his mother's bloodline; and Washington Luís, last
president of the First Brazilian Republic (1926-1930 term), had Portuguese Kale ancestry.
There is no official or reliable count of the Romani populations worldwide.[122] Many Romani refuse to
register their ethnic identity in official censuses for fear of discrimination.[123][better source needed] Others are
descendants of intermarriage with local populations and no longer identify only as Romani, or not at
all.
As of the early 2000s, an estimated 3.8[98][page needed] to 9 million Romani people lived
in Europe and Asia Minor.[124][page needed] although some Romani organizations estimate numbers as high
as 14 million.[125] Significant Romani populations are found in the Balkan peninsula, in some Central
European states, in Spain, France, Russia, and Ukraine. The total number of Romani living outside
Europe are primarily in the Middle East and North Africa and in the Americas, and are estimated in
total at more than two million. Some countries do not collect data by ethnicity.
The Romani people identify as distinct ethnicities based in part on territorial, cultural
and dialectal differences, and self-designation.[126][127][128][129]

Origin[edit]
Main article: Origin of the Romani people
Findings suggest an Indian origin for Roma.[119][120][130] Because Romani groups did not keep
chronicles of their history or have oral accounts of it, most hypotheses about the Romani's migration
early history are based on linguistic theory.[131] There is also no known record of a migration from
India to Europe from medieval times that can be connected indisputably to Roma.[132]

Shahnameh legend[edit]
According to a legend reported in the Persian epic poem, the Shahnameh, from Iran and repeated
by several modern authors, the Sasanian king Bahrām V Gōr learned towards the end of his reign
(421–39) that the poor could not afford to enjoy music, and he asked the king of India to send him
ten thousand luris, male and female lute-playing experts. When the luris arrived, Bahrām gave each
one an ox and a donkey and a donkey-load of wheat so that they could live on agriculture and play
music for free for the poor. But the luris ate the oxen and the wheat and came back a year later with
their cheeks hollowed with hunger. The king, angered with their having wasted what he had given
them, ordered them to pack up their bags and go wandering around the world.[133]

Linguistic evidence[edit]
The linguistic evidence has indisputably shown that the roots of the Romani language lie in India: the
language has grammatical characteristics of Indian languages and shares with them a large part of
the basic lexicon, for example, regarding body parts or daily routines.[134]
More exactly, Romani shares the basic lexicon with Hindi and Punjabi. It shares many phonetic
features with Marwari, while its grammar is closest to Bengali.[135]
Romani and Domari share some similarities: agglutination of postpositions of the second Layer
(or case marking clitics) to the nominal stem, concord markers for the past tense, the neutralisation
of gender marking in the plural, and the use of the oblique case as an accusative.[136] This has
prompted much discussion about the relationships between these two languages. Domari was once
thought to be a "sister language" of Romani, the two languages having split after the departure from
the Indian subcontinent – but more recent research suggests that the differences between them are
significant enough to treat them as two separate languages within the Central zone (Hindustani)
group of languages. The Dom and the Rom therefore likely descend from two different migration
waves out of India, separated by several centuries.[61][137]
In phonology, Romani language shares a number of isoglosses with the Central branch of Indo-
Aryan languages especially in the realization of some sounds of the Old Indo-Aryan. However, it also
preserves a number of dental clusters. In regards to verb morphology, Romani follows the exact
same pattern of northwestern languages such as Kashmiri and Shina through the adoption of
oblique enclitic pronouns as person markers, lending credence to the theory of their Central Indian
origin and a subsequent migration to northwestern India. Though the retention of dental clusters
suggests a break from central languages during the transition from Old to Middle Indo-Aryan, the
overall morphology suggests that the language participated in some of the significant developments
leading toward the emergence of New Indo-Aryan languages.[138] Numerals in
the Romani, Domari and Lomavrenlanguages, with Hindi and Persian forms for comparison.[139] Note
that Romani 7–9 are borrowed from Greek.

