LONDON — The Romany people constitute Europe’s largest and, arguably, now its most persecuted minority.
A new genetic study published this week suggests their ancestors arrived in Europe from northwestern India in a single wave around 1,500 years ago, half a millennium earlier than previously thought.
The international authors of the peer-reviewed paper in Current Biology journal said their study is the most comprehensive ever of the demographic history of the Romany. They said it reveals the origins of a people who “constitute a mosaic of languages, religions, and lifestyles while sharing a distinct social heritage.”
Scientific American noted that earlier studies of the Romany language and cursory analysis of genetic patterns had determined India was the group’s place of origin. But the new study points to a single migration from northwestern India around 500 CE.
Previous studies largely overlooked the place of Europe’s 11 million Romany in the Continent’s gene pool. That was partly a consequence of their continued isolation and marginalization, and partly due to a history of oppression that in many countries continues to this day.
The prejudice has historically been most evident in Eastern European countries with large Romany populations. But recent tensions have spread, including to Romany families seeking a new life in the west.
In one incident in late September, a mob in Marseille, France set fire to an encampment of 35 foreign Roma. As many as 20,000 foreign Roma are said to live in France, most of them Romanians or Bulgarians.
Thousands were deported and their encampments razed during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, as my colleague Scott Sayare recalled in an article in August, although François Hollande, his successor, has promised to better integrate the newcomers into French society.
A more activist Romany population has found a voice, however, showing it is no longer prepared to take the old prejudices lying down.
Some even reject the word Gypsy because of its historically negative connotations, a perception borne out when Lindsay Lohan used the term last week as an allegedly racial slur during a nightclub altercation.
Romany protestors last year turned out in Rome to demand better living conditions after four children died in a fire that destroyed their illegal camp.
And Romany families last month won a pledge from the Czech education ministry that it would finally end widespread discrimination against their children in schools after a landmark 2007 case in the European Court of Human Rights.
The European Roma Rights Center, based in Budapest, is active in pushing similar cases in European courts to combat anti-Romany racism.
My colleague Chris Cottrell wrote in October of continuing discrimination in a report on a ceremony in Berlin to unveil a memorial commemorating an estimated half million Romany who died in the Holocaust.
He quoted Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany saying, “Let’s not beat around the bush. Sinti and Roma suffer today from discrimination and exclusion.”
The latest genetic study may at least contribute to establishing the Romany’s rightful place in European history — for the last millennium and a half.
The scientists, who revealed a strong admixture of non-Romany genes in northern and western countries during their migrations, said further studies would help define the identity of their Indian ancestors and provide further details of their migration and subsequent history in Europe.
