Sinti

Last updated
Sinti
Total population
≈ 500,000 (2011) [1]
Languages
Sinte Romani
Related ethnic groups
Other Indo-Aryan peoples, especially Roma (Manouche)
Sinti people in Rhine Province, Germany, 1935. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J0525-0500-003, Rheinland, Sinti und Roma mit Wohnwagen auf Landstrasse.jpg
Sinti people in Rhine Province, Germany, 1935.

The Sinti (also Sinta or Sinte; masc. sing. Sinto; fem. sing. Sintesa) are a subgroup of Romani people. They are found mostly in Germany, France and Italy and Central Europe, numbering some 200,000 people. [1] [a] [3] 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.

Contents

The Sinti of Central Europe are closely related to the group known as Manouche in France. [4] They speak the Sinti-Manouche variety of Romani, which exhibits strong German influence. [1] [4]

Etymology and origin

The origin of the Sinti people, as with the broader Romani people, lies generally in the Indian subcontinent. While people from the western Indian subcontinent's Sindh region were mentioned in 1100 by Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Maydani, it is unclear whether the Sindhi people were the ancestors of modern Sinti, though it is clear that Sinti and other Romani people originated in the northern Indian subcontinent. [5] [b]

The origin of the name is disputed. [c] Scholar Jan Kochanowski, and many Sinti themselves, believed it derives from Sindhi , the name of a people of Sindh in medieval India (a region now in southeast Pakistan). [5] [8] Scholar Yaron Matras argued that Sinti is a later term in use by the Sinti from only the 18th century on, and is likely a European loanword. [d] [8] This view is shared by Romani linguist Ronald Lee who stated the name's origin probably lies in the German word Reisende meaning 'travellers'. [9]

A recent study by Estonian and Indian researchers found genetic similarities between European Romani men and Indian men in their sample. [10] Linguist N. B. G. Kazi stated that all Romani people are from Sindh. [11]

History

The Sinti are a subgroup of Romani people mostly found in Germany. [a] They arrived in Austria and Germany in the Late Middle Ages as part of the Romani emigration from the Indian Subcontinent, [12] eventually splitting into two groups: Eftavagarja ("the Seven Caravans") and Estraxarja ("from Austria"). [13] [14] They arrived in Germany before 1540. [15] The two groups expanded, the Eftavagarja into France and Portugal, where they are called "Manouches", and to the Balkans, where they are called "Ciganos" (from Byzantine Greek "τσιγγάνος" and "Ἀτσίγγανος", deriving from Ancient Greek "ἀθίγγανος", meaning "untouchable" [e] [f] ); and the Estraxarja into Italy and Central Europe, mainly what are now Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, eventually adopting various regional names. [14]

The Holocaust

Johann Trollmann, a German Sinti boxer, 1928 Trollmanngross.jpg
Johann Trollmann, a German Sinti boxer, 1928

The Sinti migrated to Germany in the early 15th century. Despite their long presence, they were still generally regarded as beggars and thieves, and, by 1899, the police kept a central register on Sinti, Roma, and Yenish peoples. Nazi Germany considered them racially inferior (see Nazism and race), and persecuted them throughout Germany during the Nazi period –the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 often being interpreted to apply to them as well as the Jews. [16]

Adolf Eichmann recommended that Nazi Germany solve the "Gypsy Question" simultaneously with the Jewish Question, resulting in the deportation of the Sinti to clear room to build homes for ethnic Germans. [17] Some were sent to the territory of Poland, or elsewhere, including some deported to the territory of Yugoslavia by the Hamburg Police in 1939. [18] Others were confined to designated areas, and many were eventually murdered in gas chambers. [19] Many Sinti and Roma were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were put in a special section, called the "gypsy camp". Josef Mengele often performed some of his infamous experiments on Sinti and Roma. On 2 August 1944, the "gypsy camp" was closed, and approximately 4,000 Sinti and Roma were gassed during the night of 2–3 August and burnt in the crematoria. The date 2 August is commemorated as Roma and Sinti Holocaust Remembrance Day. [20]

Memorial in Nuremberg opposite Frauentorgraben 49, where on 15 September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were adopted in the ballroom of the Industrial & Cultural Association clubhouse Sinti-und-Roma-Gedenkstatte beim Farbertor in Nurnberg.jpg
Memorial in Nuremberg opposite Frauentorgraben 49, where on 15 September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were adopted in the ballroom of the Industrial & Cultural Association clubhouse

In the concentration camps, the Sinti were forced to wear either a black triangle, indicating their classification as "asocial", or a brown triangle, [21] specifically reserved for Sinti, Roma, and Yenish peoples.

