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Gypsy History

Dom Gypsy History

(source: Encyclopedia Americana,
copyright 1992,
excerpted and paraphrased in part from:
volume 13, pgs 646-651;
volume 15, pg 70;
volume 19, pgs 314 & 604-605)

Defining the Gypsies

throughout history, those people called
Gypsies have defied attempts by the outside
world to either totally assimilate nor categorize them

in the vernacular of many different
linguistic groups or areas,
the term has been used, loosely,
to mean anyone living barely within,
or barely outside of
whatever the local laws and/or
customs and traditions dictated

however, a truly nomadic people
of their own right, even before
they ever "left" India, the Gypsies
are clearly definable by BOTH
their own native tongues
and dialects, AND
their traditions.

though of slightly different
geneology, in each case,
these various "bands" or "tribes"
were clearly definable groups,
with definite links and relationships
to each other, including "ethinicity"

Gypsy law, language and culture
are all shared, to varying extents,
commonly enough to show
that true relationships existed
in the form of tribes

Gypsy klans travelled in two
distinct types of groups....
witzus, descended from common
ancestory..
...and...
kumpanias, formed by temporary
allies, and ruled by
CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT

in those groups where
ancestory has been carefully
preserved and protected,
a distinct ethnicity exists, which
crosses international boundaries
and even, to some degree,
hereditary mingling with outsiders
or "Gaje" (literally, foreigners)

their legitimate history has been traced
back to India, and previously
to the Afghanistani plateaus before the
invasion of that area by the
Islamic and Iranian peoples
but possibly continuing and
co-mingling with them in that area
after other ethnicities showed up.

known to always be travellers,
entertainers, tradesmen and merchants,
they have even been traced to
Indo-Aryan languages PRIOR
to their appearance in India

Indo-Arayan languages, the
eastern or Indian (Indic) branch
of the Indo-Iranian subgroup
of the Indo-European language family.
the earliest attested of which was
Vedic Sanskrit.

the Indo-Arayan vernacular
of north central India,
called Hindustani,
gave rise to two separate
languages,
HIndi and Urdu

Hindi is written in a sanskrit alphabet

Urdu utilizes Perso-Arabic script

Long thought to have been
the result of the mingling caused by
Mogul (Mughul) (Persian for Mongol)
period (1526 - 1857),
Hindustani eventually incorporated
elements of Persian and Arabic
influence, however, the original
language of the Gypsies
is also an Indo-Aryan language,
and just WHY Mongols were called
by a Persian name in INDIA
is another riddle of antiquity.
((LOL))

Could this be because the Gypsy
name for them was what they
came to be called IN India,
and the Gypsy tongue already
included elements of Arabic and Persian?

Gypsies are NOTORIOUS for
being able to converse freely with
new peoples in new lands as they
travelled.... words such as "master",
"school", "motor" and "bus"....
after all, what's a word
stolen here or there......?

>wink<

after all... many of them were
subsequently passed on to OTHER
languages.... such as "pajama",
"thug" and "cot"

even the usage of
the future-tense forms of verbs,
used to show BOTH the
narrative of a future action
OR the possibility of that
action in the present tense,
is a shared linguistic element,
traceable back to Indo-Aryan
root languages, like that of
the Gypsies

there is evidence that, originally,
the Rom of India were a warrior caste
while the Dom was a slave caste

(evidence this letter,
excerpted from
http://www.aloha.net/~bohem/romrroma.html )

An Appeal from Dr. W. R. Rishi
Roma - Descendants of Warrior Classes of India

Interdisciplinary research in India and abroad by prominent linguists and scholars have proved beyond doubt that the Roma are, mainly, the descendants of people of warrior classes of North-India - Kshatriyas, Rajputs, and Jats. A large number of Rajput and Jat soldiers, as also their families, were taken prisoners by the Muslim invaders. The emigrants were not only Rajputs and Jats and Khatris (Kshatriyas), the rulers of principalities and heads of republics and the fighters. In order to be self-sufficient and to allow inner mobility, they attracted men and women from all of the populations groups of India.

They are called by different names in different countries. To denote them as a nation, they adopted for themselves the name Roma (singular Rom). A resolution to this effect was passed at the First World Romani Congress at London in 1971, which was attended by me. The name has been registered with International bodies like the UN, UNESCO, ECOSOC, and THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION.

Please do not - repeat - not connect them with the Doms, a lower case in India. Please do not distort their name to be pronounced and written as "Rrom" and thus do not falsify their history. It is the duty if Romani media to use ROM as their proper name and not "Rrom" as wrongly advocated by so called "neo-linguists".

Opre Roma! Higher, and still higher, Roma!

Padmashri Dr. W.R. Rishi
Director, Indian Institute of Romani Studies, Chandigarh, India
Honorary President, International Romani Union

from Roma Nos 42-43, January-July 1995

WE know that the caste system
in India was unbreakable
for centuries, even before Christ...
so.. if the Rom were NOT "Dom"
just who were they....?

consider this definition, excerpted
from The New Webster Encyclopedic
Dictionary of the English Language
ISBN: 0-517-328763

dominant: [Latin, dominans, ppr. of dominor,
to rule, from dominus, lord, master. DAME.}
Tuling; prevailing; governing; predominant.

how DIFFERENT that definition
is from the Dom caste definition
in India.... yet... an apparent
root word connection... "Dom-inate"

could it be that "Dom" was a TITLE
proffered UPON the "Rom" ?

