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As I understand it their ethnicity is called Roma or Romani. There is good evidence they are descended from people of the Indian subcontinent that traveled to Europe many centuries ago.
Some are more integrated into general Spanish society than others and of course flamenco is a famous art they are often associated with.
Many speak their own Romani language now strongly influenced by Iberian Latin languages.
There appears to be around 1 million of these people in Spain.
Am I correct so far?
Here's where I am less sure. Spain has undergone lots of immigration in the last 50 years (including the Brits of course) and one major group has been Romanian nationals. Romanians flocked to Spain for various reasons. Similar-ish Latin language, emigrants looking for work due to poor economy in Romania, and a vaguely similar southern European lifestyle.
I am very aware that the first 4 letters of Romania is nothing do with Roma people - just a linguistic coincidence.
Now, many of these Romanian nationals are not Roma, but many are.
Do the Romanian Roma integrate with the Spanish gitanos? They must have quite different languages? Surely it's generally the Iberian-Roma who do flamenco?
I would love to know. I find their way of life fascinating. Any incite would be welcome.
I recently spoke to a Portuguese and Spaniard who both swore blind that all gitanos in Spain/Portgual were Romanians! Surely they have been a victim of confusing "Roma" with "Romania"? The Romanian Roma must surely be a minority.
I recently spoke to a Portuguese and Spaniard who both swore blind that all gitanos in Spain/Portgual were Romanians! Surely they have been a victim of confusing "Roma" with "Romania"? The Romanian Roma must surely be a minority.
There's the possibility that they (or the portuguese at least) meant ciganos as in "thieves".
Anyways, I know of some romanian gitanos but I doubt that they are the majority of the romanians here.
The romani's that live in romania are from a different wave of roma that left india. They are separated from the gitanos by many hundreds of years. They share very little of the same culture. They no longer share a language and would really have very little reason to embrace them any more than any other Spaniard. It'd kinda be like if a bunch of Irish Australians moved to the United States, to the Irish Americans, those are Australians, kind of interesting that we share a common ancestry but beyond it being interesting there'd be little reason to give them special welcome.
Not related, but a friend of me married into a spanish gypsey (gitano) familly. She learned a little bit of the language. Some years later she was in England and by coincidence she met a local gypsey and they could both communicate in this language.
To the best of my knowledge Gitanos don't have their own language, just their own dialect of Spanish.....I think even calling it their own dialect is the wrong term....it's Andalou with some added gitano words and they call it Calo.....pretty sure at least.
There is good evidence they are descended from people of the Indian subcontinent that traveled to Europe many centuries ago.
there is indeed good evidence ,,, ,, they came to the Mediterranean and kind of split up ... more recently in history .. they would have been the people in part that came across from Egypt ..to the south of Spain ...bearing in mind that Al Andalus was the south of Europe and the north of Africa ..
these people were Egyptians ... now would be Egipcios words change with time . at one time known as Egitanos ... those from Egypt Now now just Gitanos .. a people in their own right , as oppose to 'descended from ' so they have kinda split ... this is a general belief and may be erroneous .. i cant point you to any document .. just talking with people from Cordoba ....which incidentally was the capital of all that at one time ...
The spanish gitanos/gypsies are the only one's that aren't infamous but respected due to them being treated mostly equal and their cultural influence in spain. In europe and especially northern europe they are treated mostly as thiefs, simply because thefts made by gypsies/roma are very numerous.
that is much more recent and much more of a sociological effect than a historic one ..
its not the real topic here
what you say is not strictly true .. I in fact i will just blatantly say it ... its not true ..
there are gypsies and the other lot .. to which i think you refer .. called 'Travellers .'
the travelling community
the 'Travelers ' have much more input and output in todays media and influence a lot ..and they are what they are ,.. but claim what they will a generation of travelling does not qualify them to be gypsies .. and there stilll are some ( gypsies) .. and they actually dont mix as much as what you may think ...also dont separate Spain from Europe as it is a part of it ..
but there are two distninct cultures , you , i think are refering to the second ,, more prevalent , and infamous .. DNA tests would reveal that you yourself have as much gypsie blood as they do ... and i dont even want to get into the new sect known as '' the new age travellers '' that believe they are outside of the system and yet heavily rely upon it ......
Best I can figure it only 15%ish of gitanos speak full on Calo, and I'm guessing it's the older generation. The gypsies I've talked to about this did not speak full on calo, just some calo words thrown into their andalou speak.
yeah I would go with this ...Leñador... they can be a lot of a closed shop for cultural reasons .. but another language its not ... if you want to be confused with language in Spain try Catalan ....for which subtitles appear on the Spanish channels ,,, usually government stuff ... .. or just go straight for the Basque .. even the rules of conjugation verbs will change there ...
that is much more recent and much more of a sociological effect than a historic one ..
its not the real topic here
what you say is not strictly true .. I in fact i will just blatantly say it ... its not true ..
there are gypsies and the other lot .. to which i think you refer .. called 'Travellers .'
the travelling community
the 'Travelers ' have much more input and output in todays media and influence a lot ..and they are what they are ,.. but claim what they will a generation of travelling does not qualify them to be gypsies .. and there stilll are some ( gypsies) .. and they actually dont mix as much as what you may think ...also dont separate Spain from Europe as it is a part of it ..
but there are two distninct cultures , you , i think are refering to the second ,, more prevalent , and infamous .. DNA tests would reveal that you yourself have as much gypsie blood as they do ... and i dont even want to get into the new sect known as '' the new age travellers '' that believe they are outside of the system and yet heavily rely upon it ......
There are several types of gypsies, in northern europe they've been living for over 100 years, are accepted nationality and have their own day in Finland yet they are almost daily in the news about stealing, here's an example:
About the "travellers", there are plenty from Romania and Bulgaria here in Finland but they're not the same as finnish gypsies whom you can see in the vid.
There are bunch of types of gypsies, yet most of them remain infamous and not well respected. The spanish gypsies are for example very different from Finnish ones. Yet they all could be considered gypsies since their ancestors left from india for europe. Why can't all of them be called gypsies if they are descendants of the people who left india and have maintained their own culture ever since? Those who aren't well I guess they aren't gypsies.
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