Those in Western Europe and the United States are mostly Roman Catholic or Protestant. In southern Spain, many Roma are Pentecostal, but this is a small minority that has emerged in contemporary times. In Egypt, the Roma are split into Christian and Muslim populations.
The Roma do not follow a single faith, but are Catholic Manouche, Mercheros, and Sinti; Muslim Ashkali and Romanlar; Pentecostal Kalderash and Lovari; Protestant Travellers; Anglican Gypsies; and Baptist Roma.
Romani groups tend to adopt the religion which is dominant in their countries of residence. In the Euro- pean context this means that they are either Christian or Muslim. Even though they often do not follow all religious rituals and practices, faith in God remains an important part of their life.
Since the early 1950s, Roma across Europe began to organize in specifically Romani Pentecostal congregations and today, although there are many exceptions, Pentecostalism could be said to be one of the foremost religious orientations amongst Roma in Europe and beyond.
TODAY, over 25,000 Romani Gypsies secretly live and work in Australia. They have been here since the arrival of the First Fleet but do not reveal their ethnic identity to outsiders, due to fears of being stereotyped.
Travellers have a distinctive approach to religion; the vast majority of them are practising Roman Catholics and they also pay particular attention to issues of healing.
The majority of the Greek Roma have Hellenic nationality and follow the tenets of Greek Orthodoxy. They do, however, speak the Romani language in addition to Greek. There are also Roma who live in Western Thrace and are Muslim. Most of them speak a dialect of the same language.
Roma and Sinti can be traced back to India, to the Punjab region. The Romani language (the source for the appellation “Roma”) is related to Sanskrit. More than a thousand years ago, they began to migrate out of India, heading westward in successive waves.
Roma, singular Rom, also called Romany or Gypsies (considered pejorative), an ethnic group of traditionally itinerant people who originated in northern India but live in modern times worldwide, principally in Europe.
'Gypsy' is actually a term for Romani people—a whole different culture. However, if you have a free spirit, too, that wants to explore the world, meet new people, and live a worry-free life, a modern-day gypsy lifestyle is what you need.
Gypsy Blood is a British feature-length observational documentary which examines the fighting culture that Romani fathers hand on to their sons. It was filmed over two years by the photographer Leo Maguire and produced by the production company ClearStory.
Common Gypsy names
You may have Romani, Traveller or Gypsy ancestry if your family tree includes common Romani or Gypsy surnames such as Boss, Boswell, Buckland, Chilcott, Codona, Cooper, Doe, Lee, Gray (or Grey), Harrison, Hearn, Heron, Hodgkins, Holland, Lee, Lovell, Loveridge, Scamp, Smith, Wood and Young.
Romani, the common language of the Roma, the Sinti, the Kale and other European popula- tion groups summarised by the pejorative denomination gypsies, belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family and is the only New-Indo-Aryan language spo- ken exclusively outside of the Indian subcontinent.
Travelling communities believe in the principle of no sex before marriage and girls who break this code are considered dirty and risk being left on the shelf. Unmarried young men and women are not allowed to socialize alone together because of the emphasis on female chastity.
Like all Latin peoples, non-gypsy or payo Spaniards celebrate Christmas Eve, but the gitanos, in this at least, are like us anglos: they rejoice in the birth of the Señor on the day it happened, December 25th.
Both Rom and Romany have been in use in English since the 19th century as an alternative for Gypsy. Romany is also spelled Romani, or Rommany.
To earn a living today, gypsies might weave furniture, make bricks, resell clothing and goods, or trade horses, but employment is typically a side note in their existence.
Roma (Gypsies) originated in the Punjab region of northern India as a nomadic people and entered Europe between the eighth and tenth centuries C.E. They were called "Gypsies" because Europeans mistakenly believed they came from Egypt. This minority is made up of distinct groups called "tribes" or "nations."
While there is no evidence that the Gypsies were Arabs who migrated to India, there is much historical and linguistic evidence of their Indian roots and movement to Persia, as well as later relocations to and within Europe and the Middle East. What remains unclear is exactly when or why they moved.
Historical and cultural definitions
Gypsies are thought to have arrived in Britain from the northern Indian sub-continent around 1500. The Romany language has its roots in Hindi but suggests a migration via the Middle East into South Eastern Europe.
According to traditional Romani beliefs, life for the dead continues on another level. However, there is a great fear among the survivors that the dead might return in some supernatural form to haunt the living.
There is no king or queen. Traveller families often have someone that makes the main decisions that will affect the family as a whole, and is usually a patriarch or matriarch of the family. This is often the same for Romany people, who have no tradition of royalty.
Once dead, the Gypsies believed their loved one was caught between the world of the living and the world of the dead. They thought the dead would stay in this state until buried.