The 

Romani (also spelled Romany /ˈroʊməni/, /ˈrɒ-/), colloquially known as Roma, are an Indo-

Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants living mostly in Europe, and diaspora populations in
the Americas. The Romani as a people originate from the northern Indian subcontinent,[69][70][71] from
the Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab regions of modern-day India.[70][71]
The Romani people are widely known in English by the exonym Gypsies (or Gipsies),[72] which is
considered by many Romani people to be pejorative due to its connotations of illegality and irregularity
as well as its historical use as a racial slur.[73][74][75] In many other languages, regarding cognates of the
word, such as French: Tzigane, Spanish: gitano, Italian: zingaro and Portuguese: cigano, this
perception is either very small or non-existent.[76][77] At the first World Romani Congress in 1971, it was
unanimously voted to reject all exonyms for the Romani people, including Gypsy for its aforementioned
negative and stereotypical connotations.[74]
Linguistic and genetic evidence suggest that the Roma as a people originated from the northern Indian
subcontinent.[69][70][71] They are dispersed, but their most concentrated populations are located in Europe,
especially Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (including Southern France), as well as Western
Asia (mainly Turkey). The Romani people arrived in West Asia and Europe around the 14th century.[78]
Since the 19th century, some Romani people 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 19th century from Eastern Europe. Brazil also includes a notable Romani community
descended from people deported by the Portuguese Empire during the Portuguese Inquisition.[79] In
migrations since the late 19th century, Romani people have also moved to other countries in South
America and to Canada.[80][page  needed]
The Romani language is divided into several dialects, which together are estimated to have more than
two million speakers.[81] Many Romani people are native speakers of the dominant language in their
country of residence or of mixed languages combining the dominant language with a dialect of Romani;
those varieties are sometimes called Para-Romani.[82]

Contents

 1Names
o 1.1Endonyms
o 1.2Romani usage
o 1.3English usage
o 1.4Other 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
 3.3.1Turkish and Tatar Y-DNA genes of the Muslim Roma
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
 6Cuisine
 7Contemporary art and culture
 8Language
 9Persecutions
o 9.1Historical persecution
o 9.2Forced assimilation
o 9.3Porajmos (Holocaust)
 10Contemporary issues
o 10.1Forced repatriation
 11Organizations and projects
 12Artistic representations
 13See also
 14Notes
 15References
 16Sources
 17Further reading
 18External links

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

Endonyms[edit]
Rom means husband in the Romani language. It has the variants dom and lom, which may be related
to 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).
[83]
 Another possible origin is from Sanskrit डोम doma (member of a low caste of travelling musicians and
dancers).

Romani usage[edit]
In the Romani language, Rom is a masculine noun, meaning 'husband of the Roma ethnic group', with
the plural Roma. The feminine of Rom in the Romani language is Romni /Romli/Romnije or Romlije.
However, in most cases, in other languages Rom is now used for people of both genders.[84]
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.[85]
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).[86]

English usage[edit]
A Romani wagon pictured in 2009 in Grandborough Fields in Warwickshire (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.[87] Romani was sometimes
spelled Rommany, but more often Romany, while today Romani 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[88][89] as a generic term for the Romani people.[90][91][92]
Because not all Romani people use the word Romani as an adjective, the term became a noun for the
entire ethnic group.[93] Today, the term Romani is used by some organizations, including the United
Nations and the US Library of Congress.[86] 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.[84]
The standard assumption is that the demonyms of the Romani people, Lom and Dom, share the same
origin.[94][95]

