Are Gypsies Irish or Indian?
There are around 300,000 Gypsy Roma and Irish Travellers in the UK – Roma Gypsies are originally from northern India, whereas Travellers are of Irish origin – and both groups are nomadic. Since 2002, Travellers have been recognised as an ethnic group and are protected under the Race Relations Act.
Roma (Gypsies) originated in the Punjab region of northern India as a nomadic people and entered Europe between the eighth and tenth centuries C.E. They were called "Gypsies" because Europeans mistakenly believed they came from Egypt. This minority is made up of distinct groups called "tribes" or "nations."
They are one of several groups identified as "Travellers", a closely related group being the Scottish Travellers. They are often incorrectly referred to as "Gypsies", but Irish Travellers are not genetically related to the Romani, who are of Indo-Aryan origin.
Irish Travellers usually refer to themselves as Travellers, Pavee or Mincéirs. There are believed to be 300,000 or more Gypsy and Traveller people currently living in the UK.
81.6% of people from the Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic group were born in England, and 6.1% in the other countries of the UK. 3.0% were born in Ireland and 8.3% were born somewhere else in Europe (other than the UK and Ireland). Less than 1.0% of Gypsy or Irish Traveller people were born outside of Europe.
Gypsies are thought to have arrived in Britain from the northern Indian sub-continent around 1500. The Romany language has its roots in Hindi but suggests a migration via the Middle East into South Eastern Europe.
The 11 million members of Europe's largest minority group, the Romani (pictured), are descended from a single population that left India some 1,500 years ago and dispersed across Europe through the Balkans.
They follow Indian religious practices. 2. Their language, called Romani, is an Indo-Aryan language.
Who are the Gitanos and where did the Gypsies in Spain come from? Originally, these groups of gypsies or Gitanos residing in Spain originated from the Indian subcontinent, particularly northwest India, with the first Roma leaving northwest India between the ninth and fourteenth century.
Irish Travelers, also known as “White Gypsies,” are members of a nomadic ethnic group of uncertain origin. Scholars often speculate that they are descended from a race of pre-Celtic minstrels and that their ranks were swelled by displaced farmers during Oliver Cromwell's bloody campaigns of the mid-1600s.
Is Irish Gypsy a race?
Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers are protected against race discrimination. This is because Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers are ethnic groups under the Equality Act.
Scottish Gypsies/Travellers are indigenous to Scotland. Their exact origins are uncertain, but it is thought that they may be descended from the Picts, and/or the scattering of the clans following the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

Common Gypsy names
You may have Romani, Traveller or Gypsy ancestry if your family tree includes common Romani or Gypsy surnames such as Boss, Boswell, Buckland, Chilcott, Codona, Cooper, Doe, Lee, Gray (or Grey), Harrison, Hearn, Heron, Hodgkins, Holland, Lee, Lovell, Loveridge, Scamp, Smith, Wood and Young.
The Roma do not follow a single faith, but are Catholic Manouche, Mercheros, and Sinti; Muslim Ashkali and Romanlar; Pentecostal Kalderash and Lovari; Protestant Travellers; Anglican Gypsies; and Baptist Roma.
There are white, strongly racialized people who have been living in Ireland for centuries: Travellers. 1 Their culture and way of living is similar to the Roma people, they are also called 'Gypsies' sometimes, but there is a very significant distinction: their skin is white.
Traditionally, Irish Travellers are a nomadic group of people from Ireland but have a separate identity, heritage and culture to the community in general. An Irish Traveller presence can be traced back to 12th century Ireland, with migrations to Great Britain in the early 19th century.
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Romani people.
Total population | |
---|---|
Denmark | 5,500 |
Ireland | 22,435 |
Georgia | 1,200 |
Belgium | 30,000 |
Romani, the common language of the Roma, the Sinti, the Kale and other European popula- tion groups summarised by the pejorative denomination gypsies, belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family and is the only New-Indo-Aryan language spo- ken exclusively outside of the Indian subcontinent.
Genetic studies based on Y-chromosome markers and mitochondrial DNA confirmed the South Asian origin of Roma. Y-chromosome marker M82 (H1a) and mtDNA haplogroups M5a1, M18 and M35b, which are characteristics of South Asian ancestry, are typical in Roma populations [8, 9].
Gypsies traveled, taking the DNA and genetic history that they picked up along the way with them. Consequently, it's not uncommon for a Gypsy individual to get DNA results that reflect a mix that includes South Asian DNA, Middle Eastern DNA, and one or even several European ethnicities.
What genetic disorders do Gypsy have?
Private mutations
Nine disorders are caused by “novel private” Roma mutations, including forms of glaucoma, polycystic kidney disease, limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, and a few neuropathies. The frequency of one disease in particular across Europe, galactokinase deficiency, recapitulates the journey of the Roma.
Yes, and as shown by Gelem gelem and Sila kale bal above, sometimes the similarities are really obvious. More frequently, Romani words and phrases will clearly have the same origin as ones in Indian languages, but with a noticeable divergence in pronunciation or grammar.
Abstract. Blood groups in 2,935 Roms (Gypsies) of East Slovakia show the following frequencies of phenotypes and genes: A1A2BO phentopes: A1--32.91%, A2--2.42%, B--25.21%, O--30.15%, A1B--8.45%, A2B--0.85%, A1--0.2363, A2--0.0217, B--0.1929, O--0.5491.
Roma, singular Rom, also called Romany or Gypsies (considered pejorative), an ethnic group of traditionally itinerant people who originated in northern India but live in modern times worldwide, principally in Europe.
White: Gypsy or Irish Traveller is an ethnicity classification used in the 2011 United Kingdom Census. In the 2011 census, the White: Gypsy or Irish Traveller population was 63,181 or about 0.1 percent of the total population of the country.
