Talk:Romani language

Romani loanwords in English

gadgie and cooshtie

gadgie and cooshtie are probably examples of regional dialect borrowings, rather than slang. gadgie is documented for Berwick-upon-Tweed / South East Scotland in at least one dialect dictionary. cooshtie is also found there, though it does not seem to be documented - though it is true that gadgie and cooshtie are slang words in other parts of Britain, such as East London. The article is fine, but it would be nice if better examples of slang words can be found. 82.152.97.125 10:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Dukes

The Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson states that "put up your dukes" comes from Cockney rhyming slang. I don't have the book on me, nor any other reference, so I'm not going to edit it.

Bill Bryson has no training in linguistics and The Mother Tongue is full of urban myths and factual inaccuracies, nearly one on every page. It is not an appropriate reference for anything. CRCulver 00:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Are you an expert on who is an expert or not?

Someone needs to dig out another reference regarding dukes or verify that it its loan status is described in the existing references. 82.152.97.125 10:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought nobody was sure where the term "Chav" comes from? (I for one have heard the term explained as an acronym for "Council Home And Violent" 138.235.105.2 01:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Posh

I'd heard that "posh" is an acronym for "Port out, Starboard home." It was explained to me that on passenger ships sailing from England to India through the Suez canal, the cabins on the shady side were the more desirable (to avoid the direct tropical sun in the Indian Ocean), and therefore, the more expensive. That works out to be on the left, on the port side as you're sailing east towards India, and on the right, the starboard side as you're sailing west towards England. 140.147.160.78 19:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

The word 'posh' has its own Wikipedia entry, where this question is addressed, rebutting 'port out, starboard home', and giving a Romani etymology. Is it possible to link the word 'posh' in our article here to that article? I don't know how to do that.142.68.51.163 15:59, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info; did it. The link, I mean. 140.147.160.78 16:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

languages related to roma

Doesn't it stand to reason that the many languages claimed to be most closely related to Roma in this article have themselves diverged significantly while Roma itself was becoming distinct?

Whether or not this is the case, it would be interesting to see some of the features and words which are said to illuminate the origins of the language, rather than just second-hand claims of relationship. --babbage 19:18, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

other gypsy languages?

Recently i've read that there are several other gypsy languages besides romany. I'm finally getting around to adding my signature. Gringo300 23:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

One of them is angloromani. see talk page for angloromani. Gringo300 01:13, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Why Romany instead of Gypsy?

Why is the language called Romany? Is it to do with Romania, where they settled for thousands of years? Scott Gall 03:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

No, the language is called Romany because these people call themselves "Roma". It has nothing to do with Romania, that's mere coincidence. In fact, a related people living in the Middle East call themselves "Dhom", which seems to be the original name. As for the name Gypsy, that word is increasingly seen as offensive, based as it is on a misunderstanding of their origins, as the English believed they were from Egypt, when in reality they migrated from India. Also, the Roma haven't lived in Romania for "thousands of years"; they only reached the Balkans around the beginning of the second millennium AD. CRCulver 04:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

"these people call themselves 'Roma' "

In answer to CR Culver, the Romany/Gypsy/Cikán pepole of the Czech Republic (and probably most of Central and Eastern Europe) tend to see "Roma" as a new-fangled "politically correct" term. As far as they are concerned, they're Gypsies (Cikáni) and proud of it.

Maybe some are proud, but most not, do you have some statistics or something else to prove your sayings? Desiphral-देसीफ्राल talk-फेन मा 10:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, the term Gypsies is not really equivalent to Cikáni. That would be equivalent to the Polish Cygan and the German Zigeuner--both having an initial sound of Ts, followed by a short i sound--and other European words for the people. The term Gypsy stems from the mistaken notion that they came from Egypt. The Wikipedia article Romani people suggests a couple of derivations for that word. 140.147.160.78 17:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

copyedited

OK, I thoroughly copyedited the article...[for parts of it, read "translated into English"][1]...have at it. Tomer^talk 08:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Are the different dialects communicable?

I see many words are pretty much the same across different dialects. But an English Gypsy travelling through Romania could not understand them easily but as he traveled further and into Bulgaria, he was able to understand them much better.I wonder how much this corresponds to the Kalderash and Erli dialects.

Are Kalderash and Erli understandable to each other?

Improvement Drive

Roma people has been nominated to be improved on the Improvement Drive. Support this article with your vote and help us improve it to featured status!--Fenice 10:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The "dialects issue" when it comes to Rromani language is a fake one. Those who speak Rromanes can easily understand each other, no matter what dialect they speak. The dialectal differences are not so numerous and in the most of the cases they follow a logic schema. The problem is that outsiders often classify as Rroms people who aren't. For instance, the Travellers are not Rroms and they never spoke Rromani language. But people call them "gypsies", just like they call the Romanichals, who do speak anglo-rromani. The same with the Rudars, who are not Rroms, but a balkanic minority, speaking a dialect of Rumanian. People call them "Cigani", just like they call the Rroms.

Romani and Romany

There are in English these two spellings, but it is favoured the first, because this is the way the other Indo-Aryan languages are spelled: Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri etc. The Romani dialects are spelled also like this: Drindari, Erli, Jambashi etc. and even the dialects of other languages spoken by Roma (with only Romani vocabulary) like Pogadi. Romany looks awkward together with other Indo-Aryan languages. Desiphral 13:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

An external link regarding this issue is here. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल talk-फेन मा 08:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

RRomani or RRomany?

How is it correct? RRomani or RRomany? --Andrei George 19:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The double-R spellings are a Romanian-specific introduction, that I don't believe are recognised elsewhere. So the answer is the same as 'Romani and Romany'. Shaun 22:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It is recognised in Poland, too: one of the Romany magazines there is titled "Rrom". Qubux 10:16, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The Vlax Romani words "Rrom" (married Romani man), "Rroma" (plural of 'Rrom'), "Rromano" ('Romani (adjective),' masculine singular), etc. are spelled with two R's. My guess is that in Romani, "Rromani" would mean the same thing as "Rromano" except before a feminine noun, e.g. e Rromani Čhib (the Romani Language). --Kuaichik 07:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Nature article

I would like to see a better citation of the Nature article. Makes it a great deal easier for those of us who would actually like to read said article!--King ravana 01:28, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Devanagari

Why is romani written in devanagari in the box? i tried to find an explanation but the article says nothing about it. Romani alphabet says nothing about it either. -guest

Now it is available the article about Romani writing systems. Desiphral देसीफ्राल 11:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Distribution section

I replaced the distribution section with info from http://romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cd/data/lang/gen/data/numbers.en.pdf [2] as the numbers didn't add up to 4.8 million mentioned at the top of the page and the source of the data wasn't cited. Please revert if this was the wrong thing to do.

External links

Recently there has been a large community sentiment against external links, inspired by WP:NOT. I've removed a few external links on the page. An anon IP added links to individual dictionary definitions at some non-authoritative destination. However, the article would be more trustworthy if we sourced Romani loanwords into English against the OED, which is authoritative has reliable etymologies. There is the external link *Detailed discussion of the language, but it tells hardly much more than the WP article. I think we should add any of its facts to the article, and then delete the link. CRCulver 16:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Well you should discuss thiese matters before you delete. Simply deleting these links before asking is rude and not excatly welcome to people who have worked on the Roma related sections to have it changed by "fly-by-nighters"Robbyfoxxxx 16:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Romani words in slang
• Romany Slang
• Romany Slang
• The word "slang" as Romani in origin

Calling me a fly-by-nighter violates WP:NPA and ignores my three and a half years of activity on WP. As for the links, the four can all be replaced by a single citation of the OED entry for "slang". CRCulver 17:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree some links needed to be erased, but the page of the Romani education system in Romania? There is a lot of on-line material in Romani there. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल talk-फेन मा 18:03, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I accidentally deleted that one. It merely needs a "RO" tag before it. CRCulver 18:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Stop deleting CCulver- You need some concensus before you delete, this is not "your"Romani language article.

I have not deleted further content. I have only reverted the anon IP's replacement of the deleted content. Please look at WP:NOT before protesting. There is no need for four links that all say the same exact thing. Look at the actual links I've removed. Furthermore, trimming content that violates WP:NOT is just as important as adding content. CRCulver 19:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with CRCulver. Put something adequate and nobody will delete it. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल talk-फेन मा 22:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Question

What language do the Romas of Belarus (and European Russia) speak? Thank you! -- 82.209.211.116 20:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Title

Why is this article at Romani language and not at Romany language? The latter seems far more common in English: [3] [4].--Tekleni 11:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Consistency with other Indo-Iranian languages, and because new scholarship on the language overwhelmingly uses "Romani". CRCulver 13:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I still don't get it. Britannica calls it "Romany" [5]. We're breaking with years of tradition here (especially considering that the hits for "Romani" include many hits in languages other than English).--Tekleni 17:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Britannica is not a source, of course. Generally Wikipedia prefers the current academic name for languages, that's why we have Sami even though most older or popular sources say Lapp. CRCulver 18:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. Britannica is the very opposite of an academic source - it's a mere web blog. Oh, look at that, the Columbia Encyclopedia also calls it Romany [6]. How amateurish! BTW when are one of these "true" academic sources which call it "Romani" actually going to be cited, because I can't find any - not that it'll make much difference, as far as I can standard Wikipedia practice is to use the terms used by other encyclopedias (i.e. if it's acceptable for other encyclopedias, it is acceptable for Wikipedia).--Tekleni 18:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Did you know BTW that Britannica has an article called Sami language, not "Lapp language". Who woulda thunk it?--Tekleni 18:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Britannica is a secondary source. Naming disputes must look to primary scholarship. As an example:

• Romani in Contact: The History, Structure and Sociology of a Language (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory), International Conference on Romani Linguistics 1993, ed. Yaron Matras (John Benjamins, 1995).
• What is the Romani Language, Centre de recherces tziganes (University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001).
• Matras, Yaron. Romani: A Linguistic Introduction(Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Notice that even the international conference on the language uses the spelling "Romani". CRCulver 19:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Good point + if that's how the people themselves spell it in English, then that's a different matter altogether. See Wikipedia:Naming dispute - the "self-identifying" name is generally preferred.--Tekleni 19:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

"Carpathian" Romani

What's the difference between the Carpathian Romani in the dialects section, and the Carpathian Romani in the Mixed Languages section? The article on North Central Romani seems to indicate that it's a dialect, and Ethnologue gives it language code. - Parsa 22:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Good observation, although they are used in close areas, Romungro is different of Carpathian Romani. Probably the user who added it, didn't know about the difference. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 12:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Orthography

Good grief, Desiphral. I honestly do not understand the point you are trying to make. I've offered my arguments. This is the English Wikipedia, and if people go looking for further information, most likely they will use sources written in English. the fact remains that the vast bulk of English literature on Romani linguistics uses the Pan-Vlax orthography. Allow me to quote directly from Yaron Matras' article "Writing Romani: The pragmatics of codification in a stateless language", which can be found in the journal Applied Linguistics, volume 20, pp 481-502 (this particular quotation can be found on page 488, should you wish to look it up):

[A] consensus seems to prevail on the use of wedge-accents as employed in south-western Slavic alphabets to indicate palato-alveolars (š, ž, č) and the use of -h to indicate distinctive aspiration on voiceless stops/affricates (ph, th, kh, čh). These conventions appear not only in data presentation, but also in works with potential normative functions, such as the major recent comprehensive dictionaries by Boretzky and Igla (1994), Hübschmannová et al. (1991), the Romani-English version of Demeter and Demeter (1990), or the reference grammars by Kepeski and Jusuf (1980) and Hancock (1995).