Hindi Romani Domari Lomavren Persian

1 ek ekh, jekh yika yak, yek yak, yek

2 do duj dī lui du, do

3 tīn trin tærən tərin se

4 cār štar štar išdör čahār

5 pāñc pandž pandž pendž pandž

6 che šov šaš šeš šaš, šeš

7 sāt ifta xaut haft haft

8 āţh oxto xaišt hašt hašt

9 nau inja na nu nuh, noh

10 das deš des las dah

20 bīs biš wīs vist bist

100 sau šel saj saj sad

Genetic evidence[edit]
Two Gypsies in Spain, by Francisco Iturrino

Genetic findings in 2012 suggest the Romani originated in northwestern India and migrated as a
group.[119][120][140] According to the study, the ancestors of present scheduled tribes and scheduled
caste populations of northern India, traditionally referred to collectively as the Ḍoma, are the likely
ancestral populations of modern European Roma.[141] In December 2012, additional findings
appeared to confirm the "Roma came from a single group that left northwestern India about 1,500
years ago."[120] They reached the Balkans about 900 years ago[119] and then spread throughout
Europe. The team found that, despite some isolation, the Roma were "genetically similar to other
Europeans."[119][120]
Genetic research published in European Journal of Human Genetics "has revealed that over 70% of
males belong to a single lineage that appears unique to the Roma."[142]
Genetic evidence supports the medieval migration from India. The Romani have been described as
"a conglomerate of genetically isolated founder populations,"[143] while a number of
common Mendelian disorders among Romanies from all over Europe indicates "a common origin
and founder effect."[143][144]
A study from 2001 by Gresham et al. suggests "a limited number of related founders, compatible
with a small group of migrants splitting from a distinct caste or tribal group."[145] The same study found
that "a single lineage… found across Romani populations, accounts for almost one-third of Romani
males."[145] A 2004 study by Morar et al. concluded that the Romani population "was founded
approximately 32–40 generations ago, with secondary and tertiary founder events occurring
approximately 16–25 generations ago."[146]
Haplogroup H-M82 is a major lineage cluster in the Balkan Romani group, accounting for
approximately 60% of the total.[147] Haplogroup H is uncommon in Europe but present in the Indian
subcontinent and Sri Lanka.
A study of 444 people representing three different ethnic groups in the Republic of Macedonia found
mtDNA haplogroups M5a1 and H7a1a were dominant in Romanies (13.7% and 10.3%,
respectively).[148]
Y-DNA composition of Romani in the Republic of Macedonia, based on 57 samples:[149]

 Haplogroup H – 59.6%
 Haplogroup E – 29.8%
 Haplogroup I – 5.3%
 Haplogroup R – 3.%, of which the half are R1b and many are R1a
 Haplogroup G – 1.8%

A Roma makes a complaint to a local magistrate in Hungary, by Sándor Bihari, 1886

Y-DNA Haplogroup H1a occurs in Romani at frequencies 7–70%. Unlike ethnic Hungarians, among
Hungarian and Slovakian Romani subpopulations, Haplogroup E-M78 and I1 usually occur above
10% and sometimes over 20%. While among Slovakian and Tiszavasvari Romani the dominant
haplogroup is H1a, among Tokaj Romani is Haplogroup J2a (23%), while
among TaktaharkányRomani is Haplogroup I2a (21%).[150] Five, rather consistent founder lineages
throughout the subpopulations, were found among Romani – J-M67 and J-M92 (J2), H-M52 (H1a1),
and I-P259 (I1?). Haplogroup I-P259 as H is not found at frequencies of over 3 percent among host
populations, while haplogroups E and I are absent in South Asia. The lineages E-V13, I-P37 (I2a)
and R-M17 (R1a) may represent gene flow from the host populations, excluding the Z93 branch of
R1a, which is most frequent among Romani. Bulgarian, Romanian and Greek Romani are
dominated by Haplogroup H-M82 (H1a1), while among Spanish Romani J2 is
prevalent.[151] Among Kosovo and Belgrade Romani Haplogroup H prevails, while
among Vojvodina Romani, H drops to 7% and E-V13 rises to a prevailing level.[152]
Among non-Roma Europeans Haplogroup H is extremely rare, peaking at 7%
among Albanians from Tirana[153] and 11% among Bulgarian Turks. It occurs at 5%
among Hungarians,[150] although the carriers might be of Romani origin.[151] Among non Roma-
speaking Europeans at 2% among Slovaks,[154] 2% among Croats,[155] 1% among Macedonians from
Skopje, 3% among Macedonian Albanians,[156] 1% among Serbs from Belgrade,[157] 3% among
Bulgarians from Sofia,[158] 1% among Austrians and Swiss,[159] 3% among Romanians from Ploiesti,
1% among Turks.[154]

Possible migration route[edit]

They may have emerged from the modern Indian state of Rajasthan,[160] migrating to the northwest
(the Punjab region, Sindh and Baluchistan of the Indian subcontinent) around 250 BC. Their
subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed to have occurred beginning in
about AD 500.[120] It has also been suggested that emigration from India may have taken place in the
context of the raids by Mahmud of Ghazni. As these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west
with their families into the Byzantine Empire.[161] The author Ralph Lilley Turner theorised a central
Indian origin of Romani followed by a migration to Northwest India as it shares a number of ancient
isoglosses with Central Indo-Aryan languages in relation to realization of some sounds of Old Indo-
Aryan. This is lent further credence by its sharing the exact same pattern of northwestern languages
such as Kashmiriand Shina through the adoption of oblique enclitic pronouns as person markers.
The overall morphology suggests that Romani participated in some of the significant developments
leading toward the emergence of New Indo-Aryan languages, thus indicating that the proto-Romani
did not leave the Indian subcontinent until late in the second half of the first millennium.[138]
The migration of the Romanies through the Middle East and Northern Africa to Europe