Other designations[edit]
Main article: Names of the Romani people
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.[96][97] This belief appears to be derived from verses in
the Biblical Book of Ezekiel (29: 6 and 12–13) which refer to the Egyptians being scattered among the
nations by an angry God. According to one narrative, they were exiled from Egypt as punishment for
allegedly harbouring the infant Jesus.[98] In his book The Zincali: an account of the Gypsies of Spain,
George Borrow notes that when they first appeared in Germany, it was under the character of
Egyptians doing penance for their having refused hospitality to Mary and her son. As described in Victor
Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the medieval French referred to the Romanies
as Egyptiens.
This exonym is sometimes written with capital letter, to show that it designates an ethnic group.
[99]
 However, the word is considered derogatory because of its negative and stereotypical associations.[91]
[100][101][102]
 The Council of Europe consider that "Gypsy" or equivalent terms, as well as administrative
terms such as "Gens du Voyage" are not in line with European recommendations.[84] 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.[103]
Another common designation of the Romani people is Cingane (alt. Tsinganoi, Zigar, Zigeuner,
Tschingaren), 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.[97][104][105][106]
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 10 million Romani people in Europe (as of 2019),[107] although some high
estimates by Romani organizations give numbers as high as 14 million.[108] Significant Romani
populations are found in the Balkans, in some Central European states, in Spain, France, Russia and
Ukraine. In the European Union, there are an estimated 6 million Romanis.[109] Several million more
Romanis may live outside Europe, in particular in the Middle East and in the Americas.[110]

Romani subgroups[edit]
See also: Romani people in Poland and Polska Roma

This section may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Please

consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or
adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk
page. (February 2021)

Three Finnish Romani women in Helsinki, Finland, in 1930s.

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.[111] Even when subgroups do not use the name, they all acknowledge a common origin and a
dichotomy between themselves and Gadjo (non-Roma).[111] 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 castes and subcastes in India, which the
founding population of Rom almost certainly experienced in their South Asian urheimat.[111][112]
Debret, Jean-Baptiste  (c. 1820),  Interior of a gipsy's house in Brazil.

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". This closely resembles words for "black" or "dark" in Indo-Aryan
languages (e.g. Sanskrit काल kāla: "black", "of a dark colour").[111] Likewise, the name of the Dom or
Domba people of North India – to whom the Roma have genetic,[113] cultural and linguistic links – has
come to imply "dark-skinned", in some Indian languages.[114] 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 – Albanian-speaking Muslim Roma communities in the Balkans[115]

 Arlije (also Erlides, Yerli meaning sedentary, from the Turkish word Yerli)
in Balkans and Turkey to describe sedentary Muslim roma.
 Bashaldé – Hungarian-Slovak Roma diaspora in the US from the late 19th century.[116]
 Çerge also Čergarja (Nomad), Nomadic Lifestyle Muslim Roma at Balkans and Turkey.
 Calé is the endonym used by both the Spanish Roma (gitanos) and Portuguese
Roma ciganos;[117] Caló is "the language spoken by the calé".
 Dasikane or Daskane, meaning slaves or servants, a Religionym and confessionym for
Orthodox Christian Roma in the Balkans.[111]
 Sepečides meaning Basketmaker, muslim roma in west thrace greece.
 Kaale, in Finland and Sweden.[117][111]
 Garachi Shia Islam followers Roma people in Azerbaijan
 Gurbeti Muslim Roma in Northern Cyprus and Balkans.
 Kale, Kalá, or Valshanange – Welsh English endonym used by some Roma clans in Wales.
[118]
 (Romanichal also live in Wales.) Romani in Spain are also attributed to the Kale.[12]
 Horahane or Xoraxai, also known as "Turkish Roma", Muslim Roma, a Religionym and
confessionym in the Balkans for Muslim Romani people. [111]
 Lalleri, from Austria, Germany, and the western Czech Republic (including the
former Sudetenland).
 Lovari, from Hungary,[119] known in Serbia as Machvaya, Machavaya, Machwaya,
or Macwaia. [111]
 Lyuli, in Central Asian countries.
 Romanlar in Turkey, Turkish speaking Muslim roma in Turkey, also called Çingene or
Şopar, with all subgroups, who named after their professions, like:
o Cambazı (Acrobatics and Horse trading)
o Sünnetçi (Circumciser), like a Mohel)
o Kuyumcu (Goldsmith)
o Subaşı (Water carrier)
o Çiçekçi (Flower seller)
o Sepetçi (Basketmaker)
o Ayıcı (Bear-leader)
o Kalaycı (Tinsmith)
 o Müzisyen (Musician)
o Şarkıcı (Singer)
o Demirci (Blacksmith) etc., but the majority of Turkish Roma works as Day
labor too.[111]
 Rom in Italy.
 Roma in Romania, commonly known by majority ethnic Romanians as Țigani, including
many subgroups defined by occupation:
o Boyash, also known as Băieși, Lingurari, Ludar, Ludari, or Rudari, who
coalesced in the Apuseni Mountains of Transylvania. Băieși is a Romanian
word for "miners". Lingurari means "spoon makers",[120] Ludar, Ludari,
and Rudari may mean "woodworkers" or "miners".[121] (There is a semantic
overlap due to the homophony or merging of lemmas with different meanings
from at least two languages: the Serbian rudar miner, and ruda stick, staff, rod,
bar, pole (in Hungarian rúd,[122] and in Romanian rudă).[123])
o Churari,[124] from Romanian Ciurari, "sieve makers", Zlătari "gold smiths"[111]
o Ursari (bear trainers, from Moldovan/Romanian urs "bear"),[111]
o Ungaritza blacksmiths and bladesmiths[125]
o Argintari silversmiths.[125]
o Aurari goldsmiths.[125]
o Florari flower sellers.[125]
o Lăutari singers.[125]
o Kalderash, from Romanian căldărar, lit. bucketmaker, meaning kettlemaker,
tinsmith, tinker; also in Moldova and Ukraine.[125]
 Roma or Romové, Czech Republic
 Roma or Rómovia, Slovakia
 Romanichal, in the United Kingdom,[117][111] emigrated also to the United States, Canada and
Australia[126]
 Romanisæl, in Norway and Sweden.
 Roms or Manouche (from manush "people" in Romani) in France.[111][127]
 Romungro or Carpathian Romani from eastern Hungary and neighbouring parts of
the Carpathians[128]
 Sinti or Zinti, predominantly in Germany,[117][111][129] and Northern Italy; Sinti do not refer to
themselves as Roma, although their language is called Romanes.[111]
 Zargari people, Shia Muslim Roma in Iran, who once came from Rumelia/Southern Bulgaria
from the Maritsa Valley in Ottoman Time and settled in Persia.
Diaspora[edit]
Main article: Romani diaspora