Now, it's only logical that Romani vocabulary presented in the English Wikipedia follow this broad academic consensus. That much should be obvious. I'm well aware that it's not the only way to write Romani, and that in countries not using English different conventions may prevail. For example, on the Romanian Wikipedia it would be logical to use the orthography by Gheorghe Sarău as most Romanian literature on Romani will use this orthography. The point is that this is not the case here on the English Wikipedia.

Now, your arguments seem to mainly be based around insinuating that those who disagree with you are pushing some kind of agenda, with thinly veiled accusations of anti-gypsyism. This kind of argumentum ad hominem has to stop. Dewrad 14:00, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I see. So this is your point of view. If I am correct, the contending issues, from my point of view, seem to be: in which direction should go the selection of an accepted spelling? That of the research or that of the actual use? The Handbook of Vlax Romani of Ian Hancock acknowledges the existence of an English-based non-diacritic spelling also used by Vlax speakers. And the fact is that the people using this language do not use diacritics (I can't show statistics and I suppose you can't either). Even in Romania, popularly, including at TV shows, there is used an Romanian-based or English-based non-diacritic spelling, not the acute accent one. I presented before other non-diacritic variants, influenced by other local spellings (if they have accents, it is only for stress, not pronunciation). And the argument that this is the English Wikipedia might be presented also for supporting the English-based non-diacritc spelling. Plus, repeatedly, in the official policies of this wiki, it is reminded that a major bulk of contributors, especially to subjects not so main stream like this, do not use English as first language, have acces to other linguistic areas, and they should be considered too. Somehow, how should go the presentation of the Romani language? From the point of view of the English sources or a broad inclusion?Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 15:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

From the point of view of academic sources, as there is no commonly accepted standard for transliteration among speakers. Speakers of Romani are not the issue here. It's immaterial if speakers use a non-diacriticked form. Precisely because so many variant orthographies are used by speakers should we use the form currently favoured by academic literature. Now, I've provided a citation for the broad consensus among Romani scholars who write in English at least. Please provide a citation (in any language: we can translate) that supports the opinion that there is an academic consensus to use a different orthography. Dewrad 16:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I did not find yet, I still have to peruse some material, but I found a source for Devnagari [7], even academic. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 18:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Note how a) Hancock uses the Pan-Vlax orthography consistently and b) he dismisses Devanagari out of hand. I look forward to your sources. Dewrad 19:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't get how he dismisses it. He says that "Devanagari (Indian)-based systems, which have occasionally been used, are of academic interest only". Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 19:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

How is that not dismissing it? Here's the full quote: "Constructed, non-Latin alphabets for Romani, such as the one devised by Andrzej Mirga on an Indian model, or actual Devanagari (Indian)-based systems, which have occasionally been used, are of academic interest only, but do reflect an awareness of Romani’s historical Asian connection." He's essentially saying a handful of people have come up with the idea of using Devanagari to write Romani, but no one has really bought the idea in significant enough numbers that to make the proposals anything more than academic curiousities. But you basically just linked us to an expert on Romani, who is himself Rom, saying that hardly anyone writes Romani using Devanagari --Miskwito 23:42, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

RFC

I have opened a Request for Comment on Desiphral for his actions on this and other pages related to the Romani language and Roma people. The page can be found at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Desiphral. If you have any comments or opinions on the RfC, please feel free to make them known there. --Miskwito 22:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Non-Latin Alphabets

I think the page about Romani writing systems should in fact mention all writing systems used for Romani. This includes Devanagari and Andrzej Mirga's alphabet. However, I think it is only appropriate that they be included in context -- that is, we should note how much they are actually used, which according to Hancock is hardly ever. I think that they are both interesting, and I wish I could find more details on Andrzej Mirga's script, an d they would be an interesting addition provided we do not lie about their provenance as our desi phral here seems to want to do. --Node 05:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

There is one thing that bothers me about including Devanagari- while we have one citation that dismisses its use, it doesn't go into detail about the scheme used. Based on the following exchange ([8] and [9]), it rather looks like the system Desiphral wishes to include in all articles on Romani is (at least to an extent) his own invention, making it clear OR. So before it gets mentioned or used in article namespace, I would rather like to see a published academic source which can verify that the transcription scheme used isn't Desiphral's invention. Dewrad 16:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hm, good work digging those up. I can't speak for Node, but what I was agreeing to was more like just a brief one-sentence mention along the lines of "various other schemes have been proposed, including [blah], [blah], and Devanagari, but none have gained wide use." Rather than actually going into detail about how the systems worked. --Miskwito 21:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Please add a link to Romanq language

Hi, i redirected here the roma language page, because al the pages that linked there referred to romani language. Could you put the following template at the beginning of the article, so the originial "Roma language" page, which is now Romanq Language, doesn't get lost?

This article is about the language spoken by Roma people. For the Malyo-Polynesian language, see Romang language.

Anyep 22:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. —dgies^t_c 23:37, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

About Yaron Matras (Madaares)' edits

Yaron Matras, non-Romani Professor in Linguistics at the University of Manchester, with the username Madaares keeps adding the mention that the Ḍom -> Rom theory is the mainstream, an obvious personal POV. Yes, it has anteriority as compared to Rajput -> Rom theory, but is certainly no mainstream. It was based simply on the assumption of a name similarity and a supposed similar low status. The fact is that these two assumptions were mostly based on the anti-Romani stereotypes and prejudices. There are plenty of possibilities of making connections between the word Rom and words from the Subcontinent [10] and also the peculiarities of the Romanipen do not suggest at all a low caste origin. Plus, the name Domba itself in the Subcontinent do not designate a specific ethnic group, it is just an exonyom given by the hight caste to some unrelated groups that have their own ethnic names. On these grounds this theory is dismissed as unscientific. And if it finds supporters mostly among non-Roma, as fitting their ideas about Roma, this does not mean it is mainstream. The other theory is obviously well represented worldwide.

I did not have previous encounters with Yaron Maras, but I see that this first one does not look at all as a positive one. I am not a member of any "Romani Union of Romania" and I don't know of the existence of any such union. It is sad that he resorts to such cheap intimidations, probably fitting himself the image of those non-Romani researchers who "seem to feel threatened by Romanies who are educated or who are branded as ‘activists,’ as though this were automatically a bad thing" as presented by Ian Hacock at Romani Origins and Romani Identity: A Reassessment of the Arguments. Is this a new proof that the Romani studies done by some non-Romanies are some of the last contemporary studies made in a colonialistic style? Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 12:10, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Why is it relevant that he is non-Romani? Why do you always have to bring ethnicity into this? And why does it always come down to personal attacks? Dewrad 13:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Now you too, as in previous issues, present me as the guilty one. I refuse this status, I don't see reasons. What should I understand: that he has the right to intimidate me and if I say that the allegations are not true, I am still the guilty one? He presented them as Romani those who organized the Rajput -> Romani theory. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 13:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not presenting you as the guilty one. Let go of your victim mentality for a moment and just look at why you always have to bring ethnicity into it, as if the research of non-Roma is less reliable than that of Roma. Your near-constant veiled accusations of racism are both wearing and predictable, Desiphral. Dewrad 13:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I am bringing predictable accusations of racism? Why do you say that "the research of non-Roma is less reliable than that of Roma"? There are no reasons for this. This is your assumption for downgrading my presentation. Again, Y. Matras is the person who dismisses the other theory as "Romani activism", he puts himself in the non-Romani position (a veiled allusion to a better position, form his point of view?). Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 13:38, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

For example, Gheorghe Sarǎu from Romania, an important researcher of the Romani language and the organizer of the Romani teaching in the same country, does not put himself in this position and does not try to active push a presonal POV as does Matras now at Wikipedia. Thus who is saying that he is non-Romani? These accusations of racism are just ways to cover your structural problems. Personally I don't know from where do you get so much confidence in making these allegations. In a normal context, this "Romani Union of Romania" approach would be considered really childish. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 14:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Alin Dosoftei claims that he is Rom, that may be true, though I think it is irrelevant. He is certainly not an expert in historical linguistics, nor has he ever published, or taught, Romani linguistics. He attacks me for not being a Rom - how does he know whether I am Romani or not? - because that is his only line of defence. The fact is, Desiphral keeps deleting things that I add, but I never deleted anything of his, except for a single remark that was offenvie (implying that I support a particular theory in order to justify discrimination). I suggest that we split this site into two: I get to draft the view of mainstreadm academia, as published in every scholarly article; and Desiphral gets to write his fantastic politically-inspired mythologies about a Rajput origin. But we leave each others' writings intact, and allow others to make modifications to whatever text they wish to identify with. Agreed?Madaares 13:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC) Yaron Matras

I should add, perhaps, for the benefit of those following the debate in this forum, that I was involved myself in Romani political activism for many years, probably long before Alin aka Desiphral came along and discovered the Rajput warrior hypothesis. In my book I cite this as theory as one put forward by Romani activists -- which is the truth, it is not supported by a single scholar with a track record of expertise in Romani linguistics who is not a political activist. The point is, I don't eradicate the view, as Alin does with other people's views. I comment on it, I may challenge it and criticise it, but I don't simply censor it. Alin, by contrast, censors other views -- as you can see by looking at the history of this site. This is not Wikipedia spirit, and it should not be allowed to go on. If the two views are not reconcilable and we cannot agree on a way to integrate them into one presentation, then, I repeat my suggestion: let us split the entry into two narratives, and tell both stories, and let the readers choose what they want to believe. Isn't that a fair suggestion? Madaares 14:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC) Yaron Matras

