A showman's wagon, used for accommodation and transportation
There are a number of traditionally itinerant or travelling groups in Europe who are known as Travellers or Gypsies (the latter being increasingly taken as derogatory).
The origins of the indigenous itinerant groups are not always clear. The largest of these groups are the Romani people (also Roma or Rom), who have Indian roots and heritage; they left India around 1,500 years ago, entering Europe around 1,000 years ago. They include the Sinti people, who are themselves the second largest group. Others, assumed to have taken up the travelling lifestyle out of necessity at some point during the early modern period, are unrelated to the Romani, and assumed to not be ethnically distinct from their source population. However, recent DNA testing has shown that the Irish Travellers are of Irish origin but are genetically distinct from their settled counterparts due to social isolation, and more groups are being studied. The third largest group in Europe is the Yenish, an indigenous Germanic group.
Many intinerant groups speak their own language or dialect, though with outsiders will use the language of the surrounding settled population. Such insider languages are often a blend of the regional settled language and Romani language, but sometimes a cant based on a regional language without Romani influence. As opposed to nomads, who travel with and subsist on herds of livestock, itinerant groups traditionally travel for trade or other work for the sedentary populations amongst which they live.
Indigenous Dutch Travellers (Woonwagenbewoners)
Indigenous Dutch Travellers, known in the Netherlands as Woonwagenbewoners (English: caravan dwellers), were first recorded as a population in the 1879 census, but have existed since the advent of industrial mechanization in the first half of the 19th century. They travelled around in search of employment and practised traditional professions like chair bottomers, tinsmiths, broom binders, traders, peddlers, artisans, etc.[1] As of 2018, some 30,000–60,000 Travellers live in the Netherlands,[2] most of whom are Catholics living in the south of the country.[3] Many Travellers used to speak a cant language, Bargoens, and a derivative sociolect continues to exist.[4]
Living in trailer parks or caravan camps gave rise to the pejorative name Kampers to refer to Dutch Travellers, while the latter prefer to call themselves Reizigers ('Travellers'). In turn, Travellers have used the terms burger and kaffer against those who live in regular housing. Similar to indigenous Norwegian Travellers, Dutch and Flemish Travellers are theorised to have Yenish (German) admixture.
Indigenous Flemish Travellers (Voyageurs)
Voyageurs are an indigenous Flemish group who are related to the Dutch Travellers. The first Voyageurs slept in stables and barns they encountered in the countryside along the way. It was only later that they started building covered wagons, a simple cart with a tarpaulin over it, which they pulled themselves or for which they harnessed some dogs. Even later the horses came, and the hood carts grew into caravans.
These Voyageurs had their example in the intinerant way of life of mainly the Sinti. They partially adopted each other's customs, and mixed marriages were not uncommon. From this mixture of Romani and Western culture, a subculture of their own has emerged. Many also currently live in houses, which makes tracking them difficult. In addition, some are at such an advanced stage of integration into sedentary society that they do not know or deny that they are descendants of Voyageurs, ashamed of an ancestor who walked from door to door. Their number is currently estimated at 8,000, but could be much higher. They are spread all over Flanders.[5]
Indigenous Norwegian Travellers (more commonly known as Fanter, Fantefolk or Skøyere) are an itinerant group who call themselves Reisende. Confusingly, this term is also used by Romanisæl, the Romani group of Norway and Sweden. Unlike the Romanisæl Travellers, the indigenous Norwegian Travellers are non-Romani by culture and origins, and they do not speak any form of Romani language. Instead, they use Rodi, a Norwegian dialect.
Similar to indigenous Dutch and Flemish Travellers, indigenous Norwegian Travellers are theorised to have Yenish (German Traveller) admixture and possibly could be descended from them. Norwegian Rodi includes a large proportion of Yenish loanwords. Rodi also has a handful of Scandoromani loanwords due to Romanisæl Travellers and indigenous Norwegian Travellers both living in close proximity to each other.
Indigenous Norwegian Travellers have always concentrated around Southern and Southwestern Norway along the coastline (which was separated from the rest of Norway due to mountains) and Romanisæl Travellers have always concentrated around Central Norway (specifically in Trøndelag county around the city of Trondheim). Historically, both groups have travelled all over, and often overlap into each other's traditional areas.
They are known to the settled majority population as fant or fanter, but they prefer the term reisende ('travellers'). This term is also used by Romanisæl Travellers (the largest population of Romani people in Norway and Sweden), though the two groups are distinct. There are also groups in German-speaking countries who refer to themselves as reisende, which is German for 'travellers'. Eilert Sundt, a 19th-century sociologist, termed the indigenous Travellers småvandrer or småvandringer ('small travellers'), to contrast them with the Romanisæl (Tater) Travellers, which Sundt called storvandrer or storvandringer ('great travellers') who ranged further in their journeys.
