If you live in the States one of the things you hear a lot about Europe in regards to its relationship to its ethno-religious minorities are the problems with Muslims. This is probably an Americo-centric perspective shaped by 9/11, when many of the hijackers had turned out to have spent time in Germany. Additionally, terrorist actions in both London and Madrid highlight the persistence of these problems over the years. These sorts of shocking events put a sharp focus on the geopolitical cross-hairs which Europe finds itself in in the second age of mass migration. Though this time it is a destination, and not a source.
But having been to Europe recently it was notable that in several regions the day-to-day tension when it came to ethnicity often focused on Gypsies (I use the older term because the ethnonym “Roma” which has become politically correct in the USA includes only a subset of Europe’s Gypsy population, even if the greater number). Many regions of Europe now have two distinct populations of Gypsies, a long resident local group, as well as Roma from the eastern nations of the EU. Though the relationships between these traditionally nomadic peoples and indigenous populations has never been without tension, it is clear that something close to a modus vivendi has been achieved in many European nations between the majority and their small native Gypsy populations. The influx of the Balkan Roma add a new variable.
But the political fuss for me simply rekindled a curiosity as to the genetic origins of the Gypsies. Culturally their South Asian provenance couldn’t be clearer; they speak an Indo-Aryan language. Their term for themselves in many parts of Europe comes from the Indo-Aryan word for “black,” as they are are darker than the natives of the lands in which they have settled , and in fact often look visibly South Asian. This seemed especially true of Balkan Roma. On the other hand the Kale of Finland looked to be brunette Europeans.
The problem with the genetics of the Gypsy people of Europe is that until recently they’ve focused on uniparental lineages. Though this has confirmed their South Asian origins, looking at maternal or paternal direct descent alone leaves something to be desired in terms of assessing ancestry, and, these two markers (mtDNA and Y) are subject to more drift as they are haploid (half as many copies). But a new paper in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology has some results using 16 autosomal STRs (a group of highly variant markers). A Genetic Historical Sketch of European Gypsies: The Perspective From Autosomal Markers:
In this study, 123 unrelated Portuguese Gypsies were analyzed for 15 highly polymorphic autosomal short tandem repeats (STRs). Average gene diversity across the 15 markers was 76.7%, which is lower than that observed in the non-Gypsy Portuguese population. Subsets of STRs were used to perform comparisons with other Gypsy and corresponding host populations. Interestingly, diversity reduction in Gypsy groups compared to their non-Gypsy surrounding populations apparently varied according to an East-West gradient, which parallels their dispersion in Europe as well as a decrease in complexity of their internal structure. Analysis of genetic distances revealed that the average level of genetic differentiation between Gypsy groups was much larger than that observed between the corresponding non-Gypsy populations. The high rate of heterogeneity among Gypsies can be explained by strong genetic drift and limited intergroup gene flow. However, when genetic relationships were addressed through principal component analysis, all Gypsy populations clustered together and was clearly distinguished from other populations, a pattern that suggests their common origin. Concerning the putative ancestral genetic component, admixture analysis did not reveal strong Indian ancestry in the current Gypsy gene pools, in contrast to the high admixture estimates for either Europeans or Western Asians.
This isn’t a 500,000 SNP-chip analysis, so everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But, 16 markers is a lot more than the two you usually have to deal with when assessing the genetics of the Gypsy populations of Europe, so it’s certainly an improvement when making inferences. One figure and table are really worth looking at in this paper.
The first plot shows the variance partitioned into two dimensions as a function of the 13 STRs. The table shows bootstrapped admixture estimates and standard deviations. They had a 3-population model with West Asians, but it didn’t look to me like they were getting sensible results with that, so I excised that portion (with only 600 pixels the table would have been very hard to read with the nonsensical estimates in). I think the last model where they aggregate West Asians with Europeans makes the most sense. I assume the major issue here is that with 16 STRs which aren’t necessarily filtered for ancestral informativeness within these populations you’re going to get weird results on the margins.
These results confirm the finding from previous Y and mtDNA results that Europe’s Gypsy populations are genetically fragmented, and seem to have gone through bottlenecks. In this paper they also seem to have found a pattern of decreased genetic variance from east to west for the Gypsy groups, which makes sense in light of a historical model of serial bottlenecks as they traversed Europe. Any reasonable model of the genetic heritage of the Gyspy people of the world posits that they’re a compound to various extents of populations distributed along a continuum between South Asia and Western Europe, and yet here you see a 2-dimensional plot that they don’t look like a linear combination of South Asians and Europeans. Why? Because of their unique genetic history has resulted in their “random walk” into patterns of allelic variance distinct from the ancestral groups.
But a second genetic dynamic with these populations seems to be admixture. With 16 STRs, and obvious sensitivity depending on the populations you survey, one should be careful about overweighting the findings from this paper. And yet plausibly it does show a pattern of decreased South Asian admixture the further you go from the Balkans. Not only does this stand to reason a priori, but empirically it’s generally agreed that the Gypsy groups of the north and west of Europe look less South Asian in appearance than those of the Balkans.
A final consideration here is that the Indian populations which they used as a reference for South Asians are not representative of the ancestral Indian groups from which Gypsies derived. The Indo-Aryan language of the Gypsies seems to share the most features with the language of northwest India, Punjabi and Hindi. But the samples which had the appropriate STRs for comparison were Central and South Indian. Overall I don’t think that’s that much of a consideration, but something to remember.