Again, the Dom -> Rom theory is based on a supposed name connection (while there are plenty of such possibilities of connections with words from the Subcontinent) and on a supposed connection between Domba's low status and the anti-Romani prejudices. Scientifc studies presented reasons for its' lack of substance and for the Rajput ancestry. Some supporters of Dom -> Rom reorganized later their theory, by including the points raised against its likeliness, by presenting the Ḍom as a cover-term for itinerant service-providing castes and the three group as originating in different areas within India, speaking different (albeit related) Indian languages, and probably leaving the Subcontinent at different times, taking different routes. It is too bad for Y. Matras dismissing, as always, the scientific approach as "fantastic politically-inspired mythology" and his opinion based on a mere resemblance of prejudices as the mainstream. I presented the evolution in time of the two theories, but I see that he deleted most of the scientific results (which btw inspired later the supporters of Dom -> Rom to make some adjustments in order to keep looking reliable). The Wikipedia is based on consensus, so you can't have your separate page (try it on your userpage). Also I'm giving you a warning for breaching WP:3RR. Next time you will revert in 24h it will be likely to receive a block. And I want to point out the presumptuos style of addresing of this user. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 14:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

sigh: Was it really a good idea to ask for this page to be unprotected? Dewrad 15:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Too bad for you that you base your wiki activity concerning the Romani people only on intimidations and support from admins. Sooner or later you'll have to face the reality and stop this authoritarian stance. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल

15:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The difference between us: I add texts representing other viewpoints, you delete texts that you disagree with. This is not a way to form a consensus. I return to my suggestion: let's split the entry in such a way that we have a brief saying something like 'INterpretation of the early history is subject to debate' etc.; then you can describe your viewpoint, I'll describe mine, and we let the reader choose. Your remark about 'do this on your userpage' is just as applicable to yourself: but i'm not throwing it back at you. Let the user decide. What are you afraid of? why do you insist on playing thought-police and deleting every other opinion? Look at my 2002 book, chapter 3: there I described Hancock's view in a very sober and non-polemic way, because it's an introductory book and I wanted the reader to have access to all viewpoints. Whay can't you do the same with viewpoints that you disagree with?Madaares 01:47, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Political censorship in this article

I have been trying for over a year now to make some additions to the entry on 'Romani language'. At first, every time I added something, it was deleted within a few days. Finally, a couple of months ago, I found that the entry was 'blocked' for further amendment.

You can view my amendments on the History link. You will see that I did not attempt to delete or distort anybody else's views, but simply to add some points of view which, from the academic perspective on Romani linguistics, are absolutely mainstream, consensus views. The paragraph that I had added on 27 March 2007 was this:

"Most mainstream researchers in Romani linguistics and Romani ethnography hold the view that the exodus of the Rom(a) from India is part of the historical phenomenon of outwards migration from India of castes, specializing in certain trades. These groups will have originated in different areas within India, and spoken different (albeit related) Indian languages, and probably left the subcontinent at different times, taking different routes. However, many of them share ethnonyms that go back to similar caste names: the Rom of Europe, the Lom of the Caucasus and Anatolia, the Dom of the Middle East, are an example, all descending, it is assumed, from the Indian caste of the Dom. The latter is a cover-term for itinerant service-providing castes. This origin hypothesis allows to reconcile the linguistic and geographical diversity of minorities of Indian origin living outside of India, with the similarities between them in occupation profile, social status, name, and origin. However, in recent years political activists and Romani intellectuals have begun to reject this hypothesis, searching instead for a historical narrative that would connect their ancestors with 'high status' groups in Indian society, rather than with the low-status Dom. It is in this context that the works of people like Hancock, Lee, Rishi, and Kochanowski are to be interpreted."

I left the other paragraphs unchanged and untouched, allowing proponents of other views to display their opinions in full.

I should add perhaps, for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the debate, that there are essentially two interpretations of early Romani history. The first is held by virtually all academics working in the field, and has never been challenged in any academic forum: it is the view that sees a connection between the Rom and the Indian caste of Dom. The second view is held exclusively by political activists, based on what they call 'research', but which is not accepted in any academic context as real research. That view claims that the Roma descended from Rajput warriors. The activists who hold this view think it is benificial for the image of the Roma to be viewed as descendants of warriors who were taken prisoner.

Everybody is, of course, entitled to their views. But an activist by the name of Alin Dosoftei, who calls himself Desiphral, has, in this case, hijacked Wikipedia and is playing the role of an Opinion-Police, not allowing leading scholars in the field to express their own views. This is pure censorship, and the thought of these activists ever taking control of an education system or media in a particular region or sector makes me shiver.

On the 2nd of April,'Desphiral' erased the entire paragraph that I had added, and replaced it by one beginning with the following sentence:

"Regarding the ethnic origin, since, until recently, the study of the Romani origins was mostly done by non-Roma, they proposed and supported a descendance from the ?om caste, considered as a justification for the anti-Romani discrimination."

The suggestion, with reference to my work, that I support this theory in order to justify anti-Romani discrimination is as outrageous and libellous as it is ridiculous and absurd.

Desiphral has continued persistently to delete the same of similar paragraph every time I tried to restore it. From the previous Discussion items you will see that he has refused an offer to use the entry to tell both sides of the story, and has thus indicated that he will continue to play censor. Unfortunately, this reduced the crediblity of Wikipedia on this issue. Its readers will not be allowed to make up their minds based on the information they get, but will be subjected to Alin Dosoftei's thought police. Madaares 07:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC) Yaron Matras, Linguistics Professor at the University of Manchester.

No, you lie again. Yesterday you deleted most of the info about the Rajput -> Rom theory including the names of those who studied it (just the name of the initial Ralph Lilley Turner remained). On the other hand I did not delete the other opinion, I included it in the presentation from a chronological prespective, showing how they evolved and influenced each other. This is the way a wiki article is created. You can't have a separated area only for you. I can only ask you too: are you afraid of something? If it is removed the opinion that Dom->Rom is mainstream (which is your POV), basically your addition is repeating info from below.

Today I saw also that the user Dewrad made a complaint against me, while I think it was me the person entitled to make a complaint against you. Yesterday Y. Matras presented that libellous allegation "Alin Dosoftei from Romani Union of Romania" (nothing true in it, just his usual way of dismissing the other opinions as Romani activism, in this case by inventing such organizations) and nobody reacted. Instead, Dewrad, promoting himself as the true carrier of what is right and what is wrong at Wikipedia, accused me of racism and of dismissing the "non-Romani research as less reliable than the Romani research". If an outsider follows the discussion and knows the public opinons of Y. Matras in this issue, he/she may see how these allegations mirror the usual behaviour of this Professor. It is not me, but him who dismisses the other views as "Romani activism" (a veiled allusion that his non-Romani position is more entitled to a scientific approach, that Romani research is less reliable than the non-Romani research?). So keep these allegations for yourself, don't blame the others for your problems. I presented also the case of Gh. Sarau, nobody asking him about his ethnicity, because, he himself doesn't make such differences. As you can see in the article I had no problem myself too with his ethnicity, I presented his work there. These accusations and allegations could only enforce the opinion of many Roma that the non-Roma are liars, cheaters, disruptive, violent and disrespecful, that once stepping in their system a Rom has no rights. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 12:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Mediation needed?

As the points of view of both Desiphral and Madaares seem to be irreconcilable, it would probably be a good idea here to ask an uninvolved third party to mediate on the dispute in order to reach consensus? Would you both be willing to accept mediation here? Dewrad 16:14, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Mediation by whom? I would reject anybody whose motivation to favour a particular viewpoint is political rather than scientific, because those people are using Wikipedia as a political pamphlet to create a particular image. Desiphral will no doubt reject anybody who is not a Rom (or does not claim to be a Rom). Nevertheless, I suggest Dr Peter Bakker of Aarhus University, who has been researching Romani for many years now, and Professor Victor Friedman of Chicago University, who is also an expert on the Romani language, and if that is not enough, then also Dr Vit Bubenik of St John's University in Newfoundland, who is one of the world's leading experts in Middle Indo-Aryan langauges.Madaares 02:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I was in fact thinking of the established Wikipedia mediation process. However, a neutral third party expert might be even better: if you can get hold of one of them to give an expert opinion on the matter at hand, it would be fantastic! Dewrad 16:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm thinking of looking into the matter in more detail when I have time, if nobody minds. I'm not an expert in Romani Studies, but I am a researcher and I have some useful resources from Prof. Hancock (who discusses various perspectives on Romani Studies issues). --Kuaichik 16:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like to begin with a few questions, assuming that no one is bothered by my participation here: What is the "mainstream" view on the origin of the Romani people? Is there a mainstream view per se? And, most importantly, what reliable sources show that this is a mainstream view? --Kuaichik 00:24, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I accept to come any outside poit of view and to be debated. A first step, I think, should be done by Madaares to stop promoting these allegations about me (see the latest "Desiphral will no doubt reject anybody who is not a Rom"), stop himself making these differences, by presenting the Romani individuals as some beings incapable of scientific research and have a more mature, responsible approach, oriented towards a consensus. I mean, what's with those two theories added by him? There are many, many others made until now. Why that selection of those two? To prove his opinion that the Romani persons can't make a good scientific approach, irremediably stuck in a "activism", to degrade the Rajput->Rom theory by associating it with that Atlantis theory? This selection is similar to mass-media's hoaxes, when they select a non-representative Romani person and present him/her as the embodiment of the Romani ethnicity (see Margita Bangova). Who has and promotes prejudices and stereotypes here? Personally, I am really amazed by this approach of Madaares, I don't have a clear idea how a person with such views could have done research until now. Just imagine, what if, on the other hand, somebody would think of knowing all the British people only after witnessing him? So, I recomend him to have a more constructive and respectful approach, to get out of this rebellious stance, beyond any personal views about what can do and what cannot do a Romani individual, in order to find a consensus. I propose to move the last two theories to History_of_the_Romani_people#Origin_and_diaspora. They deserve to remain at Wikipedia, but they are not important for the scope of this article, now about a third of its text is about origins of the people, not about the language itself. I think it is good idea to move also our debate at History of the Romani people. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 09:44, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad we are beginning a more consructive exchange. Let me just remind everyone that I initiated this debate after several of my additions from last March had been deleted repeatedly, which I considered an act of censorshhip, given the fact that on this particular issue I happen to have some acknolwedged expertise. I’ll now respond to each point separately:

1) re ‘mainstream view’: what I mean by that is the view accepted by full-time, qualified academics, who specialise in Romani linguistics and who work at universities and other established research centres. Desiphral keeps suggesting that all these people are simply racists who try and promote anti-Romani stereotypes. The opposite is true: among the academic linguists who specialise in Romani are many people with a long track-record of support of Romani civil rights, and that includes myself, a point that Desiphral continues to ignore. Linguists specialising in Romani have, if anything, the opposite agenda than the one that Desiphral attributes to them: they are very supportive of the Romani quest for respect, equality, and civil rights. And they have done a lot to promote Romani emancipation on the international arena, helped produce books and websites in Romani, etc etc.