Countries with a significant Romani population according to unofficial estimates.

  + 1,000,000
  + 100,000
  + 10,000
Romani Girl

The Roma people have a number of distinct populations, the largest being the Roma who
reached Anatolia and the Balkans about the early 12th century from a migration out of northwestern
India beginning about 600 years earlier.[130][131] They settled in the areas that are now Turkey, Greece,
Serbia, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Hungary, Slovakia and Spain, by order of
volume. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and Iberian Calé or Caló, and, in the
nineteenth and later centuries, to the Americas. The Romani population in the United States is
estimated at more than one million.[132] 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 ciganos by non-Romani ethnic Brazilians. 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.[133] Many Romani refuse to
register their ethnic identity in official censuses for fear of discrimination.[134][better  source  needed] Others are
descendants of intermarriage with local populations, some who no longer identify only as Romani and
some who don't identify as Romani at all.
As of the early 2000s, an estimated 3.8[135][page  needed] to 9 million Romani people lived in Europe and Asia
Minor,[136][page  needed] although some Romani organizations estimate numbers as high as 14 million.
[137]
 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.[138][139][140][141]

Origin[edit]
Main article: History of the Romani people
Genetic findings suggest an Indian origin for Roma.[130][131][142] 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.[143] There is also no known record of a migration from India to
Europe from medieval times that can be connected indisputably to Roma.[144]

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–
439) that the poor could not afford to enjoy music, and he asked the king of India to send him ten
thousand luris, lute-playing experts. When the luris arrived, Bahrām gave each one an ox, a donkey,
and a donkey-load of wheat so that they could live on agriculture and play music for free for the poor.
However, 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 on their donkeys.[145]

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.[146]
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.[147] 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 later 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 migration waves out of India, separated by several
centuries.[148][149]
In phonology, the Romani language shares several 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 several dental clusters. In regards to verb morphology, Romani follows exactly the 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.[150] Numerals in
the Romani, Domari and Lomavren languages, with Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali and Persian forms for
comparison.[151]