By DNA, the Pavees are Irish, but have a separate language and culture than the settled Irish.[6] They live predominantly in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States.[7] Travellers refer to themselves as Mincéirí or Pavees in their own language or in Irish as an Lucht Siúil, meaning literally "the walking people". The language of the Irish Travellers, Shelta, is mainly based on an Irish lexicon and an English grammar. There are two dialects of this language: Gammon (or Gamin) and Cant. It has been dated back to the eighteenth century but may be older.[8] The vast majority of Irish Travellers are Roman Catholics who maintain their traditions and culture in a close-knit community of families.
In 2011, an analysis of DNA from 40 Travellers showed that Irish Travellers are a distinct indigenous Irish ethnic minority who separated from the settled Irish community at least 1,000 years ago; the claim was made that they are as distinct from the settled community as Icelanders are from Norwegians.[9]
Like other itinerant groups, they have often been ethnically discriminated against in the past and still are today. They were only recognised as an official ethnic group in the Republic of Ireland on March 1, 2017.
Northern Romani Travellers
Northern Romani Traveller groups include:
Romanichal Travellers in England (As well as North East Wales, South Wales and the Scottish Borders), with diaspora communities in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
These groups have much European blood due to mixing with Indigenous Traveller groups (British Romani Travellers mix with Irish Travellers, Scottish Highland Travellers and Funfair Traveller and Scandinavian Romani Travellers mix with Indigenous Norwegian Travellers) and even non-Travellers over the centuries. This has led to these Romani groups generally looking White in appearance.
It is also a reason why these groups speak mixed languages rather than more pure forms of Romani:
Romanichal Travellers speak Angloromani (A mix of English and Romani).
Romanisæl Travellers speak Scandoromani (A mix of Norwegian, Swedish, and Romani).
Scottish Lowland Travellers speak Scottish Cant (A mix of Scots and Romani).
Welsh Kale speak Kalá (A mix of Welsh, English, and Romani).
Finnish Kale speak Kalo (A mix of Finnish and Romani).
The best known itinerant community are the Romani people (also Romany, RomaniesTzigani, Rromani, and variants). The Romani have Indo-Aryan roots and heritage and first entered Europe via the Middle East around a thousand years ago. They spread further through Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, separating into various subgroups in the process.
Scottish Highland Travellers are also known as Ceàrdannan in Scottish Gaelic (which means 'Craftsmen'). Other terms in English include the pejorative Black Tinkers and the more poetic Summer Walkers.
The Highland Traveller community has a long history in Scotland going back on record to at least the 12th century. Historically, they would travel from village to village and would pitch their bow-tents on rough ground around the edge of a village and would earn money there as tinsmiths, hawkers, horse dealers, or pearl-fishermen. Many found seasonal employment on farms, e.g. doing berry picking or during harvests. Nowadays, the majority of Highland Travellers have settled down into organized campsites or regular houses.
The Scottish Highland Travellers have their own (nearly extinct) language based on Scottish Gaelic called Beurla Reagaird.
Highland Travellers are closely tied to their native Highlands and the native Gaelic-speaking population; they may follow an itinerant or a settled lifestyle. They have played an essential role in the preservation of traditional Gaelic culture.[10] Travellers' outstanding contribution to Highland life has been as custodians of an ancient and vital Gaelic singing, storytelling, and folklore tradition. It is estimated that there are only 2,000 Highland Travellers leading their traditional lifestyle.
In German-speaking Europe, France, and Wallonia (part of Belgium), there are the Yenish people (Jenische or Yeniche in German and French, respectively). An early description of this group was published by Johann Ulrich Schöll in 1793.
Showmen (also known as showpeople, showfolk, funfair travellers, travelling showpeople, and the pejorative carnies) are not an ethnic group, but occupational travellers, the members of multi-generational families who own and operate travelling funfairs and circuses, who move around as part of their work. These groups formed across Europe, and included the families of travelling markets, funfairs, carnvials, and circuses, which required frequent mobility. These groups usually follow a set pattern of yearly nomadism. Membership of these groups has, over the years, been drawn from other communities. For example, showpeople in Great Britain and Ireland often had a mix of English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, and/or Traveller (typically Romanichal Traveller and Irish Traveller) heritage.[citation needed]
As a result, funfair travellers are not defined as an ethnic group themselves, even though they display certain common features, and in some countries (such as the UK) they identify as a cultural group.[citation needed] In anthropological and sociological terms, they form a subculture.
Funfair travellers often sport unique cultures and self-identity, and they tend to be insular, favouring marriage within the community,[11] which results in long lineages and a strong sense of cultural homogeneity. For example, the Showman's Guild of Great Britain requires that applicants have a parent from the funfair travelling community.[12]
Many funfair travellers in the fairground and circus business across Europe have partial Romani heritage, evidenced by significant traces of the Romani language and matriarchal forms of social organisation. Despite this, the roots, culture, traditions, and identity of showman groups have remained separate from Romani groups.[citation needed]
Irish Travellers, also known as Pavees or Mincéirs, are a traditionally peripatetic indigenous ethno-cultural group originating in Ireland.
