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The Romani people, also known as the Roma, are an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin who traditionally lived a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle. Linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the Roma originated in the Indian subcontinent, in particular the region of Rajasthan. Their first wave of westward migration is believed to have occurred sometime between the 5th and 11th centuries. Their name is from the Sanskrit word डोम which translates into a member of the Dom caste of travelling musicians and dancers. The Romani population moved west into the Ghaznavid Empire and later into the Byzantine Empire. The Roma are thought to have arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th century. Although they are widely dispersed, their most concentrated populations are believed to be in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.
The Dom are descendants of the Dom caste with origins in the Indian subcontinent which through ancient migrations are found scattered across the Middle East and North Africa, the Eastern Anatolia Region, and parts of the Balkans and Hungary. The traditional language of the Dom is Domari, an endangered Indo-Aryan language, thereby making the Dom an Indo-Aryan ethnic group.
The Lom people, also known by non-Loms as Bosha or Posha or as Armenian Romani or Caucasian Romani, are an ethnic group originating from the Indian subcontinent. Their Lomavren language is a mixed language, combining an Indo-Aryan substrate with Armenian.
The Kawliya, Qawliya or Awaz, Keche-Hjälp, also known as Zott and Ghorbati, is a community in Iraq of Indian origin, estimated to number over 60,000 people. Today, they speak mostly Arabic, while their ethnolect is a mixture of Persian, Kurdish and Turkish, which is only spoken by the older generations. The largest tribes are the Bu-Baroud, Bu-Swailem, Bu-Helio, Bu-Dakhil, Bu-Akkar, Bu-Murad, Bu-Thanio, Bu-Shati, Al-Farahedah, Al-Mtairat, Bu-Khuzam, Bu-Abd, Bu-Nasif, Bu-Delli and Al-Nawar. Their main occupation is entertainment, and also small trades.
Domari is an endangered Indo-Aryan language, spoken by Dom people scattered across the Middle East and North Africa. The language is reported to be spoken as far north as Azerbaijan and as far south as central Sudan, in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Syria and Lebanon. Based on the systematicity of sound changes, it is known with a fair degree of certainty that the names Domari and Romani derive from the Indo-Aryan word ḍom. Although they are both Central Indo-Aryan languages, Domari and Romani do not derive from the same immediate ancestor. The Arabs referred to them as Nawar as they were a nomadic people that originally immigrated to the Middle East from the Indian subcontinent.
The Romani people, also referred to as Roma, Sinti, or Kale, depending on the subgroup, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group that primarily lives in Europe. The Romani may have migrated from what is the modern Indian state of Rajasthan, migrating to the northwest around 250 BC. Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed to have occurred beginning in about 500 AD. It has also been suggested that emigration from India may have taken place in the context of the raids by Mahmud of Ghazni. As these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire.
The Lyuli, Jughi or Jugi are a branch of the Ghorbati people living in Central Asia, primarily Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and southern Kyrgyzstan; also, related groups can be found in Turkey, and the Balkans, Crimea, Southern Russia and Afghanistan. They speak ethnolects of the Persian and Turkic language and practice Sunni Islam. The terms Lyuli and Jugi are considered pejorative. They have a clan organization. Division into sub-clans is also practiced. The Lyuli community is extremely closed towards non-Lyuli.
The Garachi, also spelled Karachi or Karaci, are a group of the Dom people living in Azerbaijan and Turkey. Little research has been done on the Garachi, and most of what is known about them is based on the works of the 19th-century Russian scholars Kerope Patkanov and Jean-Marie Chopin.
The Romani people have several distinct populations, the largest being the Roma and the Calé, who reached Anatolia and the Balkans in the early 12th century, from a migration out of the Indian subcontinent beginning about 1st century – 2nd century AD. They settled in the areas of present-day Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Hungary, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia, by order of volume, and Spain. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and, in the nineteenth and later centuries, to the Americas. The Roma population in the United States is estimated at more than one million.
Al-Nawar is an Arabic term for several nomad communities used primarily in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. The term, regarded as derogatory, is used by Arabs for several diverse ethnic groups. They have historically been called "Gypsies", though as a whole they are not Romani per se. The Dom people are especially known as Nawar. While both they and Romani people originated from India, they came from two drastically different ethnicities and cultures.