Language
s Hind Bengal
Sanskrit Romani Domari Lomavren Persian
i i
Numbers

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

2 dvá do dui duj dī lui du, do

3 trí tīn tin trin tærən tərin se

4 catvā́ raḥ cār char štar štar išdör čahār

5 páñca pā̃c panch pandž pandž pendž pandž

6 ṣáṭ chah chhoy šov šaš šeš šeš

7 saptá sāt sāt ifta xaut haft haft

8 aṣṭá āṭh āṭh oxto xaišt hašt hašt

 9 náva nau noy inja na nu noh

10 dáśa das dosh deš des las dah

20 viṃśatí bīs bish biš wīs vist bist

100 śatá sau eksho 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.
[130][131][152]
 According to the study, the ancestors of present scheduled castes and scheduled
tribes populations of northern India, traditionally referred to collectively as the Ḍoma, are the likely
ancestral populations of modern European Roma.[153]
In December 2012, additional findings appeared to confirm the "Roma came from a single group that
left northwestern India about 1,500 years ago".[131] They reached the Balkans about 900 years
ago[130] and then spread throughout Europe. The team also found the Roma to display genetic isolation,
as well as "differential gene flow in time and space with non-Romani Europeans".[130][131]
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".[154]
Genetic evidence supports the medieval migration from India. The Romani have been described as "a
conglomerate of genetically isolated founder populations",[129] while a number of
common Mendelian disorders among Romanies from all over Europe indicates "a common origin
and founder effect".[129] A 2020 whole-genome study confirmed the Northwest Indian origins, and also
confirmed substantial Balkan and Middle Eastern ancestry.[155]
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".[156] The same study found that "a
single lineage... found across Romani populations, accounts for almost one-third of Romani males".
[156]
 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".[157]
Haplogroup H-M82 is a major lineage cluster in the Balkan Romani group, accounting for approximately
60% of the total.[158] Haplogroup H is uncommon in Europe but present in the Indian subcontinent
and Sri Lanka.
A study of 444 people representing three ethnic groups in North Macedonia found mtDNA haplogroups
M5a1 and H7a1a were dominant in Romanies (13.7% and 10.3%, respectively).[159]
Y-DNA composition of Muslim Romani people from Šuto Orizari Municipality in North Macedonia, based
on 57 samples:[160]

 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 Taktaharkány Romani
is Haplogroup I2a (21%).[161] 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. Bulgarian, Romanian and Greek Romani are dominated by Haplogroup
H-M82 (H1a1), while among Spanish Romani J2 is prevalent.
[162]
 In Serbia among Kosovo[a] and Belgrade Romani Haplogroup H prevails, while
among Vojvodina Romani, H drops to 7 percent and E-V13 rises to a prevailing level.[163]
Among non-Roma Europeans Haplogroup H is extremely rare, peaking at 7 percent
among Albanians from Tirana[164] and 11 percent among Bulgarian Turks. It occurs at 5 percent
among Hungarians,[161] although the carriers might be of Romani origin.[162] Among non Roma-speaking
Europeans at 2 percent among Slovaks,[165] 2 percent among Croats,[166] 1 percent among Macedonians
from Skopje, 3 percent among Macedonian Albanians,[167] 1 percent among Serbs from Belgrade,[168] 3
percent among Bulgarians from Sofia,[169]
Turkish and Tatar Y-DNA genes of the Muslim Roma[edit]
When the Balkans and Dobruja were part of the Ottoman Empire, there was Turkish and Tatar
influence in the Muslim Roma group. Muslim Romani women had children from Turks and Tatars.[170]

Possible migration route[edit]

The migration of the Romanis through the Middle East and Northern Africa to Europe

The Romani may have emerged from what is the modern Indian state of Rajasthan,[171] migrating to the
northwest (the Punjab region, Sindh and Baluchistan of the Indian subcontinent) around 250 BCE. Their
subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed to have occurred beginning in
about 500 CE.[131] 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.[172] 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 exactly the same pattern of northwestern
languages such as Kashmiri and 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.[150]
[173]

In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, then Indian Minister of External
Affairs, Sushma Swaraj stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India.[174] 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.[175]

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

Arrival in Europe[edit]
According to a 2012 genomic study, the Romani reached the Balkans as early as the 12th century.[130] A
document of 1068, describing an event in Constantinople, mentions "Atsingani", probably referring to
Romani.[176]
Later 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 friar Symon
Semeonis encountered a migrant group of Romani outside the town of Candia (modern Heraklion),
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, Ludolph of Saxony 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).[177]
In the 14th century, Romani are recorded in Venetian territories, including Methoni and Nafplio in
the Peloponnese, and Corfu.[176] 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.[178]
By the 1440s, they were recorded in Germany;[179] and by the 16th century, Scotland and Sweden.
[180]
 Some Romani migrated from Persia through North Africa, reaching the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th
century. The two currents met in France.[181]