I am referring to scholars such as Victor Friedman, Vit Bubenik, Viktor Elšík, Alexander Russakov, Peter Bakker, Dieter Halwachs, Norbert Boretzky, Birgit Igla, and others. I expect that Desiphral is not familiar with most of these people or their work -- this is understandable, since he is obviously a very engaged person, but has, evidently, no training in linguistics. But look up these names on Google and see their positions and professional biographies; and look them up on Amazon and see what books they have published. These are scholars of international reputation who conduct what I refer to as ‘mainstream’ research on Romani linguistics: research that is scrutinised and published in peer refereed journals. I interact closely with all these colleagues, and there is not a single one of them who supports the Rajput theory.

2) re. mediation, I am happy to hear that Desiphral welcomes the inclusion of other opinions in this debate. I could, of course, make the approach to other colleagues, but perhaps it would be more appropriate if this could be done by a third party -- neither myself nor Desiphral. In any case, most of the names I mentioned above are persons of public reputation and you can easily find their email addresses on the web. I’d be happy to provide contact details or university affiliation for them, if necessary. Simply email me on <yaron.matras@manchester.ac.uk>. You can also check the website of the 7th International Conference on Romani Linguistics, which took place at Charles University Prague last September. You'll find these and other prominent names represented.

3) Desiphral asks why I added these last two theories. My point was is not to show that Roma are incapable of serious thinking, as Desiphral suggests, but to show that there, unfortunately, many ludicrous ideas out there, and that just because somebody is a Rom doesn’t mean that they have all the answers to the complex questions of early origins. It is interesting to note that Desiphral -- can we now call him by his name, Alin? -- did not delete these additions, as he did with my previous additions. Why? Because these idea have been formulated by Roma? What sane person can seriously claim that the Roma come from Atlantis ???

There is, in fact, no more evidence in support of a ‘Romani military koine in Anatolia’ than there is in support of a Romani origin in Atlantis: both are based on pure conjecture, pure fantasy. Desiphral is, I gather, impressed by various arguments that he has heard on websites and perhaps elsewhere, at informal gatherings or at political rallies or in personal correspondence. But he might take a moment to ask himself this: Why is it that none of these arguments have been published by any serious academic publisher, they were never put forward at any international conference of scholars, never submitted for publication in any professional journal, never taught at any university, never supported by any expert who specialises in Romani linguistics at a university: is this REALLY, REALLY because EVERYBODY in these positions is a racist who tries to hold a monopoly on knowledge about Roma, or is it just POSSIBLE that there is no grain of scientific methodology in the theory that people like Ron Lee, Ian Hancock, or Ian Kochanowski are trying to promote?

4) As for the personal side, I acted on information I received about Desiphral, which may have been wrong, but not after I called on him to come forward and admit to his censorship practices, which he refused to do. I never hid behind anonymous contributions, and my identity is well known. It is Desiphral who embarked on a path of personal attacks, without even knowing who he is dealing with, implying that I am trying to justify discrimination against Roma, and so on. I have in the meantime communicated to him, in another forum, who I am, and he can easily look my up and ask about me. He continues to ignore my background, the fact that I was part of the Romani political movement during its formative years in the early 1990s, the fact that I continue to maintain close relations with Romani leaders, the fact that I spent the best years of my life fighting actively for Romani civil rights, the fact that I am not British but Israeli, the fact that I have, together with my colleagues at partner institutes, done much to promote recognition and support of the Romani language, etc. So, I agree, let’s stop with the personal attacks, and would Desiphral please show some respect toward somebody who has both the professional qualification and - if I may say so myself - the personal track record to know what he’s talking about. It is really ludicrous - and this is what annoys me most -- that somebody who has devoted much of his life to Romani linguistics should be barred from voicing an opinion on the matter in an open forum such as Wikipedia. After all, it Wikipedia itself defines me as "he most prominent English-language Romani linguist and the author of several pioneering studies" (and no, I did NOT write that entry myself!)

5) A practical suggestion, and at this stage thank you for staying with me so long and reading thus far: I suggest we devote the entry strictly to Romani language, and drop the issue of origins of the Romani people altogether, mentioning that there is no historical proof for any of the theories about a) who were the ancestors of the Roma, and b) what motivated them to emigrate from India. And referring the reader instead to the Discussion area.

I suggest further that we take the paragraphs that are under dispute and move them to the Discussion forum. Here, we can list the arguments one by one, and comment on them. For example, Desiphral can insert his statement that

"The name for those who are not Roma, gadže derives from Prakritic gajja (civilian, domestic, non-military)"

(incidentally, why is this statement not referenced? where is it from? what source is these that documents this alleged Prakrit word?)

and I will be able to insert a comment, saying that there is not a single Prakrit dictionary or text in which the alleged word 'gajja' is documented in the meaning "civilian, domestic, non-military" and that this is something that Ian Hancock simply made up, without a shred of evidence. (You don't believe me -fine! I challenge you to identify a single Prakrit dictionary or text that provides attestation that that word existed in this meaning in Prakrit! Bring me the evidence!)

So - in short, let's agree on this: a) we admit in the main entry that the early history of the Roma is subject to dispute and discussion, and defer the arguments to the Disussion forum b) we encourage a free discussion of the controversial issues in the Discsussion forum c) this way, we maintain the main entry with issues of consensus, and put issues of controversy where they belong d) also in this way, we stop censoring each other's contributions, and then we have no need to engage in personal criticism of one another

What do you think?

To close, I'd like to depart from protocol and extend in an invitation to Desiphral to visit - not just virtually, but physically and in person - the Romani Project at the university of Manchester, and to get to know myself and my team, and our work.

Yaron MatrasMadaares 12:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I have read both of your comments. Prof. Matras, I have many comments to make on your last post here. I hope to address them point by point when I have time. --Kuaichik 13:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

In the meantime, can I point out a paper[11] that I published a few years ago which outlines what I call the 'mainstream' view, and takes issue in detail with the arguments favouring a 'military koine' origin of the Romani language? Also, my reviews of Hancock's book and origins theory can be found on the Romani Studies Website[12] under 'Sample issues', Volume 14, Part 2, page 193ff. Comments welcome! Yaron MatrasMadaares 01:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I certainly agree that a constructive debate is normal way of solving these uncertainties and that the previous personal attacks were unfortunate. After reading these two papers I agree that the specific ancestors of the Romani people (among the various Desi populations and castes) and the motivation for emigration are yet subject to debate, so I agree also to put this specification at the entry (but to keep the sources about a 11th century migration, as far as I know, I don't think they are disputed). I'd describe both theories on stake as preliminary.

About the Ḍom -> Rom theory, if I understand well, the evidences are the similarities of the endonyms, of the outsiders' names and of the occupations. Regarding the endonyms, I think, they need more proofs, it would not be the first time when an almost homonymy would occur (see the case of Romani and Romanian). For the outsider's names also it should be presented more in depth how they have a similar semantic area, how they are limited only in the use of the South Asian Ḍom and of the old Desi diaspora. Regarding the occupations, again here only an thoroughgoing ethnographic study would clarify the connections, otherwise everybody understands what he/she likes (at least in Romania, it is used as a proof for justifying discrimination by some people: "you were low there, you are low here too"). In all these three cases, I think it is necessary a bigger picture to see if it is a conjecture or not, because otherwise there are many other possibilities to make links with words from other Desi languages. Also, it is not clear who are the Ḍom, Domba, from the informations that I have it looks like a cover name for some unrelated groups (the relation between them is only that perceived by outsiders with more social power) the same as it is the word Gypsy or in Middle-Eastern antiquity the word Habiru. It is known that the British administration during the British Raj actively enforced many high-caste POVs in the categorization of the population, which not necessary reflect the ground reality. See also the creation by them of the category Gypsy in the Subcontinent, again made of some local unrelated Desi groups, on exclusive grounds of a perceived similarity with the prejudices against Roma. Now it got local grounds, it is even a SUV named Maruti Gypsy. Also the ethnic name should be studied in its cultural context, i.e. by addressing its meaning in the Romani language, keeping it in the Rom/Chavo context and see what reliable comparisons can be made with other contexts or evolutions from other contexts from other Desi groups.

About the Rajput -> Rom theory, I did not know some of the counterparts in Romani for the proposed military vocabulary, so now I think, after reading the above papers, that it needs more support to qualify as an evidence, to clarify how in first millennium AD the original words this vocabulary was derived from had a military connection. About the word gajja, I added it from Ian Hacock's paper. I don't have available a Prakrit dictionary, so I invite other people with such sources to comment on it. The other proposed evidences are connected to the history of the beginning of the 11th century, but, the same as for the other theory, they need more in depth presentation to show a more clear view. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 11:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Critique of the Rajput/Koine hypothesis

To be sure, there is general agreement that in the absence of any written records that refer specifically to the Roma, we do not know which group they descended from, or what their motivation was to leave India and eventually to arrive in Europe.

In such a situation, with no direct evidence, we must go with circumstantial evidence. Language is a piece of circumstantial evidence, albeit a very powerful one. Nevertheless, many respected scholars still refuse to accept an Indian origin, and find the claims by Judith Okely and Wim Willems appealing -- more than 200 years after the linguistic connection was proven! (see a paper[13] that I published a few years ago on this debate).

While language can point to India without a shred of doubt, pointing out precise locations and chronology is a different matter. The linguistic dating of sound changes and morphological changes is only very tentative. For a start, it is based on written records. But written language changes much more slowly than spoken language, and it is possible for changes to appear in a spoken language centuries before they are picked up in the written form. Moreover, we only have written records from other Indian languages, and not from (proto)Romani directly, and it is possible that Romani changed earlier, or later - we don’t know.

Nevertheless, since Turner’s (1926) work, there has been general agreement that 1) Proto-Romani descends in its oldest stage from a Central MIA language, 2) it missed out on some typical Central developments of the MIA period, indicating that it migrated away from the area, probably to the Northwest, and 3) it shows many of the developments leading to NIA, and so it must have remained in India until the middle ages (but whether this means 8th, 9th or 10th century or even later is entirely unclear).

