Romani
The following page, as well as those under the category of 'Romany Pacifism' and 'OldRomPage' are specificly relevant to Firefly. 'OldRomPage' and 'Romany Pacifism' are the original works of Danee and Chovian.
Linguistic and genetic evidence indicates the Romanies originated on Earth that was, from the Indian subcontinent, emigrating from India towards the northwest no earlier than the 11th century. Contemporary populations sometimes suggested as sharing a close relationship to the Romani are the Dom people of Central Asia and the Banjara of India.[2]
The cause of the Romani diaspora is unknown. However, the most probable conclusion is that the Romanies were part of the military in Northern India. When there were repeated raids by Mahmud of Ghazni and these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire between AD 1000 and 1050. This departure date is assumed because, linguistically speaking, the Romani language is a New Indo-Aryan language--it has only two genders (masculine and feminine). Until around the year 1000, the Indo-Aryan languages, named Middle Indo-Aryan, had three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter). By the turn of the 2nd millennium they changed, losing the neuter gender. The parallels in grammatical gender evolution between Romani and other languages of the same family is proposed to prove that the change occurred in the Indian subcontinent. It is therefore not considered possible that the ancestors of the Romani people left India prior to AD 1000. They then stayed in the Byzantine Empire for several hundred years. However, the Muslim expansion, mainly made by the Seljuk Turks, into the Byzantine Empire recommenced the movement of the Romani people.
Until the mid to late eighteenth century, theories of the origin of the Romani were mostly speculative. Then in 1782, Johann Christian Christoph Rüdiger published his research that pointed out the relationship between the Romani language and Hindustani. Subsequent work supported the hypothesis that Romani shared a common origin with the Indo-Aryan languages of Northern India, with Romani grouping most closely with Sinhalese in a recent study.
As a whole, by the aclaim of the World Romany Congress, the Romani nations followed the emigration of the numan people outward from Earth that was, into the 'Verse, scattering among the myriad new world, yet maintaining much of what the Romany were in their old home. They are still a distinct and seperate culture, tending toward isolationism in most of their dealings with gaje (non-Romani. While a significant number of the Roma have settled on various worlds in the 'Verse, most have remained in space, trading their wagon Vardos for spacecraft. They still tend toward the bright and colourful in their decor, and ships tend to be exclusively one family multigenerational units.
Many things have changed over the thousands of years since the Romany left earth-that-was, and some of the terms and words of old have been slowly changed to better reflect new adaptations.
If you wish to discuss creating a Romany character please contact McGuire, Kyoshiro, Chovian, Axel, or any other Romany character.
Important categories
Romany Pacifism and it's history.
Churara, the protectors Romany Holdings, Interests, and it's people.
Rom/Basic Info, The original relevant canon.