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 [182]

Early modern history[edit]

Gypsy Family in Prison, 1864 painting by Carl d´Unker. An actual imprisoned family in Germany served as the
models. The reason for their imprisonment remains unknown

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.
Romanis 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. From 1510 onwards, any Romani found in
Switzerland were to be executed; while in England (beginning in 1554) and Denmark (beginning of
1589) any Romani which did not leave within a month were to be executed. Portugal began
deportations of Romanis to its colonies in 1538.[183]
A 1596 English statute gave Romanis special privileges that other wanderers lacked. France passed a
similar law in 1683. Catherine the Great of Russia declared the Romanis "crown slaves" (a status
superior to serfs), but also kept them out of certain parts of the capital.[184] In 1595, Ștefan
Răzvan overcame his birth into slavery, and became the Voivode (Prince) of Moldavia.[183]
An 1852 Wallachian poster advertising an auction of Romani slaves in Bucharest

Since a royal edict by Charles II in 1695, Spanish Romanis had been restricted to certain towns.[185] 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.
During the latter part of the 17th century, around the Franco-Dutch War, both France and Holland
needed thousands of men to fight. Some recruitment took the form of rounding up vagrants and the
poor to work the galleys and provide the armies' labour force. With this background, Romanis were
targets of both the French and the Dutch.
After the wars, and into the first decade of the 18th century, Romanis were slaughtered with impunity
throughout Holland. Romanis, called ‘heiden’ by the Dutch, wandered throughout the rural areas of
Europe and became the societal pariahs of the age. Heidenjachten, translated as "heathen hunt"
happened throughout Holland in an attempt to eradicate them.[186]
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 Romani flag.[187] Elsewhere in Europe, they were subjected to ethnic cleansing, abduction of their
children, and forced labour. 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.[188]

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 Romanichal groups from Great Britain. The most significant number immigrated in the early
20th century, mainly from the Vlax group of Kalderash. Many Romani also settled in South America.

Sinti and other Romani about to be deported from Germany, 22 May 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.[189] 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.[190] The total number of victims
has been variously estimated at between 220,000 and 1,500,000.[191]
The Romani people were also persecuted in Nazi puppet states. In the Independent State of Croatia,
the Ustaša killed almost the entire Roma population of 25,000. The concentration camp system
of Jasenovac, run by the Ustaša militia and the Croat political police, were responsible for the deaths of
between 15,000 and 20,000 Roma.[192]
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.[193][194]
An official inquiry from the Czech Republic, resulting in a report (December 2005), concluded that the
Communist authorities had practised 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.[195] 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".[196]

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 it.
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 and 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 power as they get older. Young wives begin gaining authority once
they have children.
Traditionally, as can be seen on paintings and photos, some Roma men wear shoulder-length hair and
a mustache, as well as an earring. Roma women generally have long hair, and Xoraxane Roma women
often dye it blonde with henna.
Romani social behavior is strictly regulated by Indian social customs[197] ("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 body are considered impure:
the genital organs (because they produce emissions) and 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 deemed to be 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.[198] 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).[199] Animals that are considered to be having unclean habits are not eaten by the
community.[200]

Belonging and exclusion[edit]

Main articles: Romanipen and Gadjo (non-Romani)
In Romani
philosophy, Romanipen (also romanypen, romanipe, romanype, romanimos, romaimos, romaniya) is
the totality of the Romani spirit, Romani culture, Romani Law, being a Romani, a set of Romani strains.
An ethnic Romani is considered a gadjo in the Romani society if they have no Romanipen. Sometimes
a non-Romani may be considered a Romani if they do have Romanipen. Usually this is an adopted
child. It has been hypothesized that this owes more to a framework of culture than a simple adherence
to historically received rules.[201]

Religion[edit]

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

Two Orthodox Christian Romanies in Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Romani and bear (Belgrade, Banovo brdo, 1980s)

