Romani History - Origin

Origin

The Romani have been described as unique among peoples because they have never identified themselves with a territory; they have no tradition of an ancient and distant homeland from which their ancestors migrated, nor do they claim the right to national sovereignty in any of the lands where they reside, rather, Romani identity is bound up with the ideal of freedom expressed, in part, in having no ties to a homeland. The absence of traditional origin stories and of a written history has meant that the origin and early history of the Romani people was long an enigma. Indian origin was suggested on linguistic grounds as early as 200 years ago. One theory suggests that the name ultimately derives from a form ḍōmba- 'man of low caste living by singing and music', attested in Classical Sanskrit. An alternative view is that the ancestors of the Romani were part of the military in Northern India. When there were invasions by Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi and these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire between AD 1000 and 1030.

Genetic evidence connects the Romani people and the Jat people, the descendants of groups which emigrated from South Asia towards Central Asia during the medieval period. There are serological similarities shared with several populations that linked the two people in a 1992 study.

According to a study, Roma originated from the Jatt clan of Pakistan. In 2007 a limited medical survey of haplotypes frequently found in the Jat Sikhs and Jats of Haryana, and those found in the Romani populations revealed no matches. However, in 2009 researchers discovered the "Jat mutation", which causes a type of glaucoma in Romani people. Their press release stated:

{{quote|"An international collaboration led by Manir Ali of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, first identified the ‘Jatt’ mutation in one of four Pakistani families. Further study amongst Roma populations in Europe showed that the same mutation accounted for nearly half of all cases of PCG in that community. Manir Ali’s research also confirms the widely accepted view that the Roma originated from the Jatt clan of Northern India and Pakistan and not from Eastern Europe as previously believed.