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The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Misc gypsies origins of
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The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Misc gypsies origins of
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From: cindy@lise.unit.no (Cynthia Kandolf)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Gypsies
Date: 18 Jan 94 22:14:09
Okay, here's what i found about the origin of the Gypsies:
from _The Languages of the World_, by Kenneth Katzner. (c) 1977 and 1986 by the author. Published by Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04604-1
begin quote:
Romany [author's note: i've also seen "Romani" -cgk] is the language
of the Gypsies. The origin of the gypsies was long a matter of
speculation. The English word "Gypsy" stems from an early belief that
they came from Egypt. This has now been disproved.
The question was resolved by the science of linguistics. [author's note: science of linguistics? whatever.... -cgk] Detailed study of the Gypsy language has shown that Gypsies originally came from India. The common features it shares with Sanskrit and with later Indian languages can lead to no other conclusion.
The Gypsies are believed to have begun their migration westward about 1000AD. Loanwords in their language from Persian, Armenian, and Greek provide some indication of the general course of their travels. Today, Gypsies are to be found in many countries of both Eastern and Western Europe as well as in the United States. A rough estimate of their numbers would be in the neighborhood of 5-6 million.
end quote.
Considering that they are spread out all over the place, and there are only 5 to 6 million of them, they would have to be astonishingly efficient to be guilty of all the crimes of which they are accused, including robbing tourists at every train station in Southern and Eastern Europe, and of course their new sideline of gassing tourists actually travelling on the night trains. (On rec.travel there is at the moment a shockingly unfunny thread in which one gentleman is claiming everyone who goes to a Gypsy family's home will be killed, and every woman who goes to a secluded spot with a Gypsy man will be raped - he "guarantees it".)
My personal suspicion is that anyone acting unsavory in an area with a good-sized Gypsy population is labeled a Gypsy by non-Gypsy locals... and the behavior of these individuals is used to "prove" that "all Gypsies are like that"....
Hard to tell, however. As far as i've been able to find out, there never were that many Gypsies in Norway. (The climate is not exactly conducive to a nomadic lifestyle, to put it mildly.) Certainly there are few today, not enough to make much impact. So my usual sources for historical information are no help at all here...
-Cindy Kandolf
cindy@lise.unit.no
Trondheim, Norway
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