.dombii as scavenger woman (Romani)

[Michael Witzel]

Swaminathan Madhuresan <smadhuresan at YAHOO.COM>
> .domba and romani are unrelated.

Why not? They are called Dom in Iran (!) and Syria,  Lom in Armenia, Rom in
Europe...

>--- Yashwant Malaiya <malaiya at CS.COLOSTATE.EDU> wrote:

>> The trail of the Romani (Gypsy) can be established with considerable
>> certainly starting with about 1342. They appear to have been
>> concentrated  in the region now Bulgaria and Romania, where they
>> first appear as slaves. Even now they form a substantial fraction
>> of the population in that region.

As slaves? Who says?

>> The people mentioned by a Mount Ethos monk in 1100, may or may
>> not be Romani.

Right. That Georgian monk on Athos who speaks about Atsinkanos (note the
Hungarian, German etc. designations derived from this)  called them, not
unlike one did  later on in Europe "sorcerers and small criminals".

However, there seems to be a possible earlier reference from 855 CE, also
from Byzantium. I will ask my Byzantinist colleague who knows *everything*
of E.Europe/Greece about that.

>> In Europe they have a clear identity. The ones in Turkey too are
>> also clearly of the same kind. However people who can be clearly
>> associated with European Gypsies in Iran are the ones that have
>> migrated back from Europe.

Really? What is the source?

There are, certainly, various Gypsy legends which tell about, sorry for all
OIT people, about a Gypsy IMMIgration from Southern Iraq  into India...
(while another group moves westwards, to Egypt,  Greece and to the rest of
Europe ; all of this is clearly influenced by Judaeo-Christian traditions)
Immigration INTO India is of course imposible because of the Indo-Aryan
character of their language.   (But interesting in the context of migration
legends!!)

European Gypsy clearly shows the successive levels of Iranian, Kurdish,
Armenian, Ossetic, Greek, Rumanian, Hungarian, Slawic, etc. loanwards which
indicates their trail.  Note also:

Firdausi writes in his Shahname that the Sassanide king Bahram Gor in 420
CE sent an embassy to 'Kamboja and India' to a King "Sankal" asking him to
send entertainers. He received 12,000 josslers, musicians etc. whom he
later ordered to travel the land as vagrants; they are called Luri  (we
need to check Shahname for this).  -- The Arab historian Hamza, in 940,
also refers to them. And the Kalif Motassim fought them in the swamps of S.
Iraq in 834. Note also Byzantium in 855 ( see above).


>> A possible guess is that in their current form, Gypsies have
>> emanated from region near the second Rome (Constantinople),
>> termed Romania. It is the second Rome that gave Jalauddin Rumi
>> his name.

This confuses the Greek name of the second Rome,
Konstantinopolis/Istambul/Byzantium, 'ROmE  (with aspirated R, thus >
Middle Persian HrOm = Byzantium), whence Turkish Rum "Greek",  as opposed
to Anadolu  (Anatolia, modern Turkey), note also Rumeliya = S. Bulgaria.

However, "Romania" has nothing to do with this 'Rom, Hrom, but  all with
the Romans
and their Rumania's Romance language. (Also, a Rumanian-like Romance
language was spoken until recently in the
Albanian/Makedonian/Bulgarian/Greek borderland areas.)

>> It is not clear to me why derivation of the term Roma from
>> the Constantinople region is often ruled out.

Theoretically possible, but see above on the Dom in Iran and Syria,  Lom in
Armenia, Rom in Europe... and Dom(ba) in India.

>>If the bulk
>> of the Gypsies are largely the descendants of the slaves taken
>> by Turks, the slaves must be largely descendants of the farmers,
>> a large  number of them being Jat in NW India, and not Dom.

That would depend on the earlier sources quoted above. They would be too
early for any Ghazni Turks invading India from Afghanistan in c. 1000 CE.++

Also, the BNalkan Gypsy  language is a bit to Prakritic for the 1000 CE
Panjab emigration date;  it is not = early NIA / Apabhramsa/Avahattha:  "I,
you he  do(es)"  kara'v, kara's, kara'l  < ultimately,  skt. karomi,
karoSi, karoti ...
==============

========================================================
Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies:  http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs