Human Rights for Gypsies
25. 5. 2009
Gypsies, the long-lost children of northwest India, number about 12 million worldwide. The Gypsies first arrived in Europe in the thirteenth century as asylum seekers, fleeing forcible conversion to Islam by the invading Turks. Their descendants today number 8 million, constituting Europe's largest ethnic minority, a marginalized and much maligned minority, whose contributions to Western culture are often ignored.
Three examples of luminaries they produced: Sonya Kavalesky, who, in 1884, became the first woman university professor in the world in Sweden, teaching mathematics; Charles Chaplin, the legendary filmmaker; and Bill Clinton, the former president of the United States. Both Chaplin and Clinton are descendants of British Gypsies. Ian Hancock, himself a British Gypsy, in his book We Are the Romani People (University of Hertfordshire Press, 2002) includes brief biographies of more than one hundred major Gypsy contributors to Western culture. Hancock is professor of English at the University of Texas, Austin. His book describes Patricio Lafcadio Hearn, who in the late nineteenth century pioneered the journalistic style of writing; Antonio Cansino, the creator of the Bolero dance, and his granddaughter, Margarita Carmen Cansino, widely known under her Hollywood name, Rita Hayworth.
Hancock's book attempts to correct European disdain of Gypsy history. Two other recent books with the same objective are W. R. Rishi's Roma: The Punjabi Emigrants in Europe (Punjabi University Press, 1996) and Isabel Fonseca's Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey (Random House, 1996). Also remarkable are the films of Tony Gatlif, of French Gypsy descent, especially his documentary Latcho Drom: A Musical History of the Gypsies from India to Spain, which won the Cannes award in 1994.
When Isabel Fonseca, an American journalist, set out to write her book in 1991, she "had in mind that the Gypsies were 'the New Jews of Eastern Europe.'" She lived with Gypsy families for four years while researching in the libraries of many European countries. Her conclusion: "Gypsies alongside with the Jews are ancient scapegoats."
Traditionally, Gypsies did not keep written records and not all groups sustained an oral history. The research on their origin began in the late 1700s with a systematic philological analysis of their language, Romani, which was then firmly established as a Sanskritic language. Words like dand, (tooth), mun, (mouth), akha (eyes) are identical with those in Punjabi spoken in northwest India. If confirmation were needed, it is readily provided by the Gypsy music's use of the Indian ragas such as Bhairavi, Mulkausa, and Kalyani as well as the bol (the rhythmic syllables -- tak, dhin, dha -- imitating drum beats).
(MORE)
Gypsies, the long-lost children of northwest India, number about 12 million worldwide. The Gypsies first arrived in Europe in the thirteenth century as asylum seekers, fleeing forcible conversion to Islam by the invading Turks. Their descendants today number 8 million, constituting Europe's largest ethnic minority, a marginalized and much maligned minority, whose contributions to Western culture are often ignored.
Three examples of luminaries they produced: Sonya Kavalesky, who, in 1884, became the first woman university professor in the world in Sweden, teaching mathematics; Charles Chaplin, the legendary filmmaker; and Bill Clinton, the former president of the United States. Both Chaplin and Clinton are descendants of British Gypsies. Ian Hancock, himself a British Gypsy, in his book We Are the Romani People (University of Hertfordshire Press, 2002) includes brief biographies of more than one hundred major Gypsy contributors to Western culture. Hancock is professor of English at the University of Texas, Austin. His book describes Patricio Lafcadio Hearn, who in the late nineteenth century pioneered the journalistic style of writing; Antonio Cansino, the creator of the Bolero dance, and his granddaughter, Margarita Carmen Cansino, widely known under her Hollywood name, Rita Hayworth.
Hancock's book attempts to correct European disdain of Gypsy history. Two other recent books with the same objective are W. R. Rishi's Roma: The Punjabi Emigrants in Europe (Punjabi University Press, 1996) and Isabel Fonseca's Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey (Random House, 1996). Also remarkable are the films of Tony Gatlif, of French Gypsy descent, especially his documentary Latcho Drom: A Musical History of the Gypsies from India to Spain, which won the Cannes award in 1994.
When Isabel Fonseca, an American journalist, set out to write her book in 1991, she "had in mind that the Gypsies were 'the New Jews of Eastern Europe.'" She lived with Gypsy families for four years while researching in the libraries of many European countries. Her conclusion: "Gypsies alongside with the Jews are ancient scapegoats."
Traditionally, Gypsies did not keep written records and not all groups sustained an oral history. The research on their origin began in the late 1700s with a systematic philological analysis of their language, Romani, which was then firmly established as a Sanskritic language. Words like dand, (tooth), mun, (mouth), akha (eyes) are identical with those in Punjabi spoken in northwest India. If confirmation were needed, it is readily provided by the Gypsy music's use of the Indian ragas such as Bhairavi, Mulkausa, and Kalyani as well as the bol (the rhythmic syllables -- tak, dhin, dha -- imitating drum beats).
(MORE)
Labels: Gypsy, Gypsy History, India
posted by Allie @ 10:02 PM
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