Most Romani people are Christian,[202] others Muslim; some retained their ancient faith of Hinduism from
their original homeland of India, while others have their own religion and political organization.
[203]
 Theravada Buddhism influenced by the Dalit Buddhist movement have become popular in recent
times among Hungarian Roma.[67][68]
Beliefs[edit]
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The ancestors of modern-day Romani people were Hindu, but adopted Christianity or Islam depending
on the regions through which they had migrated.[204] Muslim Roma are found in Turkey, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Albania, Egypt, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Iran, forming a very
significant proportion of the Romani people. In neighboring countries such as Romania and Greece,
most Romani inhabitants follow the practice of Orthodoxy. It is likely that the adherence to differing
religions prevented families from engaging in intermarriage.[205]
Members of the Cofradía de los Gitanos parading the "throne" of Mary of the O during the Holy Week in Malaga,
Spain

Deities and saints[edit]

Blessed Ceferino Giménez Malla is recently considered a patron saint of the Romani people in Roman
Catholicism.[206] Saint Sarah, or Sara e Kali, has also been venerated as a patron saint in her shrine
at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France. Since the turn of the 21st century, Sara e Kali is understood to
have been Kali, an Indian deity brought from India by the refugee ancestors of the Roma people; as the
Roma became Christianized, she was absorbed in a syncretic way and venerated as a saint.[207]

Gypsy fortune-teller in Poland, by Antoni Kozakiewicz, 1884

Saint Sarah is now increasingly being considered as "a Romani Goddess, the Protectress of the Roma"
and an "indisputable link with Mother India".[207][208]
Ceremonies and practices[edit]
Romanies often adopt the dominant religion of their host country in case a ceremony associated with a
formal religious institution is necessary, such as a baptism or funeral (their particular belief systems and
indigenous religion and worship remain preserved regardless of such adoption processes). The Roma
continue to practice "Shaktism", a practice with origins in India, whereby a female consort is required for
the worship of a god. Adherence to this practice means that for the Roma who worship the Christian
God, prayer is conducted through the Virgin Mary, or her mother, Saint Anne. Shaktism continues over
one thousand years after the people's separation from India.[209]
Aside from Roma elders (who serve as spiritual leaders), priests, churches, and bibles do not exist
among the Romanies – the only exception is the Pentecostal Roma.[209]
Balkans[edit]

Costume of a Romani woman

For the Roma communities that have resided in the Balkans for numerous centuries, often referred to
as "Turkish Gypsies", the following histories apply for religious beliefs:

 Albania – The majority of Albania's Roma people are Muslims.[210]

 Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro – Islam is the dominant religion among the
Roma.[211]
 Bulgaria – In northwestern Bulgaria, in addition to Sofia and Kyustendil, Christianity is the
dominant faith among Romani people (a major conversion to Eastern Orthodox Christianity
 among Romani people has occurred). In southeastern Bulgaria, Islam is the dominant
religion among Romani people, with a smaller section of the Romani population declaring
themselves as "Turks", continuing to mix ethnicity with Islam.[211]
 Croatia – Following the Second World War, a large number of Muslim Roma relocated to
Croatia (the majority moving from Kosovo).[211]
 Greece – The descendants of groups, such as Sepečides or Sevljara, Kalpazaja, Filipidži
and others, living in Athens, Thessaloniki, central Greece and Greek Macedonia are mostly
Orthodox Christians, with Islamic beliefs held by a minority of the population. Following the
Peace Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, many Muslim Roma moved to Turkey in the
subsequent population exchange between Turkey and Greece.[211]

Muslim Romanies in Bosnia and Herzegovina (around 1900)

 Kosovo – The vast majority of the Roma population in Kosovo is Muslim.[211]

