A recent genetic study has confirmed that gypsies (Romani) probably originated in India. Dean Nelson summarizes.
Scientists from Hyderabad’s Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology collaborated with colleagues in Estonia and Switzerland to compare more than 10,000 samples, including from members of 214 different Indian ethnic groups. They were analysed to match a South Asian Y chromosome type known as “haplogroup H1a1a-M82”, which passes down male bloodlines, with samples from Roma men in Europe.
While there were matches with samples from men throughout the Indian sub-continent, the closest match and the least genetic variation occurred with those from north-west India.
When the researchers overlaid the closest matches onto a genetic map of India, the highest density was in areas dominated by India’s “doma”, “scheduled tribes and castes” – the low caste dalits or untouchables who suffer widespread and generational discrimination and usually do society’s dirtiest jobs.
The researchers believe the descendants of today’s Roma gypsies in Europe began their westward exodus first to fight in wars in what is today Punjab between 1001 and 1026 on the promise of a promotion in caste status.
— Nelson, 2012: European Roma descended from Indian ‘untouchables’, genetic study shows in The Telegraph.
This type of genetic study looks at sections of the DNA sequence, specifically a certain group of genes that is slightly different in people from India compared to everyone else.
A gene is a section of DNA that does a certain job, such as producing a specific protein that results in a certain physical characteristic like eye color. Everyone has the gene for eye color, but some people have a version that gives blue eyes, while others might have a green eye version. The different versions of genes are called alleles, so you can say that some people have the allele for blue eyes while others have the green eye allele. Groups of alleles are passed on from parent to child, which is why children look like their parents, and why different ethnic groups from around the world look different from each other.
So if we take a group genes (call it a haplogroup) and compare the versions characteristic of Indians to those of Gypsies, we can see how similar the two groups are. This study (Gresham et al., 2001) found that Romani and Asians share 45% of the alleles within this haplogroup, which is pretty high. They also looked at another haplogroup in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that is only passed on from mothers to their children (it’s matrilineal) and found a 26% match.
Making the assumption that mutations in genes occur at a constant rate, the new study estimates that the Roma emigrated out of India somewhere around 1000 years ago.
The relatively recent ages determined for haplogroup VI-68 and M in this study suggest that the ethnogenesis of the Roma can be understood as a profound bottleneck event. Although identification of the parental population of the proto-Roma has to await better understanding of genetic diversity in the Indian subcontinent, our results suggest a limited number of related founders, compatible with a small group of migrants splitting from a distinct caste or tribal group.
–Gresham et al., 2001: Origins and Divergence of the Roma (Gypsies) in The American Journal of Human Genetics.
This is however, not the only evidence of an Indian origin. There are also significant similarities between the Romani and Indian languages that were noted long before. In fact, there is a fascinating, and my modern sensibilities, quite politically incorrect article on the topic of the origin of the Gypsies in the February, 1880 issue of Popular Science Monthly.