Notable people

Deportation of Sinti and Roma in Asperg, 22 May 1940 Bundesarchiv R 165 Bild-244-52, Asperg, Deportation von Sinti und Roma.jpg
Deportation of Sinti and Roma in Asperg, 22 May 1940
Memorial for murdered Sinti in Dusseldorf-Lierenfeld Dusseldorf-Lierenfeld Gedenktafel.JPG
Memorial for murdered Sinti in Düsseldorf-Lierenfeld
Ravensburg, Memorial for Sinti murdered in Auschwitz Ravensburg Mahnmal Sinti.jpg
Ravensburg, Memorial for Sinti murdered in Auschwitz

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Individual groups can be classified into major metagroups: the Roma of East European extraction; the Sinti in Germany and Manouches in France and Catalonia; the Kaló in Spain, Ciganos in Portugal and Gitans of southern France; and the Romanichals of Britain." – Kalaydjieva, Gresham, & Calarell 2001 [2]
  2. ↑ "The ancestors of today's 12 to 15 million Roma came from India about 1,000 years ago, and their descendants eventually migrated to six continents. The Romanic language language is most closely related to Punjabi and Hindi and is still spoken by millions of Roma and Sinti (Romani people of Central Europe)." – Sturman 2019 [6] [ volume needed ][ page needed ]
  3. ↑ "Already in 18th and 19th century scholarly discussions, the name 'Sinti' was associated occasionally with that of the Indian province of Sindh. There is, in fact, no connection at all. The word 'Sinti' has the inflection typical of a European loanword in Romani, and cannot have been part of the original Indian vocabulary of the language. The fact that it is found solely among Romani speakers in Germany and neighboring regions and only more recent sources, suggests that it is a later borrowing into this specific dialect of Romanic, and was not part of the language in pre-European times. " – Stauber & Vago 2007 [7] [ page needed ]
  4. ↑ "[U]p to the late 18th century the Sinti referred to themselves as ‘Kale’ (lit. ‘blacks’). The term ‘Sinti’ or ‘Sinte’ (see below) may be found in 18th and 19th century linguistic documentation alongside ‘Kale,’ and appears to have been borrowed from the secret vocabulary of the Yenish travelers, perhaps because of its usefulness in concealing ethnic identity. Only toward the late 19th century does the self-appellation ‘Sinti’ replace ‘Kale’ entirely in Germany." – Margalit & Matras 2007 [4]
  5. ↑ Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg The dictionary definition of τσιγγάνος at Wiktionary
  6. ↑ Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg The dictionary definition of Cigan at Wiktionary

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romani people</span> Indo-Aryan ethnic group

The Romani people, also known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group 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. They are thought to have arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th centuries. Although they are widely dispersed, their most concentrated populations are believed to be in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.

Romani is an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities. According to Ethnologue, seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their own. The largest of these are Vlax Romani, Balkan Romani (600,000), and Sinte Romani (300,000). Some Romani communities speak mixed languages based on the surrounding language with retained Romani-derived vocabulary – these are known by linguists as Para-Romani varieties, rather than dialects of the Romani language itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romani Holocaust</span> Genocide against Romani in Europe

The Romani Holocaust was the genocide of European Roma and Sinti people during World War II. Beginning in 1933, Nazi Germany systematically persecuted the European Roma, Sinti and other peoples pejoratively labeled 'Gypsy' through forcible internment and compulsory sterilization. German authorities summarily and arbitrarily subjected Romani people to incarceration, forced labor, deportation and mass murder in concentration and extermination camps.

