‘Gypsy’: A Double Signifier

No discovery has been as significant to the understanding of the history of the Gypsies as the illumination of their linguistic connection with India. Having said this, there arises immediately a need to clarify. For the connection between the Romani language and the languages of India has no bearing at all on the history and origin of the Irish Travellers, and probably little and only indirect significance for an understanding of the culture of the German or Swiss Yenish, to name but two examples out of many. At the same time it is impossible to understand the Rom, Romacel, Romanichel, Sinte, Manush or Kaale without knowing something about the origins of their language – romani chib, or romanes, or, as it is referred to in modern linguistics, Romani. How might we resolve this contradiction? The answer is very trivial: two separate signified entities are captured by the term ‘Gypsy’.

GYPSY 1 denotes the social phenomenon of communities of peripatetics or commercial nomads, irrespective of origin or language. Whether or not the diverse communities that fall under GYPSY 1 have much in common is the subject of occasional discussions among members of these groups, and of intense research among social scientists describing their cultures. Let us accept both that members of these distinct groups often show interest in one another and may at times feel a sense of common destiny, and that at the scientific level comparative research into diverse peripatetic communities is now an established discipline.

GYPSY 2 is as it were a popular English translation for a set of ethnonyms used by those groups whose language is a form of Romani. Despite the diversity of its dialects, Romani can be clearly defined as an entity. Indeed, since it is an isolated language, being the only Indian language spoken exclusively in Europe (and by emigrants from Europe, in the Americas, for instance), the boundaries between Romani and surrounding languages are much more obvious than, for example, the boundary between dialects of Dutch and German, Swedish and Norwegian, Italian and Spanish, or Polish and Slovak. I will not enumerate the features that are shared by the dialects of Romani, or the isoglosses that separate them, and I refer the reader instead to my recent book, which deals with those in great detail (Matras 2002).