The Sinti are a subgroup of Romani people. They are found mostly in Germany, France and Italy and Central Europe, numbering some 200,000 people. They were traditionally itinerant, but today only a small percentage of Sinti remain unsettled. In earlier times, they frequently lived on the outskirts of communities.
Pikey is an ethnic slur referring to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. It is used mainly in the United Kingdom and in Ireland to refer to people who belong to groups which had a traditional travelling lifestyle. Groups referred to with this term include Irish Travellers, English Gypsies, Welsh Kale, Scottish Lowland Travellers, Scottish Highland Travellers, and Funfair Travellers. These groups consider the term to be highly offensive.
The Yenish are an itinerant group in Western Europe who live mostly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and parts of France, roughly centered on the Rhineland. A number of theories for the group's origins have been proposed, including that the Yenish descended from members of the marginalized and vagrant poor classes of society of the early modern period, before emerging as a distinct group by the early 19th century. Most of the Yenish became sedentary in the course of the mid-19th to 20th centuries.
Rotwelsch or Gaunersprache also Khokhmer Loshn is a secret language, a cant or thieves' argot, spoken by groups in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Bohemia. The language is based on a mix of Low German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Romani, Latin, and Czech with a High German substrate.
Angloromani or Anglo-Romani is a mixed language of Indo-European origin involving the presence of Romani vocabulary and syntax in the English used by descendants of Romanichal Travellers in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States, and South Africa.
The Romanichal are a Romani subgroup within the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world. Most Romanichal speak Angloromani, a mixed language that blends Romani vocabulary with English syntax. Romanichal resident in England, Scotland, and Wales are part of the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller community.
The term English Travellers refers to itinerant groups, and may mean:
The Norwegian and Swedish Romanisæl Travellers are a group or branch of the Romani people who have been resident in Norway and Sweden for some 500 years. The estimated number of Romanisael Travellers in Sweden is 65,000, while in Norway, the number is probably about 10,000.
Indigenous Norwegian Travellers are an ethnic minority group in Norway. They are a wandering people who once travelled by foot, with horse-drawn carts and with boats along the southern and southwestern coastline of Norway.
The Finnish Kale are a group of the Romani people who live primarily in Finland and Sweden. Their main languages are Finnish, Swedish and Finnish Romani. Kalo/Kale is the collective name for traveler people in Finland, England and Spain.
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.
Scottish Romani are the Romani people of Scotland. This includes Scottish Romanichal and Romani Lowland Travellers.
The Kale are a group of Romani people in Wales. Many claim to be descendants of Abram Wood, who was the first Rom to reside permanently and exclusively in Wales in the early 18th century, although Romanichal Travellers have appeared in Wales since the 16th century. Welsh Kale are almost exclusively found in Northwest Wales, specifically the Welsh-speaking areas. Romanichal Travellers inhabit South Wales and North East Wales.
The Showmen's Guild of Great Britain exists to protect the interests of Travelling Showmen in Great Britain.
Scottish Cant is a cant spoken in Scotland by Lowland Scottish Romani Travellers.
Romani people have been recorded in the United Kingdom since at least the early 16th century. There are estimated to be around 225,000 Romani residing in the UK. This includes the Romanichal, Welsh Kale and a sizeable population of Eastern European Roma, who immigrated into the UK in the late 1990s/early 2000s and after EU expansion in 2004. They are considered part of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community. Romani people in the UK are predominantly Christian, with 71.8% of English and Welsh Romani identifying as Christian in the 2021 census compared to 46.2% of the wider population.
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller is an umbrella term used in the United Kingdom to represent several diverse ethnic groups which have a shared history of nomadism. The groups include Gypsies, defined as communities of travelling people who share a Romani heritage, resident in Britain since the 16th century; Ethnic Travellers, the traditional travelling people of Ireland and Scotland; and Roma, who are defined as recent Romani migrants from Eastern Europe. Although these groups' traditional lifestyles involved travel, most GRT people now live in houses or permanent caravan berths.
References
↑ Lucassen, Leo; Willems, Wim; Cottaar, Anne-Marie (11 March 1998). Gypsies and Other Itinerant Groups: A Socio-Historical Approach. London: Macmillan Press. ISBN978-1-349-26343-1.
↑ Hough, Jennifer (2011-05-31). "DNA study: Travellers a distinct ethnicity". irishexaminer.com. Blackpool, IE: Irish Examiner. Retrieved 2016-05-17. separated from the settled community between 1,000 and 2,000 years ago.
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