Talk:Porajmos

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    [edit] Map is not public domain

    I hope someone can help me figure out the right thing to do here. The map on the Porajmos page is actually not in the public domain. It was created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and can be found here: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?ModuleId=10005149 The Museum's policies are found here: http://www.ushmm.org/priv_acc/index.php?content=disclaimer/ I believe that the Museum would be very happy to make the map available for use on Wikipedia but would want a credit to the Museum placed by the map image. Would that be acceptable to Wikipedia, or can only photos that are really in the public domain be presented?

    [edit] not true

    It is not true that Nedic goverment of occupied Serbia organized extermination of Gypsies - the situation there cannot be compared to the Ustashe regime who had organized extermination program and extermination camps. The situation is Serbia can be compared to the one in Norwegia, Denmark, Greece, Chech republic, even Bulgaria and Romania. Gypsies find one of the friendliest home in Serbia today all over Eastern Europe, and there is nothing like the racism incidents of Czech republic or even Romania. While on margins of society, any Gypsy from Serbia can tell you that.

    During WWII shootings have been done by the Nazis in Serbia, most notoriously in massacre in Kragujevac where 7000 people have been killed, some of them were gypsies. While itis possible that Nedic serbian guards have cooperated in rouding up civilians and arresting them, there was no extermination of gypsies organized by the goverment of occupied Serbia. Serbs, victims of genocide together with Gypsies in WWII, would consider such randomly thrown lies (I have never seen such a claim before) as a grave lie and shameless insult!!!

    [edit] serbian government

    "Meanwhile, the Serbian government also killed thousands of Gypsies. "

    This statement is wrong. Are there any proofs for it? Goya 04:48, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

    serbs are slavs, and i've long heard that some slavs, particularly many czechs, are anti-gypsy. but that doesn't automatically make the statement in quotes above true. however, i haven't studied this subject enough to know if the statement in quotes ISN'T true. Gringo300 00:04, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

    [edit] aryan, more or less

    the Gypsies were no less Aryan, and perhaps even more Aryan, than the Germans themselves.

    I removed the statement "and perhaps even more Aryan" because it assumes correct the Nazi theory of genetical purity. There's no such thing as "more Aryan", all Indo-European tribes assimilated the local populations where they settled (Germans in N.Europe, Gypsies in India). Gypsies were no less Aryan than the Germans and Germans were no less Aryan than the Gypsies. Bogdan | Talk 13:42, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

    That's not quite true. I think the original editor probably meant to point out that the Gypsies derived from the people who actually called themselves "Aryans" – the people we now call Indo-Iranians. There is no evidence that ancient Germans ever called themselves "Aryans". In that sense it is true to say that Gypsies were "more Aryan" than Germans. It does not involve accepting "the Nazi theory of genetic purity" at all. It merely points to some of the contradictions in the Nazis' own ideology. Whether it's worth mentioning this in the article, I don't know, but I've partly indicated it with changes to the section on Gypsy/Aryan identity. Paul B 17:05 16 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    Their language was derived from the language of the "Aryans", but genetically, most of the population of India (Gypsies including) is formed from non-IE people assimilated by the IE invasion. (In Europe, while higher, the percentage of "IE genes" is still somewhere around 20-30%) bogdan | Talk 16:37, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
    My point was that it is not about "racial purity" at all, which presupposes the existence of some sort of original "race" that then gets "mixed".
    Isolated populations did develop some traits that made them different from the other human populations. But, of course, the "purity" (read "homogenity") of those populations was lost as soon as they joined other populations. And 200 generations later it's absurd to talk about "purity": you won't find one person in the whole Europe that has genes from only one of those ancient groups. bogdan | Talk 20:45, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
    Aryans were Indo-Iranians. As far as we know PIEs never called themselves that. Paul B 20:15 16 Aug 2005 (UTC)
    AFAIK, there was a PIE root, which also gave Greek "aristocrat". bogdan | Talk 20:45, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
    The "aristos" connection is not widely accepted anymore, at least not in the sense that it refers back to an ancient ethnic-identifier. Paul B 21:103 16 Aug 2005 (UTC)

    "More Aryan" is indeed a silly expression. Perhaps the writer meant to say: "Even if we foolishly were to accept, for the sake of argument, the Nazi racial theories, the Romani would qualify as 'Aryan'. This fact provides us with a reductio ad absurdum showing how silly these theroeis are." Tom129.93.17.135 23:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

    No, that is not quite what the writer means here. What he meant to say was that "Aryan" generally refers to the Indo-European peoples. Not only are the Romani people of "Aryan" origin (as opposed to Dravidian, Munda, etc.), but also they clearly have origins in North India (as opposed to e.g. the Germans and other Nordic peoples, whose "Indic origin" was not, and apparently is not, as well confirmed).
    I hope I'm making at least some sense here! :) BTW, I may be wrong in using the term "Indo-European" (should it be Indo-Aryan? Indo-Iranian? I'm afraid I haven't yet looked into the "Aryan"-related debates). --Kuaichik 00:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Indoiranian Gypsies:

    First of all: true arians are Persians and people related to them such as Scythians, Greeks and old Sanskrit Hindus. Germans fit more into the nordic barbarian tribes and the vikings. Aryans where the first white race, yet not all white races have blue eyes, blond hair and 1.90 mt 6.3 mt tall on the contrary those where divergences into barbarian tribes (whom also had aryan blood but distant for centuries in living in Icy Regions).