The dating of an exodus around the 10th century relies on different material altogether: it relies on the fact that Romani emigration from the Balkans is historically attested in the 14th century already, and the Greek impact on Romani is so strong that it would have taken many generations of contact to emerge, perhaps some 250 years. If one calculates backwards, that brings us to an arrival in Byzantium in the 11th century, and assuming prolonged stays in Iran and Armenia, that might suggest a departure from India in the 10th century, which is not reconcilable with the Ghaznavid raids. However, as I suggested in various publications, the latter point is contentious: there may have been a direct migration to Anatolia, where the Roma would have been exposed to Iranian languages, Armenian and Greek simultaneously. In this respect only, Hancock's idea of an Anatolian origin of Romani is inspired by my work.

Since Turner, nobody has added much to the body of evidence on the actual chronology of sound changes, certainly not Ian Hancock or Ron Lee. I think I may have been the first to add two more developments to Turner’s list: the first is the fact that Turner was unaware of the presence of two distinct /r/ in Romani (see chapter 3 of my 2002 book), but this doesn’t actually change the picture as a whole; the second is the development of the past tense conjugation in Romani, which in my book I trace to a fusion of agentive suffixes, identical to the development in Kashmiri and other Dardic languages; this supports a stay in the Northwest.

The linguistic evidence can only bring us so far. Pre-European Romani acquired various isolated loan words from other languages, it is true, but there is no evidence that these words were acquired in situ. There is enormous vocabulary diffusion among the languages of the Middle East, as a result of population movements and trade and a series of changes in political power and as a result in the lingua franca of the region. There are, and were, also dozens if not hundreds of nomadic minorities in the region, such as the Laz, the Adighen, the Dimli, and many many more; various words from Caucasian and Iranian languages could have entered Romani through occasional contacts with such populations. Anyway, we’re talking just about a handful of words, no more than 30. To postulate a migration route that would account for the acquisition in situ of each of those words, following TODAY’S linguistic geography of the area, as Hancock tried to do in his 1998 manuscript, is not a reliable methodology, in my view.

Since this is all that remains, one cannot ignore three more factors, and those are: onomastics, in particular names for group members and outsiders; occupation profiles; and historical records depicting population movements out of India. It is true that all of these three factors are volatile: names can change, occupations can be an accommodation to external circumstances, and references to populations are vague and not specific. But since this is all we’ve got, it is worth having a look at.

It is a fact that of the populations of Indian origin that live outside of India and have retained Indic languages, ALL engage -- by and large -- in a similar occupation profile, historically speaking (of course some Rom are now professors, and some Dom are civil servants, etc etc), and ALL have names that are similar to caste names (either Dom etc., or Jati or Paria). If you believe Hancock’s scenario, then this is pure coincidence. But no solid scientific approach can accept such a coincidence.

As far as the groups are concerned whose name resembles Dom, the sound shift patterns of /ḍ/ to /d, rr, l/ in the languages concerned are regular, and therefore entirely conclusive. Consider:

OIA aṭa, Domari ata, Romani ařo OIA peṭa, Domari pet, Romani peř OIA buḍḍha, Domari wuda, Romani phuřo

while Lomavren has /l/ in initial and post-nasal positions:

OIA anḍa, Domari ana, Romani an(d)řo, Lomavren anlo OIA manḍa, Domani mana, Romani man(d)řo, Lomavren mala

In this context, OIA ḍom, Domari dom, Romani řom, and Lomavren lom fits in perfectly; to this one may add the Hunza valley ḍum population, who engage in metalwork and music and live among the Wakhi people.

Given these regularities in sound correspondence, it is not plausible to make an alternative case for coincidental similarities elsewhere (as in the case of Rum/Romania/Rumelia etc). There is certainly no precedence in India for a population to be named after a God, and the /ram/ hypothesis is purely uninformed conjecture for this reason as well.

Our understanding of many of these changes is still rather incomplete. Much is still unfolding as we study more and more Romani dialects and discover just how volatile some of these sounds are. For example, a Romani group in Serres in northern Greece speaks a dialect of Romani, but refers to itself as ‘lom’, to bread as ‘malo’, and so on. In Bulgaria, there are even dialects in which the /r/ in ‘rom’ is still pronounced with a retroflex sound.

These are very young changes in the history of pronunciation, and the differentiation is young too. A derivation of /řom/ from ‘Ram’ would need to explain why a Romani-speaking group in Bulgaria inserts a retroflex, and one in Greece inserts an /l/. There is therefore no doubt that the similarities in names go back to a shared name /ḍom/, with a retroflex.

There is also no doubt that the Indian /ḍom/ were and are a caste of service providers. Although the name itself as used today in India is a cover-term, some groups continue to use it as a self-appellation (see G.W.Briggs, 1953, The Doms and their near relatives; and G. S. Ghurye, 1979, Caste and race in India). It is not true that the term first appears in a colonial context. The oldest references to the ḍom are from the 11th and 12th centuries. The cited interpretation of the word /ḍomba/ as meaning ‘people’ is irrelevant inasmuch as in Romani the word /řom/ also means ‘people’ - but only within the strict group-internal reference context.

Hancock has tried to deconstruct the connection between the Rom and the middle eastern Dom, by suggesting that Domari was not just a separate language, but left India at a separate time. I agree that Domari was a separate language already back in India (and so did Turner). But the time is less conclusive. Hancock relies on the misinterpretation of a single line in Macalister’s 1914 description of Domari. Macalister spoke of ‘neuter’ nouns, but what he meant was nouns that had been neuter in Sanskrit. This is a common way of referring to historical inflection classes in historical linguistics. The fact is, Domari has only two genders, and no neuter gender (see my work on Domari, the first since Macalister’s, downloadable form the Manchester Romani Project website)[14]. Hancock misunderstood, or has misrepresented the facts here too. It is enough to glance through Macalister’s own dictionary to see that he does not define a single Domari word as ‘neuter’.

A further misrepresentation in Hancock's work concerns the origin and meanings of specialised vocabulary in the Romani language: terms for insiders and outsiders, terms for metals and warfare, and terms for domestic animals. Defying at times any reasonable linguistic methodology, and often assigning to words meanings that they don't have, and even inventing ghost words, Hancock pretends that Romani vocabulary provides proof of a settled ancestral population, that specialised in military campaigns. I refer to my detailed discussion of these arguments in my review of Hancock's book, which can be found on the Romani Studies Website[15] under 'Sample issues', Volume 14, Part 2, page 193ff.

Another fact that Hancock dismisses is the presence in India and elsewhere of service-providing castes. This is an almost universal phenomenon, and while I certainly agree that we cannot simply take all itinerant groups and label them together as ‘Gypsies’, ignoring their distinct languages and ethnic origins, we cannot on the other hand ignore the fabric of Indian society, and the market niches that existed outside of India for such specialised trades.

And whilst it is true that none of this is conclusive proof, considering what we have at hand in terms of concrete data and evidence, it is the best theory that we’ve got.

The unanswered question remains that of motivation: why the Rom left India. On this matter, my view would not be far apart from Hancock's, and I think it is entirely plausible that social and political upheavals were the motivation. It is even plausible that the Rom, as service providers, were indeed camp followers. There are several connections with the central Asian Turkic peoples of the time: in the name /cigan/, which goes back not to /athinganoi/ as is often quoted, but most probably to Old Turkish /čiġan/ ‘desolate’, hence its spread as an external pejorative term. And the Romani word for ‘Turks’ - xoraxane / koraxane - goes back to the ‘Karakhan’ state, with little doubt. So the Seljuk connection is not at all implausible.

There remains the question of ‘koine’. A koine entails two things. Firstly, there is a functional aspect to it. A koine is a language that is used as a ‘compromise’ language of communication among people who have different native dialects. This is somewhat similar to the concept of lingua franca, except that a koine is usually very similar and mutually intelligible with the dialects that are the native languages of its users. The classic, prototypical case of a koine is Attic Greek, which was used in encounters of speakers of different Greek dialects, and that is where the term emerged. Zanzibar Swahili is believed to have been a koine spoken by different communities in East Africa. Spoken Israeli Hebrew (as opposed to formal Israeli Hebrew) possibly emerged as a koine, spoken at first by learners with various degrees of proficiency and different foreign accents and interferences.

Second, there is a structural component. A koine usually absorbs influences from the various dialects spoken natively by its users. It is therefore often difficult to pinpoint the precise geographical origin of a koine - indeed, it doesn’t have one, because it is a layered language, consisting of a core that may have emerged in one place, but then with added layers from subsequent usage contexts. Spoken Israeli Hebrew for example adopts in some words a monophthong for Formal Hebrew diphthong (ey>e), as in the Sephardic accent (bet-sefer for beyt-sefer 'school'), but in other instances the opposite happens, and e becomes ey, as in the Ashkenazi accent: tesha > teysha 'nine'. There is thus an erratic pattern, because influences from both groups were absorbed. The sound development is, as a result, irregular.

There is no evidence that Romani was ever used among speakers of different Indian languages, and we will never uncover such evidence unless texts are found that describe the early Romani population. This argument is therefore entirely circular. Indeed, judging by what we know of Romani today and in the past centuries, it was always used as a group-internal family language, quite the opposite of a koine. Structurally, too, there is no evidence that Romani is composed of different dialects. Sound changes in Romani are regular, even more so than in English (compare English ‘break’ but ‘breach’, ‘blank’ but ‘bleach’, ‘yet’ but ‘get’ -- English is much more a koine than Romani; or compare standard German ‘Waffe’ but ‘Wappen’, ‘Fluss’ but ‘Flut’ -- typical of the koine atha was artificially formed by Martin Luther in his Bible translation; such doublets don’t even exist in Romani).

Hancock is essentially capitalising on the fact that we cannot pinpoint the precise regional origin of Romani, to claim that it doesn’t have one. But this is twisting the argument. Different languages confront us with various kinds of difficulties of classification, but for different reasons. We cannot pinpoint the geographical origin of Yiddish or Ladino either, because they were composed of elements of different dialects, and this happend since they were formed within a non-territorial network of speakers, and abosrbed influences from different regions.

In the case of Romani, the major inconsistencies in its phonological and morphological structures are quite confortably reconcilable with an emergence in the central area, and a move to the northwest. I would challenge anybody to come up with any structural evidence that likens it to a koine; so far, nobody has done so, not even on websites or in personal communication.