History[edit]
Main article: History of the Romani people

Arrival in Europe[edit]
Though according to a 2012 genomic study, the Romani reached the Balkans as early as the 12th
century,[162] the first historical records of the Romani reaching south-eastern Europe are from the 14th
century: in 1322 after leaving Ireland on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Irish Franciscan monk Symon
Semeonis encountered a migrant group of Romani outside the town of Heraklion (Candia), in Crete,
calling them "the descendants of Cain"; his account is the earliest surviving description by a Western
chronicler of the Romani in Europe. In 1350 Ludolphus of Sudheim mentioned a similar people with
a unique language whom he called Mandapolos, a word some think derives from the Greek
word mantes (meaning prophet or fortune teller).[163] Around 1360, a fiefdom, called the Feudum
Acinganorum was established in Corfu, which mainly used Romani serfs and to which the Romani
on the island were subservient.[164] By the 1440s, they were recorded in Germany;[165] and by the 16th
century, Scotland and Sweden.[166] Some Romani migrated from Persia through North Africa,
reaching the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. The two currents met in France.[167]
First arrival of the Romanies outside Bern in the 15th century, described by the chronicler as getoufte
heiden("baptized heathens") and drawn with dark skin and wearing Saracen-style clothing and weapons
(Spiezer Schilling, p. 749)

Early Modern history[edit]

An 1852 Wallachian poster advertising an auction of Romani slaves in Bucharest.

Their early history shows a mixed reception. Although 1385 marks the first recorded transaction for a
Romani slave in Wallachia, they were issued safe conduct by Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund in
1417.[168][page needed] Romanies were ordered expelled from the Meissen region of Germany in
1416, Lucerne in 1471, Milan in 1493, France in 1504, Catalonia in 1512, Sweden in
1525, England in 1530 (see Egyptians Act 1530), and Denmark in 1536.[168][page needed] In 1510, any
Romani found in Switzerland were ordered put to death, with similar rules established in England in
1554, and Denmark in 1589, whereas Portugal began deportations of Romanies to its colonies in
1538.[168][page needed]
A 1596 English statute gave Romanies special privileges that other wanderers lacked. France
passed a similar law in 1683. Catherine the Great of Russia declared the Romanies "crown slaves"
(a status superior to serfs), but also kept them out of certain parts of the capital.[169] In 1595, Ştefan
Răzvan overcame his birth into slavery, and became the Voivode (Prince) of Moldavia.[168][page needed]
Since a royal edict by Charles II in 1695, Spanish gypsies had been restricted to certain towns.[170] An
official edict in 1717 restricted them to only 75 towns and districts, so that they would not be
concentrated in any one region. In the Great Gypsy Round-up, Romani were arrested and
imprisoned by the Spanish Monarchy in 1749.
Although some Romani could be kept as slaves in Wallachia and Moldavia until abolition in 1856,
the majority traveled as free nomads with their wagons, as alluded to in the spoked wheel symbol in
the Romanies flag.[171] Elsewhere in Europe, they were subject to ethnic cleansing, abduction of their
children, and forced labor. In England, Romani were sometimes expelled from small communities or
hanged; in France, they were branded and their heads were shaved; in Moravia and Bohemia, the
women were marked by their ears being severed. As a result, large groups of the Romani moved to
the East, toward Poland, which was more tolerant, and Russia, where the Romani were treated
more fairly as long as they paid the annual taxes.[172]

Modern history[edit]
Romani began emigrating to North America in colonial times, with small groups recorded
in Virginia and French Louisiana. Larger-scale Roma emigration to the United States began in the
1860s, with groups of Romanichal from Great Britain. The largest number immigrated in the early
1900s, mainly from the Vlax group of Kalderash. Many Romani also settled in South America.

Sinti and other Romani about to be deported from Germany, May 22, 1940.