    The true aryans where white skinned or copper almond like, green or dark profound eyes, thick beards, hair on chest, high long postured, thick chested-back, well built and warrior like nomadic horse riders that established themselves in Iran; and came from the Cacaus mountains.


    Gypsies or Roma People are of total Indoaryan or Indopersian descent. Their language is not only pure Indopersian or Indoaryan but it closely resembles the actual Punjabi, Sindi, Kashmiri, Pothohari and Dardic Mountain Languages of Pakistan, aswell as old Rajasthani (close to classical sanskrit) and even Farsi.

    Gypsy tradition as aryans (old persians) is nomadic and guided by the stars. The branch of Indopersian (aryan) or Indoafghan peoples that invaded actual India and established themselves in India is in fact very close to the Rajputs and Jatts of aryan-scythian origin. They are the true Rajasthans Indosthans and defenders of the old territories of Pakistan and North India against Monguls and Arabs for years mamy years ago. When defeated they pledged alliance to Rama God and prefered to maintain their spirit of nomadic warriors.

    Today in Rajasthan many people still see them as the original inhabitants and as outo ostrichized warrior hight cast people that ruled in tiems of the Old Hindosthan Era.

    Many articales talk about how many of the Lohars and gypsies of North India still have green eyes, long beards, clearer hair and moustashes. This tradition is seen even today by gypsies wearing long hair, moustashes and beards as Old Aryans dide thousands of years ago.

    Its good to know that true asians be it dravidians, nepalis etc have no facial hair; no thick beards, non thin noses and never clear eyes or green eyes. This shows total Aryan descent of Romamy People as origin, atleast for most of them in the warrior or priest class. Skin for many of them is almond for desert living the hot deserts for thousands of years or mountain reddish tone skin like Punjabis and Kashmiris and sometimes even more pale. Most gypsies look like Bollywood Stars most of them come from actual Rajasthan, Kashmir, Mewar, etc

    You can also find resembleness of the true Gypsies in tribes of half aryan and mongolian blood in the frontiers of the Himalayas; they have white sking and many times more middleastern (scythian) or persian look. They show many resembleance to Pakistani Gypsies or Afghan Nomads that came from Sind as in their silk clothes, have traditional long moustashes and beards, are still great daggar and knife makers, carpet makers and great musicians.

    True Romany People migrated in a time where India was more Indoaryan or Indoirani-Indopersian than what we see today. They left old Punjab-"Sind" (Sinti) and Kashmir-"Sringar" (Zingaro) valleyes fighting mongols and arabs and spread in two ways:

    1)Europe: via Kashmir-Afghanistan and the establisehd themselves in the Silk Road whre they reached Iran, then spit into sub groups leaving for Turkey and Greece and others into Egypt. They brought the famous "Cockfights" to Europe and ofcourse their soulful music.

    2)Rajasthan: and Thar Deserts; Others that were not captured by mongols and arabs fled in to the "Rajasthan Deserts" as u see them today; arrogant attitide and warlike passionete spirits that refuse to be part of modern Indians and want to maintain their old Aryan-Scythian mark as nomadic horse riders of Rajput and Jatt descent.

    Although many have have mixed with dravidian peoples they still show some aryan traits like their attitude towards life: agressive battle like attitude, long mustashes, beards, long hairs for nomadic Priests, beutiful scarfs, some have green eyes (Rajasthan is famous for green eye Gypsies), knife and metal weopon making, acrobatic skills as old warriors did, great horse riders and modern musicians: whom after the wars refuse to loose their Hindosthani culture.

    Im not saying that Roma People are pure aryans or persians but they are rooted in Indopersian and Indoscythian Cultures: "Rajputs and Jatts", some did asimilate a little dravidian blood (especially Romany Low in the Chain usually women) but most of them that reached Europre belong to the true Blacksmith, Warrior and great Hordesmen of totall "Rajputic" partly scythian and persian blood, all famous in North India and Pakistan during the copper era as the Old Hindosthans of Sind.