The Romani began to leave India about 1,000 years ago. They probably left to escape the invasion of Afghan general Mahmud of Ghazni early in the 11th century. Mahmud's troops likely pushed the Romani out of northern India and into the area that is now Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran.
As Ireland becomes less agrarian, the Travellers' traditional work as horse traders, farm laborers, tinsmiths, and entertainers has become more scarce. "The older generations can't read or write," Kaufmann says, "but they have their own intelligence.
Though the Romani population in the United States has largely assimilated into American society, the largest concentrations are in Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, Florida and the Northeast as well as in cities such as Chicago and St. Louis.
The researchers found that genetic differences between Travellers and settled Irish people resulted from hundreds of years of genetic isolation on the part of the Traveller population. The findings support calls for Irish Travellers to be given their own ethnic status, lead-author Professor Gianpiero Cavalleri said.
Around 300BC, Iron Age warriors known as the Celts came to Ireland from mainland Europe. The Celts had a huge influence on Ireland. Many famous Irish myths stem from stories about Celtic warriors. The current first official language of the Republic of Ireland, Irish (or Gaeilge) stems from Celtic language.
What's the difference between Irish Travellers and Gypsy?
Gypsies and Travellers are two distinct societies. While both are nomadic peoples, the two societies have totally different origins, culture, language, and physical profile. The Gypsies are generally found in Eastern Europe while the Travellers usually walk inside the territories of Ireland, UK, and the Americas.
In comparison with other studied groups from Ukraine (mainly Ukrainians but also other minorities) Djaczenko found that Gypsies have the lowest cephalic index, the widest nose, darkest pigmentation, and the most dense beard. Generally those features are rather alien to Eastern European populations.
What does gorger mean? A gorger is a Romani word for a non-Romani person.
Angelo Vallerugo III. Since 1998, Angelo Vallerugo III has been accepted by the Venezuelan gypsy community as their king.
Marriages are customarily arranged by the parents, with the matchmaking usually initiated by the parents of the groom. Many couples marry in their mid-teens. Unmarried young men and women are not allowed to socialize alone together, as great value is placed on female chastity.
For Romany Gypsies, on the final day the body of the deceased is taken to the cemetery to be buried. On the way they will pass certain landmarks that mean something to that person, stopping at each location to allow the deceased time to connect with those places before finally arriving at their final resting place.
To earn a living today, gypsies might weave furniture, make bricks, resell clothing and goods, or trade horses, but employment is typically a side note in their existence. Sources repeatedly underscore the difficulty that the Roma have in obtaining regular work because employers often don't want to hire them.
Noun. black Irish (plural black Irish) An Irish person or person of Irish descent with dark hair, eyes, and skin, sometimes (derogatory, ethnic slur, dated) with disparaging racial overtones.
Currently, Ireland has a majority of “White Irish,” as 94.1% of the population. There are other sizable populations of Black citizens from African countries, such as Nigeria and Mauritius, plus Asian citizens with the majority from China, India, and some from Hong Kong.
Today, the majority of Irish people are from the Irish ethnic group and are white. Most are Roman Catholic, and nearly all of them speak English. About 40% of Irish people speak the language, Irish. There is a substantial minority of Irish who are of Scottish or English descent.
What makes a person a gypsy?
Gyp·sy ˈjip-sē plural Gypsies. sometimes offensive : one of a people coming originally from India to Europe in the 14th or 15th century and living and maintaining a wandering way of life.
Historians now agree that Romani culture originated in northwest India. The Romani began to leave India about 1,000 years ago. They probably left to escape the invasion of Afghan general Mahmud of Ghazni early in the 11th century.
Genetic studies based on Y-chromosome markers and mitochondrial DNA confirmed the South Asian origin of Roma. Y-chromosome marker M82 (H1a) and mtDNA haplogroups M5a1, M18 and M35b, which are characteristics of South Asian ancestry, are typical in Roma populations [8, 9].
Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers are protected against race discrimination. This is because Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers are ethnic groups under the Equality Act.
You may have Romani, Traveller or Gypsy ancestry if your family tree includes common Romani or Gypsy surnames such as Boss, Boswell, Buckland, Chilcott, Codona, Cooper, Doe, Lee, Gray (or Grey), Harrison, Hearn, Heron, Hodgkins, Holland, Lee, Lovell, Loveridge, Scamp, Smith, Wood and Young.
Roma, singular Rom, also called Romany or Gypsies (considered pejorative), an ethnic group of traditionally itinerant people who originated in northern India but live in modern times worldwide, principally in Europe.
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Romani people.
Total population | |
---|---|
Brazil | 800,000 (0.4%) |
Spain | 750,000–1,500,000 (1.9–3.7%) |
Romania | 569,500 (3.4%) |
Turkey | 500,000–2,750,000 (3.8%) |
Although Gypsies and Travellers are obviously White, they are seen as not being White enough, not an acceptable shade of Whiteness, not a group that conforms to society's rules of acceptance by contributing to society by going to work and paying taxes and sending their children to school.
Heterogeneity between countries has become apparent and has led to the conclusion that the European Roma are composed of two different populations, characterised respectively by a high and a low frequency of blood group B [23], or defined as East and West European Roma, with the former closely related to Indian ...
Traditionally, Irish Travellers are a nomadic group of people from Ireland but have a separate identity, heritage and culture to the community in general. An Irish Traveller presence can be traced back to 12th century Ireland, with migrations to Great Britain in the early 19th century.
What genetic disease do Irish Travellers have?
The Irish Traveller population has a higher than average prevalence of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), similar to the Navajo Nation and the Amish and Mennonite communities, and international SCID experts are collaborating to identify SCID variants and improve treatment.