I found out recently that my great grandparents were Romani, which makes me part gypsy. I'm still trying to get confirmation of this, but it certainly explains the dark hair and eyes, wanderlust and love of music. Anyway, I'm interested to know if anyone knows anything about the Roma and can point me in the right direction for further research etc.
Originally posted by StarrmanTry
I found out recently that my great grandparents were Romani, which makes me part gypsy. I'm still trying to get confirmation of this, but it certainly explains the dark hair and eyes, wanderlust and love of music. Anyway, I'm interested to know if anyone knows anything about the Roma and can point me in the right direction for further research etc.
http://www.christusrex.org/www2/gypsies.net/
Community website.
Originally posted by StarrmanAha...so you're a filthy zygöna(sp?), explains a lot 😉
I found out recently that my great grandparents were Romani, which makes me part gypsy. I'm still trying to get confirmation of this, but it certainly explains the dark hair and eyes, wanderlust and love of music. Anyway, I'm interested to know if anyone knows anything about the Roma and can point me in the right direction for further research etc.
Lavengro - by George Henry Borrow might be worth a read, perhaps a bit historical for you though...
Other than that, easiest thing to do is go and meet some gypsies! 🙂
MÅ¥HÅRM
Originally posted by MayharmHmm, that's the trouble, where do you start? As far as I know, the people we have here aren't Rominy, they're just Pikey.
Aha...so you're a filthy zygöna(sp?), explains a lot 😉
Lavengro - by George Henry Borrow might be worth a read, perhaps a bit historical for you though...
Other than that, easiest thing to do is go and meet some gypsies! 🙂
MÅ¥HÅRM
Originally posted by StarrmanYou're in the UK I take it?
Hmm, that's the trouble, where do you start? As far as I know, the people we have here aren't Rominy, they're just Pikey.
If I'm correct pikey is the same as zygöna, just disrespectfull slang. There are still supposed to be gypsies in the UK, but you have to know where to look, the government and the farmer's are none too friendly...
Some of them have ended up in houses, some are fabulously rich and living in expensive trailers, but because of that nobody thinks of them as the same a pikeys/gypsies...
History is always the best place to start, did you know they originally came from india?
MÅ¥HÅRM
Well as far as I know, over here Pikey basically means 'white trash', people who call themselves gypsiesl because they live in a trailer. I don't think the term has anything to do with Roma heritage as such, more the traveller side of it.
Yeah, I've been doing some reading this morning, very interesting. Seems their language is predominately hindi and gudjerati based.
Originally posted by StarrmanI suspect there's pikeys, and then there's real pikeys 😉
Well as far as I know, over here Pikey basically means 'white trash', people who call themselves gypsiesl because they live in a trailer. I don't think the term has anything to do with Roma heritage as such, more the traveller side of it.
Yeah, I've been doing some reading this morning, very interesting. Seems their language is predominately hindi and gudjerati based.
I think your referring to "travellers", they are a different breed again...and actually just a as varied (crusties/hippies/benefit scammers/etc). Ever hear of the Peace Brigade? (or at least I think it was a brigade...)
MÅ¥HÅRM
I found this definition at UrbanDictionary.com:
Pikey From the English "turnpike", the place where itinerent travellers and thieves would camp near a settlement.
Pikey is not a racial group, the term is used to describe anyone who lives in a caravan or shares the same values and "culture" of "the travelling community", and whose main sources of income are as follows:
Stealing cars, flogging roses in pubs for "childrens' charities", nicking lead off roofs, burgling garden sheds, blagging entry to old peoples house to rob them, doing dodgy tarmac jobs ("we've got some black stuff left over from a job up the road"😉, sometimes with mint imperials used as a substitute for white chippings, or, reportedly, using snow to lay slabs on when the sand ran out, stealing your bollocks if they weren't in a bag and anything else that's not nailed down and anything that is nailed down but will fit in the back of an untaxed Transit when nobody's looking.
Characterised by lurchers on a string, a unintelligible language that "isn't English, it isn't Irish, it's just Pikey" (source: Film: Snatch), a penchant for harecoursing, ketamine, lighter fuel, fighting in pubs and shopping at Lidl.
Best avoided.
Somewhere else I found that Piki is a Romany word to denote anyone of diluted bloodstock, which I presume is where we get Pikey from. It was originally a term applied to Roma that had married out of the culture, but these days since there are almost no pure blooded Roma, its use has become irrelevant and has been taken on as an insult.
I haven't heard of the Peace Brigade, what was it?
Originally posted by StarrmanFirst, you had the hippies, traipsing the countryside in their floral VW vans playing the guitar. And they were Naive.
I haven't heard of the Peace Brigade, what was it?
Second, you had their travellers, pitching camp in converted buses, trailers, campervans and tents, scammed their benefits all the while. And they were Cynical.
Third, you had the mob get on the bandwagon with their protesting and their chanting and their meetings... And they were Militant.
I reckon you can figure out how that happened and where it led from there...
If you're interested I could hunt around for resources for you...but this isn't much to do with gypsies (though there are similarities) and unfortunately I dont have my old anthropology textbooks to hand so I would have to rely on fairly biased and innaccurate 20th century internet material. You're best off trying to find the people who still remember it, since you live there.
MÅ¥HÅRM
Originally posted by StarrmanOriginally they were the wanderers escaping from Egypt. That's how they got their name.
Well as far as I know, over here Pikey basically means 'white trash', people who call themselves gypsiesl because they live in a trailer. I don't think the term has anything to do with Roma heritage as such, more the traveller side of it.
Yeah, I've been doing some reading this morning, very interesting. Seems their language is predominately hindi and gudjerati based.
Originally posted by StarrmanMost European gypsies are of Romanian and Hungarian lineage of Indian decent going back thousands of yearswith each eastern/southern European country having their own indigenous gypsies. I saw them in Italy and former Jugoslavia. For the most part they are swindlers, thieves, deceivers, and take advantage of the elderly. We have our own gypsies in the US, specifically from South Carolina, called the travellers who decended from Ireland who take advantage of old people and take on the role of contractors who promise to fix houses, take the money, do a shoddy job or no job at all and flee. It is a very tight-knit organization that the FBI cannot penetrate. There is a lot of inbreeding going on in the travellers. Virtually no outsiders are invited to become friends...totally a disease on society....the travellers, that is...don't know much about the European gypsies, so maybe I was a bit harsh on their description...sorry, if I offended anyone of European gypsy descent...
I found out recently that my great grandparents were Romani, which makes me part gypsy. I'm still trying to get confirmation of this, but it certainly explains the dark hair and eyes, wanderlust and love of music. Anyway, I'm interested to know if anyone knows anything about the Roma and can point me in the right direction for further research etc.
