The Economist
Finding the right words to describe people is tricky
Sep 16th 2010
FEW subjects excite more controversy among Romani activists than terminology. The traditional word “Gypsy” is seen as pejorative by some and inaccurate by others though some Romanies robustly defend its use. Outsiders often use it to mean anyone with a traditional itinerant lifestyle (it retains that meaning in English law). It is now largely out of fashion, especially in bureaucratic circles where the favoured new term is “Roma”. Strangely in an age that prizes gender-neutral language, that is the literal plural of “Rom”, a Romany word meaning man or husband.
The old adjective “Romany” or the newer “Romani” can be used as a noun, which is better (and preferred by this newspaper), but still tricky. In many languages it is all but identical to the word for “Romanian”. Everyone involved finds that tiresome. One way round that is to double the “r”, producing words like “Rromani”. That is a handy way of representing the two different “r” sounds in some Romanian dialects. But it looks too odd to catch on.
The bigger problem is what the terms are meant to represent. Nobody really knows the size of the diaspora (estimates in Europe range from 7m to 12m). Romani identity has splintered over the centuries since the original migration from Rajastan in India (DNA and linguistic analysis suggests that this happened around 1000AD) The European diaspora is not the only one. Others, probably the result of later migration, include the Lom, Dom, Lyuli, Bosha and Zott (mostly in the Middle and Near East, but also in the Caucasus and Central Asia).
Such links are tenuous, but so are those even between nearby villages in Europe, where different dialects can be largely incomprehensible. Command of the language among the younger Romanies is fading, partly under the onslaught of popular culture, but also because parents fear it will hurt their children’s chances in school.
Intermarriage and assimilation have diluted the ethnic component further. The Romani way of life varies too. The vast majority of Romanies have long since stopped being nomads. Many surviving nomads (tinkers in Ireland, for example) are not Romanies. Poverty and prejudice afflict Europe’s Romanies particularly, but the underclass has other members too. Try finding a name for them.
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