Zott is the Arabic term for gypsies, Romani people, and Dom people. The Zott were musicians who migrated in great numbers from northern India to the Middle East about 1000 years ago. Their name was later applied to any itinerant entertainer of Indian origin; and came to be the common name of the Dom people in the Middle East, as English gypsy or tinker with contemptuous connotations. The Al-Qamus Al-Muhit glosses the term as equivalent to Nawar.
Ethnic groups in the Middle East are ethnolinguistic groupings in the "transcontinental" region that is commonly a geopolitical term designating the intercontinental region comprising West Asia without the South Caucasus, and also comprising Egypt in North Africa. The Middle East has historically been a crossroad of different cultures and languages. Since the 1960s, the changes in political and economic factors have significantly altered the ethnic composition of groups in the region. While some ethnic groups have been present in the region for millennia, others have arrived fairly recently through immigration. The largest socioethnic groups in the region are Egyptians, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azerbaijanis but there are dozens of other ethnic groups that have hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of members.
The Romani people are known by a variety of names, mostly as Gypsies, Roma, Tsinganoi, Bohémiens, and various linguistic variations of these names. There are also numerous subgroups and clans with their own self-designations, such as the Sinti, Kalderash, Boyash, Manouche, Lovari, Lăutari, Machvaya, Romanichal, Romanisael, Kale, Kaale, Xoraxai and Modyar.
The Domari-speaking community in Syria, commonly identified as Dom and Nawar, is estimated to number 100–250,000 or 250–300,000 people. The vast majority is sedentary. There are semi-nomadic groups, some moving outside the country. In Aleppo, the Dom community is probably the largest, while they are reported to live in Damascus, Homs and Latakia as well. The community is highly marginalised in society, and they are referred to as Qurbāṭ and Qarač in the northern part, and Nawar elsewhere. These terms are used for various groups that mainly share socio-economic profile. The community is divided into clans.
Doms in Libya speak the Domari language. They immigrated to the territory of the present day Libya from South Asia, particularly from India, in Byzantine times. people self-segregated themselves for centuries from the dominant culture of Libya. Historically, Gypsies in Libya have provided musical entertainment as weddings and other celebrations. The Dom people in Libya include subgroups like Nawar, Halebi and Ghagar.
Persian Romani, also known as Ghorbati (Qorbati), Magadi (Mogadi), Qazulagi and Jogigi, Lafzi Mugat or Arabi/Arabcha in Central Asia, refers to various argots, spoken by the Ghorbati and closely related peoples, often called “Persian Gypsies” or “Central Asian Gypsies”. There is no proof of any historical connection between any of these peripatetic groups and the Roma or Dom peoples, except for the fact that some use a few words that are apparently of Domari origin. These argots are related to Lotera’i, or Judeo-Persian.
The Dom people migrated to the territory of the present day Egypt from South Asia, particularly from Indian Subcontinent, and heavily intermixed with Egyptians. Scholars suggest that their Egyptian admixture later made them known around the world by the vernacular term Gypsies, deriving from the word Egyptian.
Romani people in Algeria historically included Gitanos who migrated there along with other Spanish people in the late 19th century, during the French colonial period; most of these left for France following Algeria's independence in 1962, resulting in a large community in the South of France. Ratcliffe (1933) describes a Gitano encampment on the heights above Algiers, whose Catholic inhabitants sold lace and mended chairs. Notable descendants of the Gitanos who used to live in Algeria include the film-maker Tony Gatlif and the footballer André-Pierre Gignac.
Doms in Tunisia speak the Domari language. They immigrated to the territory of the present day Tunisia from South Asia, particularly from India, in Byzantine times. Dom and Nawar people self-segregated themselves for centuries from the dominant culture of Tunisia, who view Romani as dishonorable though clever. Historically, Gypsies in Tunisia have provided musical entertainment as weddings and other celebrations. The Romani people or Gypsies in Tunisia include subgroups like Nawar, Halebi and Ghagar.
There is a Dom community in Lebanon.
References
- ↑ Peoples on the Move: Introducing the Nomads of the World. By David J. Phillips
- ↑ Berland, Joseph C. (2004). Customary Strangers: New Perspectives on Peripatetic Peoples in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-89789-771-4 . Retrieved 2013-10-28.