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Romani people in Europe Who are they?  Who are they? The Roma Roma means "man".We call Roma the groups that have been living in Central and Eastern Europe. It is the most numerous ethnos group in the world. The sub-groups most known are the Abruzzes, the Xoraxanes, the Kalderashs, the Lovaras and the Lautaris. Their commune professions are tinker and ironmonger. The Sinti (Manouches) They live especially in Germany, France, Netherlands, and Belgium. Usually, they work as stallholders, musicians, basket makers, ferraiors and artists of the circus. The Gypsies (Kales) They are divided into Andalusians and Catalans. They live in France, Spain and Portugal. The coercitive measures of the XV century have hispanized them. They contributed to the flamenco music and dance. Among them, we can count lots of bullfighters, merchants and scrap merchants. The Yeniches They live in France and Germany; as tradition, they exert the profession of basket makers. The Other Travellers These groups of itinerants usually work in the circus and in the spectacle field. Today, the Romani population in Europe as a whole is estimated at around ten million people, although some observers put the figures even higher at twelve million. This makes the Roma the European Union's largest minority ethnic community. The Romani culture presents a great diversity within the many different Romani groups and related communities, as Roma, Gypsies, Travellers, Sinti and Yeniches. Diversity within the Romani communities is complex and multi-dimensional and involves differences of language and dialect, history, culture, religion and social class, and educational and occupational status. Some communities and individuals are nomadic by culture, while others are sedentary. Anyway, all the groups share common values, among which the family occupies a privileged place. It can be said that "a lonely Rom doesn't exist". The language Romani is an Indic language, closely related to modern Hindi, which was developed during the European diaspora under the influence of a number of other languages, most notably Byzantine Greek. There are many dialects of Romani. The Romani language is spoken by millions of Europeans, making it one of the principal minority languages of Europe. Their history The origins The Romani people are descended from groups who left the Indian sub-continent towards the end of the first millenium C.E...[read more] In the recent years The post-1989 era in Europe has seen an outbreak of intense anti-Romani sentiment in both Eastern and Western Europe. Systematic persecution of Roma took place... [read more] |