I’ll stop here, agreeing in principle that much more work can be done before we arrive at an absolutely conclusive picture. But I hope to have shed a bit of light on how the scientific argument is and has been constructed. I suggest that people like Ian Hancock and Ron Lee and the late Ian Kochanowski are not pursuing the scientific argument, as they claim, but are rather concerned with diminishing people’s confidence in the academic research that has been conducted so far, in order to construct a new historical discourse. This discourse aims not at scientific discovery in the first instance, but at mobilisation and the promotion of ethnic ‘pride’, and I therefore consider it as an ‘activist’ agenda, and not as an academic one. Everyone has the right for form their opinion, of course. But the claims about Rajputs and a military koine are not, I suggest, informed by any scientific methodology, but are aimed at recruiting strictly emotional identification.

Yaron Matras Madaares 02:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

My goodness! Before I say anything, let me first apologize for taking so long to reply. (I would also like to thank both of you for remaining civil while discussing.) I will have to look very carefully at that last post, lest I make some kind of outrageously foolish comments. Hopefully, though, I will be able to avoid that hazard today and finally say something. --Kuaichik 21:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

This information is food for thought and it might take some time to process it. In the meantime, as there were no other points of view about what to do with the current presentation in the main entry I moved below the text. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 08:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

In terms of importance, is it correct the presentation of Iranian languages, like Persian, Kurdish? From what I read until now, it made me an impression that sometimes it is not clear from which Iranian language a word is derived. For example, "vurdon", sometimes appears as Ossetin, sometimes Kurdish (but I'm sorry I can't provide the sources, I read some time ago and I did not preserve the track). Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 09:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Texts about the origin of the Romani people

Per the discussions above, I transferred here the texts from the article, until there will be clarified how should these theories be presented in the entry. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 08:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Traditionally, from the 19th century onwards, after the creation of the British Raj, rezulting in categorization of the population for administrative purposes, non-Romani scholars proposed and supported as origin the Sanskrit word ḍōma, designating a low caste. Their theory is based on the initial uvular trill (represented by rr), presented as a reflex of a retroflex sound and on supposed similarites between the occupation profile, social status, of the Domba and the stereotypes and prejudices against Roma. Thus, it was asumed that the Romani people of Europe, the Lom people of the Caucasus and Anatolia, the Dom people of the Middle East were descending from the Indian caste of the Ḍom. Initially, it was proposed that these groups emigrated together in a single wave. However, according to Romani scholar Ian Hancock (also Ronald Lee, V. Rishi), continuing earlier studies of Ralph Lilley Turner, the variations of pronunciation of the initial sound in different dialects, besides the r, put under the umbrella of the letters rr (uvular trill, voiceless velar fricative and others), also the study of the evolution of the initially retroflex sounds in proto-Romani and the origins of the contemporary rr in different Romani words, proves that there is no serious base to make a link between rom and ḍōma. In addition, there is presented the wide range of possibilities of making connections between the word Rom and words from the Indian Subcontinent. The languages themselves of the three groups present important differences, pointing to different areas of origin in the Indian Subcontinent and different times of emigration. Also the peculiarities of the Romanipen do not suggest at all a low caste origin, while genetical researches point out that Roma are closer to the Punjabis and Rajputs than to Domba.. Moreover, the Dom name used in South Asia is an exonym employed by high caste people to designate some unrelated ethnic groups of different origins (Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Munda) that use their own different ethnic names as endonyms. It was presented as a distinct ethnic group because the British administration in the British Raj was inspired by the easier available population categorization of the high-caste people and later had an active role in enforcing this categorization (the same as for other issues concerning the modern Indian caste system). Most Roma refer to themselves as Rom or Rrom, depending on the dialect. The word means "husband", Romni/Rromni meaning "wife", while the unmarried are named čhavo ("boy") (IPA pronunciation: /cʰaʋo/) or čhej ("girl"). Thus, the Sanskrit word rama (रम) or ramaṇa (रमण) meaning "husband" have been considered as etymologies for Rom.

Late on, some supporters of the Ḍom-theory, reorganized it by presenting the Ḍom as a cover-term for itinerant service-providing castes and the three group as originating in different areas within India, speaking different (albeit related) Indian languages, and probably leaving the Subcontinent at different times, taking different routes. According to this view, then, these groups did not leave India together, speaking one language. Rather, they simply share the same ethnonym because they belonged to similar social castes.

It is known that the period of time around 1000 AD was one of great turmoil in the northern part of the Indian Subcontinent. The Muslim invasions wrought havoc and led to massive population movements. The scholar and Romani political activist Ian Hancock and also W.R. Rishi wrote that the Roma ancestors left the Subcontinent as a result of these circumstances. Between the years 1001 and 1026, the Muslim Afghans and Turks known as Ghaznavids made seventeen invasions in the Punjab and Sindh areas, fighting against the local Hindus. The Rajputs played a major role in the resistance. They were a mixture of different jāti (castes) brought together by a common desire to repel the foreign invaders. There are accounts that many of them were captured and sent to Central Asia to be used as conscripts in further fighting, and that others left the war zone, heading west.

These movements of population involved many categories, because the Rajputs would go to war with their families and their associates frequently. According to Hancock, the Romani language sustains the claimed Rajputic ancestry: most of the words related to war are of Indo-Aryan ancestry like bust (spear), patava (gaiters), xanrro (sword), tover (axe) [16]. The name for those who are not Roma, gadže derives from Prakritic gajja (civilian, domestic, non-military). Also there are cultural similarities between Roma and Rajputs and DNA research demonstrates genetic proximity.

The short-lived Ghaznavid Empire was polyglot, but Persian was official. This could explain the share of Persian loanwords in Romani, loans from no earlier than 10th century Persian. However, the greatest changes to the Romani language occurred much further West. The Seljuks (who defeated the Ghaznavids in 1038), also defeated the Byzantine Empire in 1071 and conquered eastern Anatolia.

Historical documents relate the subsequent movement of populations from Central Asia to eastern Anatolia. It seems that it was here that, according to Ian Hancock's thesis, the Romani language evolved as a koine from the many Indo-Aryan languages spoken by the ancestors of the Roma. The original status of Romani as a lingua franca is supported by the vocabulary of Indo-Aryan origin. It cannot be linked to a certain area, but it includes words from all across the northern Subcontinent. During its development, it underwent a certain degree of influence from the local Greek. This influence is secondary in weight after the Indo-Aryan ancestry of the language, both in vocabulary and in grammar (there are some suffixes of Greek origin). Other Anatolian languages contributed to the creation of Romani as well (most notably Armenian).

This is also when it seems that the Roma developed their identity as a distinct people, abandoning the jātī differences. Moreover, they had to adapt to the life of the foreign lands and find economic niches for survival. Analysis of Romani vocabulary indicates that the Romas' ancestors were not originally nomadic. Indo-Aryan words like kher (house), udar (door), gav (village), thagar (king), balo (pig), khaini (hen), giv (wheat) seem to indicate a settled society instead. Words related to nomadism come from Anatolia, where this lifestyle first became common for the Roma. For example, grast (horse) and char (grass) are from Armenian, vurdon (waggon, cart) is from Kurdish, drom (road) and petalo (horseshoe) are from Greek. Also the skills of metalworking were acquired here: the words for metals (except for those for gold, silver and iron, which are Indo-Aryan) are from Greek and Armenian, as well as for the tools used in this field.

Also the text that was not currently in the entry:

Most mainstream researchers in Romani linguistics and Romani ethnography hold the view that the exodus of the Rom(a) from India is part of the historical phenomenon of outwards migration from India of castes, specializing in certain trades. These groups will have originated in different areas within India, and spoken different (albeit related) Indian languages, and probably left the subcontinent at different times, taking different routes. However, many of them share ethnonyms that go back to similar caste names: the Rom of Europe, the Lom of the Caucasus and Anatolia, the Dom of the Middle East, are an example, all descending, it is assumed, from the Indian caste of the Dom. The latter is a cover-term for itinerant service-providing castes. This origin hypothesis allows to reconcile the linguistic and geographical diversity of minorities of Indian origin living outside of India, with the similarities between them in occupation profile, social status, name, and origin. However, in recent years political activists and Romani intellectuals have begun to reject this hypothesis, searching instead for a historical narrative that would connect their ancestors with 'high status' groups in Indian society, rather than with the low-status Dom. It is in this context that the works of people like Hancock, Lee, Rishi, and Kochanowski are to be interpreted.

And also the two fantasy theories. I don't think they are in the scope of the discussion above, probably later, if there will be gathered a collection of this kind of fantastic origins, they may be presented in future at History_of_the_Romani_people#Origin_and_diaspora:

Romani scholar and poet Valdemar Kalinin has recently uncovered a number of alternative theories. One states that Roma came from Natts, wandering musicians and horse- dealers who used to accompany the Indian armies during its assaults and raids. When Makhmoud Gazni defeated Indians he forced the Natts to acompany him and allowed them to loot the defeating territories and some of them voluntered to his army.Being together later on with Seljuks forces they got beated by Egyptians on the Holy Land. He goes on to mention the Ukrainian historians V.Kandyba, A, Kandyba , A Mikhaylenko and others, who ran expeditions around the Odessa area and found some important sources and they also referred to the the Kiev Rigveda in their book" History of ancient Jews" ,2005, St. Petersburg- that Roma descent from Cingian( Chichar), old tribe who roamed between the Caspian and Black seas steppes. During XVII century B.C. they migrated to Pandjab . Later on in different waves of migration they started to come: IV to Persia , V- VI century to Armenia , VIII - X to the Byzantine Empire etc. The Russian historian , geographer and anthropologist,twice Doctor poet Leo Gumiliov ( 1912- 1992) son of two great Russian poets, Nikolay Gumiliov( 1887- 1921) executed by CHCHKA in 1921 and Anna Akhmatova ( 1889- 1966) wrote in his books that Roma belonged to the low caste who left India during the Rajput revolution ( VII - VIII centuries ).

Romani scholar G. Karavajev of Riga has put forward yet another theory, which is currently being formulated in his book. Accordingt to this theory, the Roma were the original inhabitants of Atlantis, and were made aware of the coming disaster thanks to their tarot reading skills. They sought refuge in Egypt, where they served the Queen of Sheba, taking charge of her libraries. With the fall of her Empire, the Roma were forced to scatter around the world, some of them taking refuge in India. Karavajev claims that Romani is a blend of various languages, with a Sanskrit core, owing to the ancient connections with Indian scholarship, revived through the migration of some of the Rom to India. He emphasises that non-Romani scholars, and many Roma who were influenced by them, have reservations against his theory because of the image that Roma are uneducated or unable to run their own civilisation, as they did in Atlantis before it submerged.

