Origins in India and the long migration west
The ancestors of the Roma leave northern India, perhaps around 1,500 years ago, and move west through Persia, Armenia and the Byzantine world; their language and genes preserve the journey.
- Romani: A Linguistic Introduction — Yaron Matras, Cambridge University Press (2002)
- The Gypsies — Angus Fraser, Blackwell (1992)
- Reconstructing the Population History of European Romani from Genome-wide Data — Isabel Mendizabal et al. (Current Biology) (2012)
- We Are the Romani People — Ian Hancock, University of Hertfordshire Press (2002)
- I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies — Yaron Matras, Allen Lane (2014)
When Roma first appeared in Europe, nobody, perhaps not even they, remembered where they had come from. Europeans guessed Egypt, which is where the words “Gypsy” and Gitano come from. The answer was found in the language. In the 1760s a Hungarian student noticed that Roma understood words of an Indian language spoken by fellow students from Malabar, and in 1782–83 German scholars showed that Romani was an Indian language. Counting in Romani, jekh, duj, trin (one, two, three), is close to Hindi ek, do, tīn.
- The Gypsies — Angus Fraser, Blackwell (1992)
- Romani: A Linguistic Introduction — Yaron Matras, Cambridge University Press (2002)
Exactly who left India, when and why is still debated. Linguists see a population speaking a central Indian language that later picked up north-western features; the route can be traced through Persian words, then Armenian and finally a large layer of Byzantine Greek, which suggests a long stay in Anatolia and the Balkans. Genetic studies support a single group leaving north-western India around 1,500 years ago. The Persian poet Ferdowsi’s tale of the shah Bahram Gur bringing thousands of Indian musicians, the Luri, to Persia is a legend, not proof.
- Romani: A Linguistic Introduction — Yaron Matras, Cambridge University Press (2002)
- Reconstructing the Population History of European Romani from Genome-wide Data — Isabel Mendizabal et al. (Current Biology) (2012)
- The Gypsies — Angus Fraser, Blackwell (1992)
Romani is an Indo-Aryan language, a relative of Hindi, Punjabi and Rajasthani; its basic words (numbers, body parts, family) are Indian, and loanwords from Persian, Armenian and Greek trace the route west. Yaron Matras and others date the departure to before about 1000 CE, from central and then north-western India.
- Romani: A Linguistic Introduction — Yaron Matras, Cambridge University Press (2002)
- The Gypsies — Angus Fraser, Blackwell (1992)
A 2012 genome-wide study by Mendizabal and colleagues found that European Roma descend from a single founding group from north or north-western India about 1,500 years ago, who spread into Europe through the Balkans around 900 years ago, mixing with Europeans along the way.
- Reconstructing the Population History of European Romani from Genome-wide Data — Isabel Mendizabal et al. (Current Biology) (2012)
The Romani linguist Ian Hancock has argued that the ancestors were a mixed military population gathered in northern India to resist the Ghaznavid invasions of the eleventh century, which would explain military words in early Romani. Other specialists consider this possible but unproven.
- We Are the Romani People — Ian Hancock, University of Hertfordshire Press (2002)
- I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies — Yaron Matras, Allen Lane (2014)
Why it matters today
For a people long called "Egyptians", accused of being anything from spies to descendants of Cain, the Indian origin was a recovered history. It gives Roma a shared story across countries and dialects, and Romani activists made it part of the national movement. Many Roma also feel it matters less than their centuries in Europe: they are Europeans whose ancestors came from India, not Indians in Europe.