Who are the gypsies?

Gypsies originated from gypsy nomads in northwest India, and the similarity between gypsy languages (various gypsy dialects) and Hindi can prove this. About a thousand years ago, they began to migrate to Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Hungary and even Spain via Iran, Egypt and Turkey in Asia Minor.

Gypsies are a nation. Little is known about their origins. About 500 years ago, Gypsies migrated to Europe. They live in caravans and make a living by busking or divining people. Because they are mobile, they are often unpopular.

The original meaning of the word gypsy is "people from Egypt", however, this is a big misunderstanding. Gypsies-strictly speaking, they should be called Roma-have their own language, which is Roma. Linguists have noticed similarities between the Romani language and the languages of northwest India. Romany belongs to Indo-European language family in linguistics. According to linguistic evidence, Gypsies probably originated in northern India and embarked on a migration journey around 1 1 century. During this period, their languages were influenced by Greek, Persian and other languages.

There are about120,000 gypsies in the world, of which about10,000 are distributed in Europe. Gypsies have a unique tradition. They don't intermarry (the age of marriage is 12 ~ 13). Different countries have different gypsy "tribes". Although gypsies have a large population, like Jews in history, they live in scattered places and suffer a lot. During World War II, Hitler sent 500,000 Gypsies to concentration camps to be executed.

1979, the United Nations officially recognized the Roma as a nation. After the end of the Cold War, Gypsies in Central and Eastern Europe were severely excluded, their identity was not recognized and their survival was threatened.

Gypsies are not recognized largely because of their status. Anthropologists and linguists are debating whether Gypsies are a single nation, and it is getting worse. Ensuring that Gypsies are a single ethnic group, not a mixture of many ethnic groups, will help to ensure their legal rights. Recently, scientists from Edith Cowan University in Australia conducted a study. They selected 275 people from 14 different gypsy "tribes" as the research objects. These people have nothing to do with each other The researchers examined their Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA (mitochondria can only be inherited from their mothers, so it can effectively judge the correlation between the ancestors of the population). They contain mutant types called haplogroups. As a result, scientists found that all samples in the 14 region contained haplogroup VI-68 on the Y chromosome, accounting for 44.8% of all samples. A similar finding was found in mitochondrial DNA: 26.5% of men carried haplotype M. These people have little difference in haplotypes.

Mitochondria help scientists trace the origin of gypsies. This conclusion shows that although Gypsies belong to different tribes, they are still a single nation. In addition, haplogroup VI-68 and haplogroup M are unique to Asians, which supports linguistic evidence. Scientists published the research results in February 20001year in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Researchers at Edith Cowan University say they will continue to study the list of gypsies.

Sex, which will prompt some countries to face up to the fact that gypsies are a single nation. At the same time, because Gypsies are very single (they don't marry foreigners), scientists can determine the pathogenesis of some diseases by studying the genes of this "closed" nation-Gypsies are not ominous symbols, but very precious samples.