The Romani people have long been a part of the collective mythology of the West, where they were depicted as outsiders, aliens, and a threat. For centuries they were enslaved in Eastern Europe and hunted in Western Europe: the Pořajmos, Hitler's attempt at genocide, was one violent link in a chain of persecution that encompassed countries generally considered more tolerant of minorities, such as the United Kingdom. Even today, while there is a surge of Romani self-identification and pride, restrictive measures are being debated and passed by democratic states to curb the rights of the Romani people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yenish people</span> Semi-nomadic people in Western Europe

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, notingly that the Yenish descended from members of the marginalized and vagrant poor classes of society of the early modern period,including persecuted Ashkenazi jews and gypsies, 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.

Bohemian Romani or Bohemian Romany was a dialect of Romani formerly spoken by the Romani people of Bohemia, the western part of today's Czech Republic. It became extinct after World War II, due to the genocide of most of its speakers in extermination camps by Nazi Germany.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flag of the Romani people</span> Ethnic flag

The Romani flag or the flag of the Roma is the international ethnic flag of the Romani people, historically known as "Gypsies", which form a stateless minority in countries across Eurasia, Africa, the Americas, and Australasia. It was approved by the representatives of various Romani communities at the first and second World Romani Congresses (WRC), in 1971 and 1978. The flag consists of a background of blue and green, representing the heavens and earth, respectively; it also contains a 16-spoke red dharmachakra, or cartwheel, in the center. The latter element stands for the itinerant tradition of the Romani people and is also an homage to the flag of India, added to the flag by scholar Weer Rajendra Rishi. It superseded a number of tribal emblems and banners, several of which evoked claims of Romani descent from the Ancient Egyptians.

Baltic Romani is a group of dialects of the Romani language spoken in the Baltic states and adjoining regions of Finland, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Half of Baltic Romani speakers live in Poland. Romani began as an Indo-European language, which morphed into an Indo-Iranian language, and then into an Indo-Aryan language. After that the Romani language broke down into Balkan Romani and Central Romani. Baltic Romani came from the Central Romani dialect which branches off into other dialects. There are a total of around 31,500 users in all countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romani diaspora</span> Dispersion of the Roma people

The Romani diaspora refers to the presence and dispersion of Romani people across various parts of the world. Their migration out of the Indian subcontinent occurred in waves, with the first estimated to have taken place between the 1st and 2nd century AD. They are believed to have first arrived in Europe in the early 12th century, via the Balkans. They settled in the areas of present-day Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Hungary, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia, by order of volume, and Spain. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and, in the 19th and later centuries, to the Americas. The Roma population in the United States is estimated at more than one million.

The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma is a German Romani rights group based in Heidelberg, Germany. It is headed by Romani Rose, who lost 13 members of his close family in the Romani Holocaust. The organization is a member of the Federal Union of European Nationalities.

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Para-Romani are various mixed languages of non-Indo-Aryan linguistic classification containing considerable admixture from the Romani language. They are spoken as the traditional vernacular of Romani communities, either in place of, or alongside, varieties of the Romani language. Some Para-Romani languages have no structural features of Romani at all, taking only the vocabulary from Romani.

Sinte Romani is the variety of Romani spoken by the Sinti people in Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, some parts of Northern Italy and other adjacent regions. Sinte Romani is characterized by significant German influence and is not mutually intelligible with other forms of Romani. The language is written in the Latin script.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romani people in Austria</span> Ethnic group

The Romani people in Austria have lived in the country since the Middle Ages. According to the 2001 census, there were 6,273 Romani speakers in Austria, or less than 0.1% of the population. Estimations count between 10,000 and 25,000. A more recent estimation count between 40,000 and 50,000 Romani people or about 0.5%. Most indigenous Romani people in Austria belong to the Burgenland-Roma group in East-Austria. The majority live in the state of Burgenland, in the city of Oberwart and in villages next to the District of Oberwart. The Burgenland-Roma speak the Vlax Romani language.

Romani people in Germany are estimated at around 170,000–300,000, constituting around 0.2–0.4% of the German population. One-third of Germany's Romani belong to the Sinti group. Most speak German or Sinte Romani.