 North Macedonia – The majority of Roma people are followers of Islam.[211]
 Romania – According to the 2002 census, the majority of the Romani minority living in
Romania are Orthodox Christians, while 6.4% are Pentecostals, 3.8% Roman Catholics,
3% Reformed, 1.1% Greek Catholics, 0.9% Baptists, 0.8% Seventh-Day Adventists.
[212]
 In Dobruja, there is a small community that are Muslim and also speak Turkish.[211]
 Serbia – Most Roma people in Serbia are Orthodox Christian, but there are some Muslim
Roma in Southern Serbia, who are mainly refugees from Kosovo.[211]
Other regions[edit]
In Ukraine and Russia, the Roma populations are also Muslim as the families of Balkan migrants
continue to live in these locations. Their ancestors settled on the Crimean peninsula during the 17th
and 18th centuries, but then migrated to Ukraine, southern Russia and the Povolzhie (along the Volga
River). Formally, Islam is the religion that these communities align themselves with and the people are
recognized for their staunch preservation of the Romani language and identity.[211]
In Poland and Slovakia, their populations are Roman Catholic, many times adopting and following local,
cultural Catholicism as a syncretic system of belief that incorporates distinct Roma beliefs and cultural
aspects. For example, many Polish Roma delay their Church wedding due to the belief that
sacramental marriage is accompanied by divine ratification, creating a virtually indissoluble union until
the couple consummate, after which the sacramental marriage is dissoluble only by the death of a
spouse. Therefore, for Polish Roma, once married, one can't ever divorce. Another aspect of Polish
Roma's Catholicism is a tradition of pilgrimage to the Jasna Góra Monastery.[213]
Most Eastern European Romanies are Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Muslim.[214] Those in
Western Europe and the United States are mostly Roman Catholic or Protestant – in southern Spain,
many Romanies are Pentecostal, but this is a small minority that has emerged in contemporary times.
[209]
 In Egypt, the Romanies are split into Christian and Muslim populations.[215]

Music[edit]
Main article: Romani music
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27 June 2009: Fanfare Ciocărlia live in Athens, Greece

Street performance during the Khamoro World Roma Festival in Prague, 2007

Romani music plays an important role in Central and Eastern European countries such as Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Albania, Hungary, Slovakia,
Slovenia and Romania, and the style and performance practices of Romani musicians have influenced
European classical composers such as Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms. The lăutari who perform at
traditional Romanian weddings are virtually all Romani.[citation needed]
Probably the most internationally prominent contemporary performers[citation needed] in the lăutari tradition
are Taraful Haiducilor. Bulgaria's popular "wedding music", too, is almost exclusively performed by
Romani musicians such as Ivo Papasov, a virtuoso clarinetist closely associated with this genre and
Bulgarian pop-folk singer Azis.
Many famous classical musicians, such as the Hungarian pianist Georges Cziffra, are Romani, as are
many prominent performers of manele. Zdob și Zdub, one of the most prominent rock bands
in Moldova, although not Romanies themselves, draw heavily on Romani music, as do Spitalul de
Urgență in Romania, Shantel in Germany, Goran Bregović in Serbia, Darko Rundek in
Croatia, Beirut and Gogol Bordello in the United States.
Another tradition of Romani music is the genre of the Romani brass band, with such notable
practitioners as Boban Marković of Serbia, and the brass lăutari groups Fanfare Ciocărlia and Fanfare
din Cozmesti of Romania.
Dances such as the flamenco of Spain are said to have originated from the Romani.[216]
The distinctive sound of Romani music has also strongly influenced bolero, jazz,
and flamenco (especially cante jondo) in Spain. European-style gypsy jazz ("jazz Manouche" or "Sinti
jazz") is still widely practiced among the original creators (the Romanie People); one who
acknowledged this artistic debt was guitarist Django Reinhardt. Contemporary artists in this tradition
known internationally include Stochelo Rosenberg, Biréli Lagrène, Jimmy Rosenberg, Paulus
Schäfer and Tchavolo Schmitt.
The Romani people in Turkey have achieved musical acclaim from national and local audiences. Local
performers usually perform for special holidays. Their music is usually performed on instruments such
as the darbuka, gırnata and cümbüş.[217]
Cuisine[edit]
Main article: Romani cuisine

Contemporary art and culture[edit]

Romani contemporary art emerged at the climax of the process that began in Central and Eastern
Europe in the late-1980s, when the interpretation of the cultural practice of minorities was enabled by a
paradigm shift, commonly referred to in specialist literature as the Cultural turn. The idea of the "cultural
turn" was introduced; and this was also the time when the notion of cultural democracy became
crystallized in the debates carried on at various public forums. Civil society gained strength, and civil
politics appeared, which is a prerequisite for cultural democracy. This shift of attitude in scholarly circles
derived from concerns specific not only to ethnicity but also to society, gender and class.[218]

