Gypsy is a slang name given to most of the nomadic tribes around the world. They are also known as Roma or Romany people. A vast population of them is wandering today across the USA, Latin countries (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia), and large parts of Europe (Romania, Spain, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Serbia, Russia, Slovakia, Macedonia). Genetic findings, however, indicate that this dispersed population, in fact, originated from a single ethnic group.
This group made a mass exodus about 1500 years ago from the Northern Indian subcontinent (modern-day Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana) towards Eastern Europe. And over the last one and a half millennia, gypsies scattered across the globe. When the early wanderers from India first arrived in Europe, Europeans wrongly assumed they had come from Egypt, simply because of their strange language and a dark complexion. Hence the name ‘Gypsy’!
They have been unkindly depicted in media, cinema, and literature largely as mysterious dealers in alchemy, witchcraft, black magic and all kinds of shady hoodoo. If it has been any kinder in rare cases, this portrayal has sadly never gone beyond ‘gravity-defying acrobats’, circus freaks and prostitutes. Fortunately, with enhanced literacy levels and governments recognizing their civil rights, the Gypsy community is truly defying gravity and entering into the mainstream today.
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