About 80,000 to 100,000 Romani people live in Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philomena Franz</span> German Romani author

Philomena Franz was a Sinti writer and activist from Germany, who was a survivor of the Romani Holocaust, having been imprisoned in Auschwitz. She later published works that recounted her experiences and was recognised as a significant voice in Romani literature.

Anita Awosusi is a German writer, musician, documentary filmmaker and human rights activist. Herself a Sinti woman, she has been active in campaigns for the rights of the Sinti and Romani people. Since the 1990s, she has published works on the history of the Romani Holocaust, on the music and on stereotyped representations of Sinti and Roma.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Grimes, Barbara F. (2003). "Central Indo-Aryan Languages". In Frawley, William (ed.). Sindi. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.  294. ISBN   978-0-19-513977-8. OCLC   51478240 – via Internet Archive.
  2. ↑ Kalaydjieva, Luba; Gresham, David; Calafell, Francesc (2 April 2001). "Genetic studies of the Roma (Gypsies): A Review". BMC Medical Genetics. 2 (5): 5. doi: 10.1186/1471-2350-2-5 . PMC   31389 . PMID   11299048.
  3. ↑ Hübshmanová, Milena (2003). "Roma—Sub Ethnic Groups". Uni-Graz.at. University of Graz.
  4. 1 2 3 Margalit, Gilad; Matras, Yaron (2007). "Gypsies in Germany-German Gypsies? Identity and Politics of Sinti and Roma in Germany". in Stauber & Vago 2007 . CEUP collection. Central European University Press. pp. 103–116. ISBN   978-615-5211-21-8.
  5. 1 2 Kenrick, Donald (2004). Gypsies: From the Ganges to the Thames (2nd ed.). Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press. pp.  26–27. ISBN   978-1-902806-23-5. OCLC   59134906.
  6. ↑ Sturman, Janet Lynn, ed. (2019). The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. ISBN   978-1-5063-5337-1. OCLC   1090239829.
  7. ↑ Stauber & Vago 2007.
  8. 1 2 Matras, Yaron (2004). "The Role of Language in Mystifying and Demystifying Gypsy Identity". in Saul & Tebbutt 2004 . p.  70.
  9. ↑ Lee, Ronald (2009). "A New Look at Our Romani Origins and Diaspora". Kopachi.com. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  10. ↑ Nelson, Dean (3 December 2012). "European Roma descended from Indian 'untouchables', genetic study shows". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  11. ↑ "Gypsies hail from Sindh, claims Dr.Kazi". Pakistan: Dawn. 25 September 2006.
  12. ↑ Bartlick, Silke (2013-03-13). "Europe invented 'gypsies,' says German author". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  13. ↑ Szombati, Kristóf (2016). The Revolt of the Provinces: Anti-Gypsyism and Right-Wing Politics in Hungary (PDF) (PhD thesis). Budapest, Hungary: Central European University. p. 165.
  14. 1 2 Szombati, Kristóf (2018). The Revolt of the Provinces: Anti-Gypsyism and Right-Wing Politics in Hungary. Vol. 23. New York, NY: Berghahn Books. p.  206. doi:10.1515/9781785338977. ISBN   978-1-78533-897-7. JSTOR   j.ctvw04cbm. OCLC   1041152908 – via partial Google Books preview.
  15. ↑ Saul & Tebbutt 2004, p. 182.
  16. ↑ "Targeting the Sinti and Roma". Facing History & Ourselves. 2016-08-02. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  17. ↑ Burleigh & Wippermann 1991, p.  122.
  18. ↑ Burleigh & Wippermann 1991, p.  127.
  19. ↑ Davis, Mark (5 May 2015). "How World War II shaped modern Germany". euronews. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  20. ↑ "European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day: Statement by President von der Leyen, Vice-President Jourová and Commissioner Dalli". European Commission. 31 July 2020. Archived from the original on 26 May 2021. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  21. ↑ Shapiro, Paul A.; Ehrenreich, Robert M. (2002). Roma and Sinti: under-studied victims of Nazism: symposium proceedings. Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. p.  24. OCLC   1410465443.

Sources

Further reading

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