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46. History of the Romani people

The Romani people, also referred to depending on the sub-group as Roma, Sinti or Sindhi, or Kale are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, who live primarily in Europe. They originated in northwest regions of the India and left sometime between the 6th and 11th century to work in Middle Eastern courts of their own volition, or as slaves. A small number of nomadic groups were cut off from their return to the subcontinent by conflicts and moved west, eventually settling in Europe, the Byzantine Empire and North Africa via Iran.

Origin

There is no 100% origin theory that is accepted for all different Romani groups. Almost every Romani group has its own history of origin. It varies a lot, especially between Christian and Muslim Romani. The various theories of origin were put forward by non-Romani people, some with obscure claims. A large part of the Romani believe their original home is the Sindh region, especially the Sinti, others say Egypt or Iran, this claim is made by the Ashkali and Balkan Egyptians. Many Muslim Romani people deny their origin and pretend to be Turks and speak Turkish only instead of Balkan Romani, others only speak the different Languages of Yugoslavia.

The Romani have been described by Diana Muir Appelbaum as unique among peoples because they have never identified themselves with a territory; they have no tradition of an ancient and distant homeland from which their ancestors migrated, nor do they claim the right to national sovereignty in any of the lands where they reside. Rather, Romani identity is bound up with the ideal of freedom expressed, in part, in having no ties to a homeland. The absence of a written history has meant that the origin and early history of the Romani people was long an enigma. Indian origin was suggested on linguistic grounds as early as the late 18th century. However, these statements are in contrast to the aspirations of romani people, a country of their own, called Romanistan.

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