Romani people

The Romani, also known as Romany or Rromani, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group whose traditional way of life was nomadic and itinerant. Linguistic and genetic evidence traces their origins to northern South Asia, specifically the area that is now Rajasthan in India. Historians believe they began migrating westward, possibly in waves, around 1000 AD. Their original name likely comes from the Sanskrit word *ḍoma*, which may refer to the Doma caste, a Dalit subgroup traditionally associated with musicians and dancers. They moved into the Ghaznavid Empire, then the Byzantine Empire, and arrived in Europe via the Balkans around the 13th to 14th centuries. While scattered worldwide, their largest populations are in central, eastern, and southern Europe, as well as western Asia, mainly Turkey and Iran.

In English, the Romani are often called Gypsies, an exonym many Romani consider pejorative because of its links to illegality and its history as a racial slur. In the United Kingdom, however, the terms Kale and Romanichal prefer "Gypsies," and it is used in official documents. The first World Romani Congress in 1971 unanimously voted to reject all exonyms, including Gypsy. In Central and Eastern Europe, especially the Balkans, the exonym Tsigani and its variants are common, but these too can be seen as pejorative.

Since the 19th century, Romani have migrated to the Americas. The United States has an estimated 1 million Romani, and Brazil about 800,000, most of whose ancestors came from Eastern Europe in the 1800s. Brazil also has a notable Romani community descended from people deported by the Portuguese Empire during the Portuguese Inquisition. From the late 19th century onward, Romani have also moved to other South American countries and Canada. Though often confused with Irish Travellers and the Yenish people in Western Europe, the Romani are culturally and genetically distinct.

The Romani language is an Indo-Aryan language with strong influences from Persian, Armenian, Greek, and South Slavic. Balkan Romani also shows extensive Turkish influence. It has several dialects, with an estimated 2 million speakers. Because the language has traditionally been oral, many Romani are native speakers of their country’s dominant language, or of mixed languages combining that language with a Romani dialect, sometimes called para-Romani.

The English word Rom comes from the Romani word *rom*, meaning "man" or "husband" (plural *romá*). The singular is often given as Romani or Romany, with plurals Romanis or Romanies. The word’s origin is unclear; the Oxford English Dictionary suggests it likely comes from Sanskrit *ḍomba*, meaning a lower-caste wandering musician, itself from a Dravidian word like *domba* (a caste of acrobats and clowns). In English, Roma is often treated as singular, with a new plural, Romas. Romani can also serve as a feminine adjective, with Romano as the masculine. Some Romanies use Rom or Roma as an ethnic name, while others, such as the Sinti or Romanichal, do not use it for the whole group.

Sometimes Rom and Romani are spelled with a double r (Rrom, Rromani) to represent a distinct phoneme /ʀ/ (also written as ř or rh) that remains separate from the single r in some dialects. This spelling is used by institutions like the INALCO Institute in Paris and in countries like Romania, to avoid confusion with the endonym for Romanians (*român*, plural *români*). In Norway, Romani refers specifically to an older Northern Romani-speaking population that arrived in the 16th century, while Rom/Romanes describes Vlax Romani-speaking groups that migrated from the 19th century.

In English, Rom is both a noun (plural Roma or Roms) and an adjective, and Romani (or Romany) is both a noun (plural Romanis, Romanies, or Romani) and an adjective. Both terms have been used since the 19th century as alternatives to Gypsy. The terms Roma and Romanis are increasingly used as generic names for the people. Because not all Roma use Romani as an adjective, it has also become a noun for the entire ethnic group. Today, organizations like the United Nations and the U.S. Library of Congress use Romani, while the Council of Europe and others consider Roma the correct term for all related groups, recommending that Romani be reserved for language and culture (e.g., Romani language, Romani culture). The British government lists "Roma" as a sub-group of "White" in its ethnic classification. The demonyms Roma, Lom, and Dom are assumed to share the same origin.

The most common English exonym, Gypsy (or Gipsy), comes from Middle English *gypcian*, short for *Egipcien*. The Castilian Gitano and French Gitan have similar origins, all deriving from the Greek *Aigyptioi* (Egyptian) via Latin, based on the mistaken belief that the Romani came from Egypt.