I'm still in the process of coming up with a reply, using my soapbox. The reply is (currently) getting longer and longer, as I have more and more claims to contemplate. Anyway, just wanted to say I haven't forgotten to look at this or anything! :) --Kuaichik 06:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I have decided to be bold and post my reply at last. It is to be found below.

I propose that we not consider any view to be "mainstream." Typically, "mainstream" is used to mean "generally accepted." You believe that your view is "mainstream" and that the opposing view is merely that of a small "activist" fringe. But I would think that, similarly, people like Prof. Hancock see their view as "mainstream" and the opposing view (yours) as that of a small "pro-Sampson" fringe. To say that either view is "mainstream," therefore, is inevitably biased one way or the other. There is no consensus on the matter in Romani Studies, so it should not be considered "mainstream."

Why is it that none of these [koine origin] arguments have been published by any serious academic publisher, they were never put forward at any international conference of scholars, never submitted for publication in any professional journal, never taught at any university, never supported by any expert who specialises in Romani linguistics at a university...? But they have been published by a serious academic publisher: Prof. Ian Hancock. They must have been put forward at an international conference of scholars, because they were submitted for publication in at least one (professional?) journal: Scholarship and the Gypsy Struggle: Commitment in Romani Studies. They certainly were taught at a university: the University of Texas. And of course, they are supported by an expert who specializes in Romani linguistics at a university (you-know-who).

Wikipedia itself defines me as "[the] most prominent English-language Romani linguist and the author of several pioneering studies" No, it doesn't. The article Yaron Matras mentions that you are "perhaps the most prominent English-language Romani linguist..." There is no citation for this statement at all, and there appears to be little or no evidence that the Wikipedian who created the page with this information knows much about Romani Studies. I strongly doubt that you are as notable as Prof. Hancock; plenty of people who are both outside of Romani Studies and living away from the United States know who he is. (To provide a few specific examples: the Dalai Lama, Brian Kenety (a reporter for Radio Prague), and members of the United Nations) Do you have evidence that the same is true of yourself? If people have a question relating to the Romani people, who do they ask: you or him? If journalists want an intellectual perspective on Romani-related issues, who do they ask: you or him?

It is not common to defer the reader to a discussion. Indeed, I don't even know whether this is possible; if it were, that would really help (not only in this case but also in the discussion in Talk:Romani people as to why the Romani people are not particularly related to the surrounding gadžikane populations). Instead, I propose that we simply present an unbiased explanation of everything relevant, even history.

To be sure, there is general agreement that in the absence of any written records that refer specifically to the Roma, we do not know which group they descended from, or what their motivation was to leave India and eventually to arrive in Europe. Well. To be sure, there is general agreement that we have no consensus on the matter. I'm not sure that we can all just assume, at this point, that no one knows just because we have found few or no documentary records thus far.

While language can point to India without a shred of doubt, pointing out precise locations and chronology is a different matter. Exactly - because different words in Romani are especially similar to words in different Indian languages. Take just a few of the Romani numbers, for example: dui ("two") can be found only in some languages spoken in North Central and northeastern India, whereas štar ("four") appears to be most similar to its equivalent (šta) in Wai-alaa, a Nuristani language. And in addition to these numbers, there are many words like ame (we) that are closest to their Gujarati equivalent (the Gujarati word for "we" is also ame, whereas it is e.g. ham in Hindustani). Nevertheless, it is certainly false to say that Romani is not similar to Hindustani, because e.g. the word for "thief" in both languages is identical (čor).

If the Romani people all came from one place, why are several common words in their language (as spoken today) each similar to such different Indic/Dardic languages?

Nevertheless, since Turner’s (1926) work, there has been general agreement that 1) Proto-Romani descends in its oldest stage from a Central MIA language, 2) it missed out on some typical Central developments of the MIA period, indicating that it migrated away from the area, probably to the Northwest, and 3) it shows many of the developments leading to NIA, and so it must have remained in India until the middle ages (but whether this means 8th, 9th or 10th century or even later is entirely unclear). Hmm. Again you're saying that anyone who agrees with you is agreeing with the "mainstream," "general" view in Romani Studies? I wouldn't say there is "general agreement" that Proto-Romani descends from any one language. I don't know about the second point; what "developments of the MIA period" are not to be found in Romani, as opposed to other Indian languages?

With regard to the third point, you go on to claim that Hancock's argument for the 10th century is based on completely different factors. This is not what he says e.g. in We Are the Romani People: "In the new Indo-Aryan period, which began about 1000 AD, most of the Indian languages began to lose the neuter gender...We can only conclude from this that at the time when the neuter began to disappear, around the year 1000, the ancestor languages that were to become Romani had not yet left their homeland."

I gather from this that his argument has to do only with this, that it is based on when Indian languages (and Proto-Romani, or "Rajputic" as Prof. Hancock calls it, with them) made the change from MIA to NIA (esp. with regard to which neuter nouns became masculine/feminine). Why do you say this could be the 8th or 9th century? Did the changes from neuter nouns to masculine/feminine nouns take place in NIA as far back as the 8th century? If so, what source(s) do you have to verify this? I expect this would be a very interesting point to discuss, though perhaps we should also take into account the Persian loanwords that Hancock claims are shared by both Urdu and Romani.

the second is the development of the past tense conjugation in Romani...this supports a stay in the Northwest. With regard to the Dardic-related views of you and Prof. Hancock, this is something I've been wondering about. I don't really expect to be taken seriously with regards to this, but to me, it seems that there is a tendency in Romani Studies to assume that Dardic loanwords in Romani necessarily mean that the Romanies actually stayed in the Northwest. Is this really a good assumption, though? There is a legend (yes, I know, it's only a legend, but it makes me wonder nevertheless) that a Kashmiri king named Lalitaditya conquered much of the Subcontinent (as far south as Karnataka) after the fall of the Gupta Empire. In addition, King Gautamiputra Satakarni apparently spoke Paisaci (a Dardic language?) as well as Prakrit and (eventually) Sanskrit; the story goes that his minister wrote the Brihatkatha referred to in the article Paisaci. Is it possible, then, that Dardic languages influenced several Indian languages, especially in northern India, around that time?

The linguistic evidence can only bring us so far. Pre-European Romani acquired various isolated loan words from other languages, it is true, but there is no evidence that these words were acquired in situ. There is enormous vocabulary diffusion among the languages of the Middle East, as a result of population movements and trade and a series of changes in political power and as a result in the lingua franca of the region. Forgive me, I am a bit confused. By "other languages," do you mean other Indic languages, other Dardic languages, other Middle Eastern languages, or a combination of these?

Anyway, we’re talking just about a handful of words, no more than 30. Hmm, really? I'll have to check on that. To postulate a migration route that would account for the acquisition in situ of each of those words, following TODAY’S linguistic geography of the area, as Hancock tried to do in his 1998 manuscript, is not a reliable methodology, in my view. Granted. That makes sense.

It is a fact that of the populations of Indian origin that live outside of India and have retained Indic languages, ALL engage -- by and large -- in a similar occupation profile, historically speaking... But only as of their arrival in their current homes! We have no evidence that they engaged in these occupations before, do we? The Shah-Nameh is no evidence, at least not for the Roma (or the Lom).

ALL have names that are similar to caste names (either Dom etc., or Jati or Paria). Hancock's view is that the Romani people were descended from military camp followers. Now "camp followers," I think, is a very vague term. Sure, it might include soldiers, but perhaps it included people of other castes, too. In Bengal, for example, a khalaasi (tent-pitcher) apparently had the status of a Dalit even as late as the 19th century.

...Lomavren has /l/ in initial and post-nasal positions... What initial position? You have listed no words with /l/ in an initial position! I think we would really have to look at a lot of examples like the ones you have listed before we could conclude that this argument suggests the Dom-Lom-Rom (or Dom-Lom-Rrom) etymology.

There is certainly no precedence in India for a population to be named after a God, and the /ram/ hypothesis is purely uninformed conjecture for this reason as well. But there is precedence in India for a population to be named something to the effect of "man" or "people," and this is Hancock's argument. He is saying that raama meant "husband" in OIA, much like Rom or Rrom does in modern Romani. But I agree that I, personally, am completely unable to account for the Dom-Lom-Rrom variation in pronounciation amongst Romani groups. (They are really Romani, aren't they? Not just Dom or Lom who migrated into these areas, as the Romanies of Harbin migrated into Manchuria?)

Hancock relies on the misinterpretation of a single line in Macalister’s 1914 description of Domari. I don't think so. He knows that Sampson, for example, may have been questioning the use of three genders. (See this.) He then goes on to say (in that link) that Macalister cites pani and ag as examples of neuter words in Domari. Donald Kenrick also supports the view that Domari has a neuter gender [17].

A further misrepresentation in Hancock's work concerns the origin and meanings of specialised vocabulary in the Romani language: terms for insiders and outsiders, terms for metals and warfare, and terms for domestic animals. Defying at times any reasonable linguistic methodology, and often assigning to words meanings that they don't have, and even inventing ghost words, Hancock pretends that Romani vocabulary provides proof of a settled ancestral population, that specialised in military campaigns. I refer to my detailed discussion of these arguments in my review of Hancock's book, which can be found on the Romani Studies Website[15] under 'Sample issues', Volume 14, Part 2, page 193ff. Perhaps you do not realize that this idea was actually discussed as early as 1981, when a Hungarian historian named Vekerdi Jószef (surnamed Vekerdi) even used this idea to portray Romanies as "not concerned with any kind of agricultural productive work..." I think this should be looked into in more detail; for now, I think I can confidently mention the similarity between Romani khor (horse) and the Hindustani equivalent ghoRaa.

Another fact that Hancock dismisses is the presence in India and elsewhere of service-providing castes. Forgive me (and no offense intended), but your reasoning here confuses me. Are you saying, perhaps, that the Romanies are the "service-providing caste" of Europe as the Shudras were of India? I don't think the Europeans needed foreigners just for that purpose; they already had such "castes" before the Romanies got there.

...the name /cigan/, which goes back not to /athinganoi/ as is often quoted... Really?! What evidence do you have for this? I wonder how probable it is, phonologically at least, that /cigan/ was derived from /čiġan/ rather than /athinganos/? (It seems like /athinganos/ - or is it, indeed, /atsinganos/? - has the same (dental?) /t(s?)/ sound as opposed to /č/, which looks like the affricate /tʃ/ containing an alveopalatal sibilant. And what about the /ġ/? Is that really as similar to the /g/ in /cigan/ as the /g/ in the Greek word?)

