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But, as happens regularly, I got a little off the subject \u2014 I intended this blog to be about Gypsies.\u00a0 However, the Romany presence in Europe didn\u2019t mean that the Europeans were very pleased to have them there. It didn\u2019t help that the Romany, traditionally nomadic and organized in family-oriented bands, lived and worked on the fringes of settled societies. These social traits often made the Romany scapegoats for trouble \u2014 after all, they were just \u201cpassing through.\u201d Romany were frequently labeled grifters, thieves, and witches, and were persecuted accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They were often given the boot \u2014 Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, and England are just some of the countries that had laws expelling the Romany from their borders between the 16th and 19th centuries. A lot of the time, the Romany didn\u2019t take the hint and came back \u2014 they could then be killed, shipped off in forced migrations to colonies in North and South America, Brazil or Australia. The practice and rationale of sending people you don\u2019t like or want around to your own colonies sounds a little screwy, but the Europeans apparently figured it was better than having them on the outskirts of town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes a country would decide to \u201crescue\u201d the Romany from their lifestyle and make them \u201crespectable\u201d folks \u2014 without consulting the Romany on the matter, of course. In 18th century Hungary, Romany were made to settle and farm, and Rom children were taken from their families to learn new trades. The Romany language was outlawed, as was their music (except on holidays!) It didn\u2019t take, however, and forced assimilations in Spain were also unsuccessful. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the 20th century rolled around, things didn\u2019t get any better for the romany \u2014 it didn\u2019t help that Europe was clearly a mess in that era. The Nazis, who didn\u2019t much like anyone that wasn\u2019t them, had it in for the Romany from the start, even though the Romany were already subject to discriminatory laws in Germany. They were required to register with officials, prohibited from traveling freely, and frequently sent to forced-labor camps. The Nazis kept these laws in place and added to them, making the Romany subject to forced sterilizations and other horrifying racist laws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here in the United States, anti-Gypsy laws were on the books at one time or another in Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Indiana, Georgia and Maryland. In the late 19th century, Romany were even specifically barred from immigrating to the U.S. Living here in West Virginia, we have a group known as the Hillbilly Gypsies. They formed in 2001 in Morgantown and have been performing their own brand of old time bluegrass and original mountain music ever since.\u00a0 It was a nice day yesterday, and after cutting the grass, we sat outside with some friends and had a glass of wine. During the conversation, Claire remarked that she though maybe she was a gypsy. Well, that got me … Continue reading
So first things first \u2014 they\u2019re not really Gypsies. The call themselves Rom,\u201d or \u201cRomany.\u201d Gypsy is a name that was put on them by the gadie<\/em> \u2014 in the Romany language, gadie means \u201cbarbarian.\u201d And to the Romanys, this means anyone not a Romany. The term \u201cGypsy\u201d probably isn\u2019t a good term and it\u2019s not even accurate \u2014 it\u2019s a shortened version of \u201cEgyptian,\u201d and was chosen because of the belief\u00a0 that Gypsies originated in the Nile delta. They didn\u2019t \u2014 they\u2019re originally from northern India.\u00a0
So the Romany may have been from northern India, but they didn\u2019t stay there. By the 11th century they were in Persia (Iran, today) and by the 1400s could be found all over Europe. Today an estimated two to five million Romany live all over the world, including North America and Australia. But the majority still reside in Europe with large numbers in the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Romania. (Romania takes its name from Rome, the empire \u2014 not Rom, the people.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Romany aren\u2019t as persecuted today as they were in the past, but stereotyping still exists. Today, if you say that someone \u201cgypped\u201d you \u2014 meaning cheated or deceived you \u2014 You\u2019re using a racial slur. \u201cGyp comes from \u201cgypsy.\u201d
Some people admire their nomadic, property-eschewing style as a type of independence, but generally, that\u2019s not the case\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So maybe Gypsies get a bad rap \u2014 probably because they\u2019re different\u2026.sound familiar? But maybe they\u2019re on to something \u2014 they say
Gypsies do not like to stay
They only come to go away.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"