World War II[edit]

Main article: Porajmos
During World War II, the Nazis embarked on a systematic genocide of the Romani, a process known
in Romani as the Porajmos.[173]Romanies were marked for extermination and sentenced to forced
labor and imprisonment in concentration camps.
They were often killed on sight, especially by the Einsatzgruppen (paramilitary death squads) on
the Eastern Front.[174] The total number of victims has been variously estimated at between 220,000
and 1,500,000; even the lower figure would make the Porajmos one of the largest mass killings in
history.[175]
The treatment of Romani in Nazi partner states differed markedly. In the Independent State of
Croatia, the separatist Ustasaorganization killed around 25,000 Roma, almost the entire Roma
population. The concentration camp system of Jasenovac, run by the Ustasa militia and the Croat
political police, were responsible for the deaths of between 15,000 and 20,000 Roma.[176]
Post-1945[edit]
In Czechoslovakia, they were labeled a "socially degraded stratum," and Romani women were
sterilized as part of a state policy to reduce their population. This policy was implemented with large
financial incentives, threats of denying future welfare payments, with misinformation, or after
administering drugs.[177][178]
An official inquiry from the Czech Republic, resulting in a report (December 2005), concluded that
the Communist authorities had practiced an assimilation policy towards Romanis, which "included
efforts by social services to control the birth rate in the Romani community. .. The problem of sexual
sterilisation carried out in the Czech Republic, either with improper motivation or illegally, exists,"
said the Czech Public Defender of Rights, recommending state compensation for women affected
between 1973 and 1991.[179] New cases were revealed up until 2004, in both the Czech Republic and
Slovakia. Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland "all have histories of coercive sterilization of
minorities and other groups."[180]

Society and traditional culture[edit]

Main article: Romani society and culture

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Münster, Sebastian (1552), "A Gipsy Family", The Cosmographia(facsimile of a woodcut), Basle.

Nomadic Roma family traveling in Moldavia, 1837

The traditional Romanies place a high value on the extended family. Virginity is essential in
unmarried women. Both men and women often marry young; there has been controversy in several
countries over the Romani practice of child marriage. Romani law establishes that the man's family
must pay a bride price to the bride's parents, but only traditional families still follow this rule.
Once married, the woman joins the husband's family, where her main job is to tend to her husband's
and her children's needs, as well as to take care of her in-laws. The power structure in the traditional
Romani household has at its top the oldest man or grandfather, and men in general have more
authority than women. Women gain respect and authority as they get older. Young wives begin
gaining authority once they have children.
Romani social behavior is strictly regulated by Hindu purity laws[181] ("marime" or "marhime"), still
respected by most Roma (and by most older generations of Sinti). This regulation affects many
aspects of life, and is applied to actions, people and things: parts of the human bodyare considered
impure: the genital organs (because they produce emissions), as well as the rest of the lower body.
Clothes for the lower body, as well as the clothes of menstruating women, are washed separately.
Items used for eating are also washed in a different place. Childbirth is considered impure, and must
occur outside the dwelling place. The mother is considered impure for forty days after giving birth.
Death is considered impure, and affects the whole family of the dead, who remain impure for a
period of time. In contrast to the practice of cremating the dead, Romani dead must be
buried.[182] Cremation and burial are both known from the time of the Rigveda, and both are widely
practiced in Hinduism today (although the tendency is for Hindus to practice cremation, while some
communities in South India tend to bury their dead).[183] Some animals are also considered impure,
for instance cats because they lick their hindquarters. Horses, in contrast, are not considered impure
because they cannot do so.[184]

Belonging and exclusion[edit]

Main articles: Romanipen and Gadjo (non-Romani)
Romanipen (also romanypen, romanipe, romanype, romanimos, romaimos, romaniya) is a
complicated term of Romani philosophy that means totality of the Romani spirit, Romani
culture, Romani Law, being a Romani, a set of Romani strains.
An ethnic Romani is considered a Gadjo (non-Romani) in the Romani society if he has no
Romanipen. Sometimes a non-Romani may be considered a Romani if he has Romanipen. Usually
this is an adopted child. As a concept, Romanipen has been the subject of interest to numerous
academic observers. It has been hypothesized that it owes more to a framework of culture rather
than simply an adherence to historically received rules.[185]

Religion[edit]

Christian Romanies during the pilgrimage at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in France, 1980s

Some Romani people are Christian, others Muslim, some retained their ancient faith
of Hinduism from their original homeland of India, others have their own religion and political
organization.[186]
Beliefs[edit]
The ancestors of modern-day Romani people were previously Hindu, but adopted Christianity or
Islam depending on their respective regions through which they had migrated.[187] Muslim Roma are
found in Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Egypt, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Bulgaria,
forming a very significant proportion of the Romani people. In neighboring countries such
as Greece most of the Romani inhabitants follow the practice of Orthodoxy. It is likely that the
adherence to differing religions prevented families from engaging in intermarriage.[188]