The Gypsies Within the Perspective of Indo-European Migrations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Our predecessors Pott, Miklosich, Woolner, Grierson, Jules Bloch, Barannikov, Ralph Turner and others, have established from diachronic facts (comparison of the Romany with the old Indian) the Indian origin of the Tsiganes, or Gypsies. Their divergencies originate from the exact place of the primitive homeland of the Gypsies, the majority inclining to the north-west of India.
1 It would be interesting to draw attention to the celebrated thesis of S. Fist (1913-14) in which he advances a hypothesis that is totally opposed to his German compatriots, according to which the Germans, given the impoverishment of their verbal system and several phonological traits (consonant mutations), would have a non Indo-European origin and would have been gradually Indo-Euro peanised.
2 Op. cit., p. 159.
3 Cf. Istorija SSSR, tom I, "P'evobyt noobscinniy stroy," Institut Archeologii, "Nauka," Moskva 1966, p. 87-96.
4 Ibid, pp. 128-134.
5 That is to say, the people who gave rise to the Indians: the Rajputs, or "black" Gypsies.
6 Cf. Histoire Universelle, N.R.F., Paris, 1956, p. 354 f.
7 Op. cit., p. 374.
8 Ibid.
9 Op. cit., p. 374.
10 Op. cit., p. 227-228.
11 "The Yue-chi problem reexamined," JAOS. 65, 1945, pp. 71-81.
12 According to the Van Vindekens Lexicon, the word Arçi means "white" in Tokharian.
13 Op. cit., p. 233 f.
14 Cf. the U-sum of Van Vindekens, op cit.
15 Grousset, "Extrême-Orient," in the Histoire Universelle, La Pléiade, p. 1537.
16 The problem we are faced with is to find out why the documents in the two languages are so late. Considering the very liberal religious policy practiced by Kanishka (in the second century A.D.) we find ourselves asking the Buddhists did not leave any other traces earlier. Of course it is possible to believe that they were destroyed.
17 Hu: "barbarian" in Chinese.
18 F.W. Thomas, "Tibetan Documents concerning Chinese Turkestan," in J.R.A.S.
19 Istorija SSSR, p. 291.
20 Tstorija SSSR, p. 214-225; and Sokrovitsa skifskich tsarei, Moskva 1967, 128 p.
21 Istorija SSSR, p. 226-229.
22 Op. cit., p. 275-278.
23 Cf. for instance J. Naudou, Histoire Universelle, p. 1496.
24 Jean Deshayes, Les outils de bronze de l'Indus au Danube du IVe au IIe millénaire, Paris 1960, p. 405 ff.