There is no evidence that Romani was ever used among speakers of different Indian languages... True, we have not yet found any documentary evidence, but there may be linguistic evidence, as I have noted above.

We cannot pinpoint the geographical origin of Yiddish or Ladino either, because they were composed of elements of different dialects, and this [happened] since they were formed within a non-territorial network of speakers, and [absorbed] influences from different regions. And that is precisely the argument that Prof. Hancock is making for Romani as well: that Romani was formed within a non-territorial network of speakers, several peoples leaving India together, who absorbed influences from different regions (some from Gujarat, some from Maddhya Desh i.e. parts of modern-day UP and MP, etc.).

...the claims about Rajputs and a military koine are not, I suggest, informed by any scientific methodology, but are aimed at recruiting strictly emotional identification. If so, then why has it taken so long to come up with this idea? And if the intention is merely emotional, why not claim that the Romanies' ancestors are Brahmins? (If you wanted to make this case, it would be very easy to account for the maintenance of Sanskritic(ish) pronounciation. For example, why is the Romani word for "three" trin (cf. Sanskrit neuter treeNi), rather than e.g. theen as in Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, etc.?) --Kuaichik 01:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

reply to Kuaichik

I propose that we not consider any view to be "mainstream."

With 'mainstream' I refer to the vast majority of professional academics who specialise in Romani linguistics. I believe it is important to distinguish between views that enjoy consensus among researchers, and views that gain support primarily in political or other sector-specific contexts. Hancock's views on the Rajput-origin have no support among researchers based at universities / academic institutions.

But they have been published by a serious academic publisher: Prof. Ian Hancock. They must have been put forward at an international conference of scholars, because they were submitted for publication in at least one (professional?) journal: Scholarship and the Gypsy Struggle: Commitment in Romani Studies. They certainly were taught at a university: the University of Texas. And of course, they are supported by an expert who specializes in Romani linguistics at a university (you-know-who).

I meant peer-refereed publications. When the author acts as teacher and publisher himself, there is no scrutiny of the quality of his work. The conference you refer to, and its proceedings, was a conference of activists, not of scholars, and the resulting publication is not a research publication. In any case, the fact remains that none of this was ever accepted for publication in a linguistic forum, even though the argument is supposedly a linguistic one. I argue that this is because it fails to answer to basic research methodology in linguistics.

Do you have evidence that the same is true of yourself? If people have a question relating to the Romani people, who do they ask: you or him? If journalists want an intellectual perspective on Romani-related issues, who do they ask: you or him?

I believe I have earned my credentials as an authority on Romani linguistics. I have never claimed to be the most popular anchoring point for journalists with popular queries, nor is it my job to give the perspective of Romani intellectuals. We're talking about whether or not I have a right to be heard on issues of research into Romani linguistics, and that in the context of repeated attempts to erase and delete my views from this forum.

If the Romani people all came from one place, why are several common words in their language (as spoken today) each similar to such different Indic/Dardic languages?

The comparison with modern standard languages of India is, if not misleading, then only partially revealing. The comparison must be made with languages in the transition period from MIA to NIA, and especially to those that were spoken rather than written (which makes this an almost impossible task ..). There are numerous languages and dialects of India that have hitherto not been adequately described. To my knowledhe, nobody has attempted a systematic comparison of Romani with vernacular varieties of India.

Hmm. Again you're saying that anyone who agrees with you is agreeing with the "mainstream," "general" view in Romani Studies? I wouldn't say there is "general agreement" that Proto-Romani descends from any one language. I don't know about the second point; what "developments of the MIA period" are not to be found in Romani, as opposed to other Indian languages?

This is rather basic stuff in Romani historical linguistics. Rather than repeat the examples I can refer you to chapter 3 of my 2002 book as an introduction, see further references there.

I gather from this that his argument has to do only with this, that it is based on when Indian languages (and Proto-Romani, or "Rajputic" as Prof. Hancock calls it, with them) made the change from MIA to NIA (esp. with regard to which neuter nouns became masculine/feminine). Why do you say this could be the 8th or 9th century? Did the changes from neuter nouns to masculine/feminine nouns take place in NIA as far back as the 8th century? If so, what source(s) do you have to verify this?

Hancock is trying to date historical events based on the appearance of changes in written records of related languages. We can assume that such changes took a long time to enter the written and formal varieties, and that their appearance in the vernaculars preceded their codification by many generations. From what we know about how quickly written forms of language 'catch up' with spoken vernaculars, 1-2 centuries seems realistics; but the entire dating exercise is speculative, that is certain.

With regard to the Dardic-related views of you and Prof. Hancock, this is something I've been wondering about. I don't really expect to be taken seriously with regards to this, but to me, it seems that there is a tendency in Romani Studies to assume that Dardic loanwords in Romani necessarily mean that the Romanies actually stayed in the Northwest.

Again, may I refer you to my 2002 book, this time to chapters 5 and 6 on nominal and verbal morphology, where I show similarities in the structure of inflectional paradigms between Romani and Dardic. With respect to the virtual media, an informed discussion really presupposes that main reference material has been taken into consideration.

By "other languages," do you mean other Indic languages, other Dardic languages, other Middle Eastern languages, or a combination of these?

There are some Caucasian words, including Armenian, and Georgian, as well as words from various Iranian languages. See chapter 3 of my 2002 book.

But only as of their arrival in their current homes! We have no evidence that they engaged in these occupations before, do we? The Shah-Nameh is no evidence, at least not for the Roma (or the Lom).

No, we have no evidence for anything in Romani pre-history. But my argument is that the similarities in occupation profiles are not coincidental, but go back to origins in a similar socio-economic sector of Indian society.

Hancock's view is that the Romani people were descended from military camp followers. Now "camp followers," I think, is a very vague term. Sure, it might include soldiers, but perhaps it included people of other castes, too.

Hancock is inconsistent about this. Sometimes he allows a broad interpretation of camp followers, which would not be incompatible with an origin in service-providing, mobile castes. IN some writings, he insists on a warrior origin, and accuses those who assume a low-caste origin of racism. This shows again that the argument is oriented more toward mobilisation rhetoric than toward academic consistency.

What initial position? You have listed no words with /l/ in an initial position! I think we would really have to look at a lot of examples like the ones you have listed before we could conclude that this argument suggests the Dom-Lom-Rom (or Dom-Lom-Rrom) etymology.

That is a term in linguistics, referring to word-initial position. See chapter 3 of my book for examples.

But there is precedence in India for a population to be named something to the effect of "man" or "people," and this is Hancock's argument. He is saying that raama meant "husband" in OIA, much like Rom or Rrom does in modern Romani. 

Does he say that? That's very thoughtful of him, but where in the world does he find evidence to prove this? You can't just imagine that words had meanings that you want them to have. By contrast, 'Dom/ Domba' as reference to itinerant service-castes is well attested (for some sources see intro page on Manchester Romani Project website).

'Hancock relies on the misinterpretation of a single line in Macalister’s 1914 description of Domari. I don't think so. He knows that Sampson, for example, may have been questioning the use of three genders. that Macalister cites pani and ag as examples of neuter words in Domari. Donald Kenrick also supports the view that Domari has a neuter gender

This is a good example of multiple repetition of a misunderstanding. Kenrick has never done his own research on Domari, he only read Macalister (and Hancock). Macaslister refers to these words as 'neuters' in the sense that they are 'Sanskrit neuters'. But Macalister aside, I can assure you that Domari has no neuter gender. You can look up my published Domari texts, or even those published by Macalister himself, which show only m and f gender agreement.

Perhaps you do not realize that this idea was actually discussed as early as 1981, when a Hungarian historian named Vekerdi Jószef (surnamed Vekerdi) even used this idea to portray Romanies as "not concerned with any kind of agricultural productive work..."

Thank you for the reference; I am quite familiar with this work and in fact I make precisely this comparison in the section on lexicon in chapter 3 of my 2002 book.

Forgive me (and no offense intended), but your reasoning here confuses me. Are you saying, perhaps, that the Romanies are the "service-providing caste" of Europe as the Shudras were of India? I don't think the Europeans needed foreigners just for that purpose; they already had such "castes" before the Romanies got there.

That's a rather simplistic argument, something like saying that the Germans didn't need factory workers in the 1960s because they had their own, yet they allowed southern European immigration, etc etc. The Romanies may not have been the Shudras, precisely, but they occupied, at least quite often if not always, very specific economic niches. I wonder how probable it is, phonologically at least, that /cigan/ was derived from /čiġan/ rather than /athinganos/? (It seems like /athinganos/ - or is it, indeed, /atsinganos/? - has the same (dental?) /t(s?)/ sound as opposed to /č/, which looks like the affricate /tʃ/ containing an alveopalatal sibilant. And what about the /ġ/? Is that really as similar to the /g/ in /cigan/ as the /g/ in the Greek word?)

That is the normal phonological rendering of these Turkish sounds in Greek, if we assume that the direction of loan was Turki(c) > Greek rather than the other way around. The alternative would be to assume a change with Greel from /athinganoi/ to /tsingani/ > how would one explain this change, especially accompanied by loss of meaning, if the original name was meaningful (in Greek)?? And that is precisely the argument that Prof. Hancock is making for Romani as well: that Romani was formed within a non-territorial network of speakers, several peoples leaving India together, who absorbed influences from different regions

no, he doesn't talk of a non-territorial network of speakers, but of speakers from different places coming together. That is different from my example of Yiddish and Ladino, where the speakers were of one origin, but settled among diverse populations yet maintained their non-territorial network.

If so, then why has it taken so long to come up with this idea? And if the intention is merely emotional, why not claim that the Romanies' ancestors are Brahmins?

The idea is old. It was first suggested by Pischel in 1888. IN the context of Romani activism, it was revived by Kochanoswki in 1966. Hancock adopted it at the height of his career as a political activist, which happens to have coincided with a rapipd expansion of expertise in Romani linguistics and a consequent decline in his relative weight and authority in this field, thus is was a kind of conpemsatory strategy, to invent something new to attract attention. Since the theory relies on loyalty to the romani political cause, rather than academic consistency and coherence, it had to wait for there to be a large enough population of activists; and since it relies on popular and virtual disseminatio, rather than on publication in standard scholarly forums, it had to wait till the proliferation of Romani activist websites. I am afraid I do not know why Hancock's preferred choice is warriors; but Kochanowski before him did in fact attribute the Romani population to a mix between warriors and Brahmins, quite consistent with your expectation. see discussion of the evolution of this idea in my paper on 'Mystification of Gypsy identity', downloadable from the Romani Project website. Yaron Matras, 25 Aug