WHERE did the Romans GET the
root word "dom" ? from the Greek?
where did THEY get it,
and just HOW FAR BACK?

now, just WHERE did Cleopatra's
ancestors from....?

Cleopatra was Macedonian, Greek and Iranian

interesting mix, no?

perhaps, in order to understand this
mixture, we should look at the
trade routes, and WHO was travelling
them in those years before Cleopatra's
entrance into history.... yes?

is it plausible that the Rom was
a warrior caste, LONG before
this period of time...?

being "warriors", what do
warriors do...?
fight? who? where?

why would they make forays deeper
into what was already an impoverished
penninsula? would they NOT have ventured
northward and then westward?
WHO did the Iranians and Islamic
people INVADE when they entered
the plateaus of Afghanistan?
what WEALTH did they finally
see in those lands
that they hadn't seen before.....?

is it just POSSIBLE that the Rom,
setting out to conquor, found that
MERCHANDISING was better,
conquoring by trade....?

the connections between Rom and
Iran and Greece and Macedonia
have been established, unarguably
during LATTER years....

but... if there WAS a connection
before Cleopatra, would it NOT have
had to have been FACILITATED by
caravans from the "East" ?

what other trades generally go along
with "a warrior caste" ??
inventiveness..? metal working?
horse training and trading?
"camp entertainment"?
(in those days) "sorcery"?
training of and owning hunting dogs?

were not "warrior castes"
BORN from hunters...?

remember... Gypsie people are
NOTORIOUS for "living off the land"
and being able to communicate
EASILY with each new set of
foreigners AS they were encountered?

could this be because they had
already mingled tongues?

or, perhaps the old legend that
our people were hunting the day
the Lord destroyed the tower of Babel
are true, after all.... >weg<

it is MORE likely that, once
Rom had moved north, and then
become the PRINCIPLE toll road
and "truck drivers" of the
caravan set, they already had
enough access to other languages,
INCLUDING Greek and Macedonian

remember.... (in 105 AD, Nabataea was annexed by Trajan, and in 106 AD it became the Roman province of Arabia. the original written vernacular language of the area was written in a cursive script, derived from Aramaic characters, Aramaic being the language purportedly spoken by Jesus Christ.) ( pg 1)

now.. wasn't Aramaic a "blend"
of Greek, Samatran, Arabic
AND Hebrew??

our trustee The New Webster Encyclopedic
Dictionary of the English Language
ISBN: 0-517-328763
gives the following definition....

Aramaic [From Aram, a son of Shem,
the supposed ancestor of the
Chaldeans and Syrians.] A language
or group of languages anciently
spoken in Syria, the earliest
specimens being the Chaldee
passages in the Old Testament
and Apocrypha; Chaldaic, Chaldee

interesting.. a blended language,
pre-dating Jesus Christ....

also, interestingly, Chaldean was
the language along the Euphrates....
with all of the human life along
this important river, wouldn't
it be profitable for the Caravans to
visit there....? or.. perhaps,
in an earlier time, the ancestors
of the Rom came from there....

SOMEONE had to carry the
language to others....

evidence THIS definition from
The New Webster Encyclopedic
Dictionary of the English Language
ISBN: 0-517-328763

tiger: [French tigre,
from Latin and Greek, tigris, a tiger,
from Old Persian , tigrâ, an arrow]
a large and dreaded carnivorous mammal
of the cat family found in Southern Asia, etc

THEN consider this....
excerpted from
Encyclopedia Americana,
copyright 1992,
volume 26, pg 742

Tigris River, the principal stream of the Shatt al-Arab river system, in the Middle East. The Tigris (Arabic, Dijla, Turkish, Dicle) is about 1,270 miles long and its 43,110 square mile drainage basin includes portions of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. In Iraq, the floodplain of the Tigris forms part of the ancient region known as Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization in the Middle East and the site of the great Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian states.

now, let me see if i have this straight...

an ANCIENT Persian word (where was Persia?
it is now commonly considered to be
modern Iran and parts of Iraq),
meaning, "straight like an arrow",
derivities of which have been applied
to BOTH a river in the Middle East
(an important trade route and caravan
watering hole) AND a vicious member
of the cat family
from SOUTHERN ASIA....

what's the furthest Southern point in
Asia?.... the penninsula of India

actually, Tigers range from
Turkey to India.... but....

SOMEONE had to spread "the word" no?

ok... so we have the Rom (didn't Rome
have a legend about Rom-ulus and Remus?)
being a warrior caste from India, who moved
northward INTO the "trade route" right of way,
who were skilled in many different arts, not
the least of which was blacksmithing,
becoming the principle toll road gate
and oasis keepers AND those who
mostly travelled those routes, since
they KNEW where the oasises and
routes were, commonly obtaining and
sharing languages along WITH their
merchandise, BEFORE the time of
Cleopatra OR Jesus Christ....
possibly involved in BOTH of
those historical figures' lives
AND LANGUAGES....

who, possibly, suddenly
had a relative married
to Pharoh....

wanna know more?
read on, travellers....
the Gypsy Dom