Language[edit]
Main article: Romani language
Most Romani speak one of several dialects of the Romani language,[219] an Indo-Aryan language, with
roots in Sanskrit. They also often speak the languages of the countries they live in. Typically, they also
incorporate loanwords and calques into Romani from the languages of those countries and especially
words for terms that the Romani language does not have. Most of the Ciganos of Portugal,
the Gitanos of Spain, the Romanichal of the UK, and Scandinavian Travellers have lost
their knowledge of pure Romani, and speak the mixed languages Caló,[220] Angloromany,
and Scandoromani, respectively. Most of the Romani language-speaking communities in these regions
consist of later immigrants from eastern or central Europe.[221]
There are no concrete statistics for the number of Romani speakers, both in Europe and globally.
However, a conservative estimate is 3.5 million speakers in Europe and a further 500,000 elsewhere,
[221]
 though the actual number may be considerably higher. This makes Romani the second-
largest minority language in Europe, behind Catalan.[221]
In regards to the diversity of dialects, Romani works in the same way as most other European
languages.[222] Cross-dialect communication is dominated by the following features:

 All Romani speakers are bilingual, accustomed to borrowing words or phrases from

a second language; this makes it difficult to communicate with Romanis from different
countries
 Romani was traditionally a language shared between extended family and a close-knit
community. This has resulted in the inability to comprehend dialects from other countries,
and is why Romani is sometimes considered to be several different languages.
 There is no tradition or literary standard for Romani speakers to use as a guideline for their
language use.[222]

Persecutions[edit]
Main article: Antiziganism

Historical persecution[edit]
One of the most enduring persecutions against the Romani people was their enslavement. Slavery was
widely practiced in medieval Europe, including the territory of present-day Romania from before the
founding of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in the 13th–14th century.[223] Legislation decreed
that all the Romani living in these states, as well as any others who immigrated there, were classified as
slaves.[224] Slavery was gradually abolished during the 1840s and 1850s.[223]
The exact origins of slavery in the Danubian Principalities are not known. There is some debate over
whether the Romani people came to Wallachia and Moldavia as free men or were brought as slaves.
Historian Nicolae Iorga associated the Roma people's arrival with the 1241 Mongol invasion of
Europe and considered their slavery as a vestige of that era, in which the Romanians took the Roma as
slaves from the Mongols and preserved their status to use their labor. Other historians believe that the
Romani were enslaved while captured during the battles with the Tatars. The practice of enslaving war
prisoners may also have been adopted from the Mongols.[223]
Some Romani may have been slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars, but most of them
migrated from south of the Danube at the end of the 14th century, some time after the founding of
Wallachia. By then, the institution of slavery was already established in Moldavia and possibly in both
principalities. After the Roma migrated into the area, slavery became a widespread practice by the
majority population. The Tatar slaves, smaller in numbers, were eventually merged into the Roma
population.[225]
Some branches of the Romani people reached Western Europe in the 15th century, fleeing as refugees
from the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.[226] Although the Romani were refugees from the conflicts in
southeastern Europe, they were often suspected by certain populations in the West of being associated
with the Ottoman invasion because their physical appearance was exotic. (The Imperial Diet at Landau
and Freiburg in 1496–1498 declared that the Romani were spies of the Turks). In Western Europe,
such suspicions and discrimination against a people who were a visible minority resulted in persecution,
often violent, with efforts to achieve ethnic cleansing until the modern era. In times of social tension, the
Romani suffered as scapegoats; for instance, they were accused of bringing the plague during times
of epidemics.[227]
On 30 July 1749, Spain conducted The Great Roundup of Romani (Gitanos) in its territory. The Spanish
Crown ordered a nationwide raid that led to the break-up of families as all able-bodied men were
interned into forced labor camps in an attempt at ethnic cleansing. The measure was eventually
reversed and the Romanis were freed as protests began to arise in different communities, sedentary
Romanis being highly esteemed and protected in rural Spain.[228][229]
Later in the 19th century, Romani immigration was forbidden on a racial basis in areas outside Europe,
mostly in the English-speaking world. Argentina in 1880 prohibited immigration by Roma, as did the
United States in 1885.[227]