    You can see Gypsies as old nomadic aryans of Persia by their facial traits (red almond skin: not black dravidian, green or dark eyes, thick beards and long mustashes),language (Rajasthan, Pakisthan, Iran, Terhan = Aryan old Persian: not Bombay =asiatic or dravidian terminolgy) Culture-Values (Virginity for Women is not an asian since Kamasutra is asiatic-dravidian; yet Romany people have middleaster or old persian values), their Dress (Silk and powerful colours command to traders and nomads of Afganistan, Iran and Pakistan) anf ofcourse Romany Music; which is closer to Norther Paqkistani, Old Indian and old Iranian Music (wich is based on Sanskrit Aryan Music)than dravidian southern music.

    Hence that back 1000 years ago (around when they left into the mountains and deserts it was 1000 AD) then North Indian territories had alot more persian, scythian % of people, that looked more like peoples of Iran,Afghanistan and Bollywood North Indian Actors......

    Well Gypsies are not 100% Aryan, I have to say there is much Dravidian blood in Gypsies-look at the photos,

    Gypsies from the Greek Islands

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/dimitri/31383451/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dimitri/39222130/in/set-1148683/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dimitri/39222128/in/set-1148683/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/51116994@N00/125665681/

    The farther into Europe the Gypsies went, more and more European blood has been introduced into Gypsies, to say Gypsies are 100% Aryan is false. And I am sure the Aryans in Iran have much Dravidian blood too.

    According to this website Elamite is a Dravidian language in Western Iran, almost in Iraq!!!!

    http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_dravidian.html

    This was taken from http://www.iranologie.com/history/history1.html


    Quote:

    "Elam, the most powerful and longest lasting civilisation of the Iranian plateau prior to the Aryan arrival, has a complex history. Most of the history of Elam has been recorded by their fierce enemies Babylonians and Assyrians, or by their successors, the Persians, who had a strong incentive to undermine the late Elamite kingdom. As a result, Elamite representation has not been very fair or accurate, and only due to the recent scholarship and reading of Elamite inscriptions we can have a good idea of their culture.

    As with the Kassites, we do not have a reliable knowledge of Elamite origin. As far back as 4th millennium BCE, evidence of Elamite settlement in the plains of Khuz (northern Persian Gulf) exist. Researches done on the Elamite skeletons show their racial closeness to the Sumerians and Dravidians of Indus Valley, while their language, at least in its latest form, shows very little connections with these cultures."

    Quote from http://www.iran-heritage.org/interestgroups/history-article3.htm

    23. The Turkish People are a result of the mixture of the early Iranians, and the Chinese; Semites and Egyptians, Palestinians and Arabs, are the mixtures of Iranians and Africans; while the Indians are a mixture of Iranians (Brahman) and the native blacks of India, Dravidians. (Gardeshgari, March 2000 p. 47).

    [edit] Prof. Ian Hancock's Coinage?

    A certain user "Timault," who currently has neither a user page nor a discussion page, had claimed that the word Porrajmos was coined by Prof. Ian Hancock. Does Timault or anyone else have any evidence of this?

    In his book We Are the Romani People, the Professor himself seems to be of the opinion that it is a general term used by some Romanies. (Yes, I said "Romani," not "Roma"! There's a perfectly good reason for that, too, but I think I'll discuss that later.) He also notes that "(s)ome hesitate to say the word out loud," so I am extremely skeptical of the claim that he coined this word.

    If anybody has any evidence, please discuss it in this section! Until then, though, I am reverting to the original claim, i.e. that it was coined by Romanies themselves.--Kuaichik 22:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

    There is an interesting article at Prof. Hancock's website covering the history of the term. He denies actually coining the term (which he attributes to an unknown Romani he talked with in 1993), but apparently is the person responsible for popularizing it. His memory may be slightly off in terms of the year, though, as the journal Nationalities Papers 19 (3) apparently mentioned the "Porajmos" in 1991.--Pharos 07:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
    (Reply to Kuaichik) Now I'm curious: why do you prefer Romani/Romany to Roma? Not disputing you, just interested. +ILike2BeAnonymous 22:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    Oh, sorry about that! According to Prof. Hancock, many Romanies actually do not call themselves "Rroma" (especially since "Rrom" specifically means a married Romani man, and "Rroma" is the plural form of "Rrom"). Some Romanies (e.g. in Britain) believe that "Rroma" refers to Romanies from other areas (e.g. Hungarian Romanies). However, though they don't consider themselves Rroma, they would consider themselves Romani. --Kuaichik 04:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Samudaripen ?

    Porrajmos certainly is a word coined by the Romani people, but *Samudaripen is not. *Samudaripen is not a possible or grammatical word in Romani.

