The Indian origin of the Romani people
AI-drafted · awaiting admin review
Europe's Romani people were long believed to come from Egypt, hence the name 'Gypsy'. Language and genetics show their ancestors came from north-west India.
India first (well documented)Culture, games, language & ideas
Indian claim
The Romani people of Europe have their roots in north-western India, and their language is an Indian (Indo-Aryan) language.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- From the 1780s German scholars (Johann Rüdiger, Heinrich Grellmann) showed that the Romani language is related to Indian languages; this is now settled linguistics.
- A 2012 genome-wide study of 13 Romani groups (Mendizabal et al., Current Biology) found they descend from a single population that left north or north-western India about 1,500 years ago.
Commonly credited to
For centuries Europeans believed the Romani came from Egypt (the word 'Gypsy' comes from 'Egyptian') or elsewhere in the Near East.
Evidence for the other claim
- The Romani language also carries many Persian, Armenian and Greek words picked up on the long journey west.
What historians and scientists say
The Indian origin of the Romani people is firmly established by both linguistics and genetics. The old 'Egyptian' story was a mistake.