    See the first link in the article: according to Prof. Hancock, this word violates the rules of Romani morphology and was coined by a linguist (obviously a gadžo). --Kuaichik 06:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] The G word

    This has been mentioned in other topic discussion pages. The term 'gypsies' is apparently pejorative. It has been suggested that the term Romani be substituted. I await feedback before making any changes.Doktor Waterhouse 13:40, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

    Yeah, I'd agree, except, of course, in cases where it's a direct quote or part of a phrase like "Gypsy Question." - TheMightyQuill 16:18, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
    Same here. I agree with TheMightyQuill. --Kuaichik 04:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

    The word Gypsy is derives from Egyptian. People at one point thought erroneously that Romani people derived from Egypt.

    Yeah, thanks, but I think we know ;) --Kuaichik 00:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Stereotype + Use of antiziganist source?

    The first sentence of the section "Aryan racial purity" reads:

    "In the thousand years that nomadic Romani tribes wandered through Europe, they were subject to persecution and humiliation[citation needed]; they were stigmatized as habitual criminals, social misfits, and vagabonds[citation needed]."

    We Are the Romani People, among many many other sources, could be cited as a source for the above statement - if not for the words "(i)n the thousand years that nomadic Romani tribes wandered through Europe." These words reinforce the stereotype of the "gypsy wanderer" and are not accurate in any case (or at least they're misleading). Eastern European Romanies have been settled for hundreds of years. Western European Romanies have a longer nomadic tradition, but they, too, are mostly (or largely) settled nowadays.

    I'm also skeptical of the use of a rather racist quote by Emanuel Ringelblum. Is it really necessary or relevant? It may give the wrong impression to readers who do not know much about the Romani people. There is plenty of information otherwise describing the Nazis' motives, so I see no reason why it should be included here. The cost is seemingly greater than the benefit. --Kuaichik 23:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

    Interesting, I was under the apparently false impression that the settlement of most Central & Eastern European Roma was forced upon them by 19th & 20th century governments, particularly communists. When & why did this settlement occur? Our History of the Romani people article doesn't even mention it. Can you offer some good sources on this? Thanks. - TheMightyQuill 06:13, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
    Well, for now, I can cite We Are the Romani People for that as well. It says, "In eastern Europe...the [Romani] population has been sedentary for centuries..." I have reproduced the full quote below; it is from a chapter on Romani cuisine and describes the effect of such settlement on this cuisine.
    "In eastern Europe, where the population has been sedentary for centuries, the dishes are very much like those eaten by the surrounding non-Romanies; 'Romani tea', for example, is the same as Russian tea, and sarmi, cabbage rolls, are also found in plenty of European ethnic cultures under different names. In western Europe, where Romani groups have been more mobile, choice of diet has for centuries depended upon what was available directly from the land."
    Another book by Prof. Hancock called The Pariah Syndrome (available on this page on Patrin) and another page featured on Patrin, suggest that Romanies were enslaved soon after their arrival in eastern Europe. In Western Europe, however, they were generally considered dangerous (they were sometimes mistaken to be Turks, since Western Europeans, unlike Eastern Europeans, usually did not know what Turks looked like). For this reason, they were then ordered to move on. (For the last two sentences, I have once again used We Are the Romani People as a source.) --Kuaichik 02:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Vulgar talk about Romani is widely accepted in our society

    People who consider themselves far too cultured to speak vulgarly of "jewing [someone] down" think nothing of talk about "gypping [someone]."

    I remember from my childhood watching a Bob Newhart comedy routine on TV, in which Newhart portrays an enterprising bigot looking for a new ethnic group to stigmatize. Someone suggests "gypsies", and Newhart says, "That's no good. They'll just steal your picket signs." Tom129.93.17.135 00:13, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

    Yep, that's because of the huge lack of information. Very few people (including Indians themselves!) know that the Romanies are an ethnic group, just like the Jews, Afro-Americans, etc. Other ethnic groups (such as Jews and Afro-Americans!) have won the strong support of some government(s); Romanies have no such administrative support at all. And so the stereotype remains uninhibited, even among educated non-Romanies. --Kuaichik 02:27, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Timing

    I seems a bit strange to put The vast majority of Roma were to suffer the same indignities as the Jews, when the time line in the reference puts the persecution of the Roma as starting earlier than the Jewish persecution.

    so I've put it into the correct chronological order as "The vast majority of Jews were to suffer the same indignities as the Roma".

    Plus how do you correctly reference an article? Ian Hancock's should be put in http://www.geocities.com/~Patrin/pariah-ch9.htm after all he is one of the foremost Roma spokespersons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashley kennedy3 (talk • contribs) 13:15, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

    Hey, Ashley! About the referencing of that article - you did it almost exactly right. It's just that there should only be one space between a URL and its title, no returns. I've fixed the ref for you on the Ian Hancock article :) --Kuaichik (talk) 04:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
    Oops. You're talking about adding the reference to this article! LOL, sorry about that!! --Kuaichik (talk) 04:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

    Thanks for putting the reference correction in,Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 13:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)