A bigger take home point is the disjunction between cultural and biological modes of inheritance and persistence. The language of the Gypsies retains in its broad outlines the character of an Indo-Aryan tongue. That is why the South Asian origins of Gypsies was able to be ascertained by Indian sailors in Britain who overheard, and broadly understood, what Gypsies were saying. Romanipen, the spirit of Gypsy culture which transcends difference of religion and nationality, seems to be clearly traceable to some South Asian antecedents (e.g., the emphasis on avoidance of contamination of food by outsiders).
And yet despite the cultural distinctiveness the various Gypsy populations have become genetically less South Asian. That makes sense, it seems likely that they left India ~1000 years ago, or 40 generations. They’ve been in the Balkans for about 600 years, or 24 generations. Let’s assume unrealistically that the Roma were 100% South Asian when they arrive in the Byzantine lands (there are related groups in the Middle East, so it seems certain they picked up Middle Eastern ancestry along the way, but no matter). 99% endogamy per generation would imply that they’d be 79% South Asian today. 95% endogamy would result in them being 29% South Asian. 90% endogamy would mean that they’d be 8% South Asian. Reality is more complex. It is likely that in the early periods when social norms had not hardened and Roma were less numerous the endogamy rates were probably far lower, especially as the Gypsy bands mixed with other destitute groups in the Balkans. The evidence of lots of structure across the Gypsy groups points to endogamy drilling down to a lower level of organization than just the ethnic group, which would be consistent with tendencies within South Asian culture more broadly.
More generally it seems that the Roma and their relatives can’t just be understood as a simple linear combination of Europeans, Middle Easterners, and South Asians, genetically or culturally. Their unique history has reshaped them, and their persistence and demographic expansion in the face of ostracism and persecution are clear evidence as to the functional success of their social-cultural traditions.
Citation: Gusmão A, Valente C, Gomes V, Alves C, Amorim A, Prata MJ, & Gusmão L (2010). A genetic historical sketch of European Gypsies: The perspective from autosomal markers. American journal of physical anthropology, 141 (4), 507-14 PMID: 19918999
Razib Khan’s degrees are in biochemistry and biology. He has blogged about genetics since 2002, previously worked in software development, is an Unz Foundation Junior Fellow and lives in the western US. He loves habaneros.
September 19th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
From Laban Tall’s blog:-
Where else but a Guardian editorial could you find such a wonderful euphemism?
“Rolling caravans do not lend themselves to rooted integration, and especially when they are decoupled from standard western ideas about property rights.”
September 19th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
One minor point, the map seems to indicate that some Gypsy groups reside in Ireland historically – they don’t. Though I’ve heard that some Romanian gypsies have migrated there in the last 10 years.
September 20th, 2010 at 1:59 am
Many of the French Gypsies (Gitans, Manouches, etc.) are nearly undistinguishable from other French people. By contrast, the Romanian Roms are easy to spot.
One exception: many Gitans of Southern France, who tend to be of Spanish “Gitano” origin, are pretty brownish (e.g. the Gypsy Kings: one of the original founders is actually of Northern African descent, but you couldn’t tell him from the others on the picture).
September 20th, 2010 at 5:39 am
Irish Travelers/Tinkers — are they genetically related to Gypsies or did they culturally converge on a similar way of life?
September 20th, 2010 at 5:40 am
I thought there were no gypsies in Australia, but of course I was wrong. Some of the Romanichals from the UK have migrated. Well, of course they have, it would be strange if they hadn’t.
Invisible though – not an issue at all.
When I was a kid, the word gypsy was used admiringly, as a romantic symbol of freedom, independence, wildness and non-conformity – free spirits. No doubt a gross distortion of the reality. And when I was older and in the spell of Flamenco, Gitano music was a thing to be admired and emulated.
My Mother said, I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood;
If I did, she would say,
You naughty girl to disobey.
Your hair shan’t curl and your shoes shan’t shine,
You gypsy girl, you shan’t be mine.
And my Father said that if I did
He’d rap my head with the teapot-lid.
The wood was dark, the grass was green
Along came Sally with a tambourine.
I went to sea – no ship to get across,
I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse.
I up on his back
And was off on a crack,
Sally tell my Mother that I shan’t come back.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:46 am
“99% endogamy per generation would imply that they’d be 79% South Asian today. 95% endogamy would result in them being 29% South Asian. 90% endogamy would mean that they’d be 8% South Asian. Reality is more complex. It is likely that in the early periods when social norms had not hardened and Roma were less numerous the endogamy rates were probably far lower, especially as the Gypsy bands mixed with other destitute groups in the Balkans. The evidence of lots of structure across the Gypsy groups points to endogamy drilling down to a lower level of organization than just the ethnic group, which would be consistent with tendencies within South Asian culture more broadly.”
The endogamy rates are fascinating. I was reading that Parsis have a very high amount of Gujarati ancestry on the maternal side.
Lots of these minorities have admixed; this reminds me of your Roman Empire and Jewry post. Mixture may have been much less in the time of entrenched Abrahamism but in my opinion it wasn’t really until the 19th-20th century where such identities crystallised and intermixture was forbidden.
September 20th, 2010 at 5:47 am
Steve Sailer
I think the Irish travellers are irish peolpe that centuries ago took up that “way of life”. The term tinker comes from the metal tin as they used to do bits and pieces of metal work as a trade.
I read ages ago that the word gypsy derives from Egypt; any truth to this?
September 20th, 2010 at 6:00 am
Post script: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCE-QdWd1qQ
Still portrayed in popular culture as some kind of wild and naughty romantic ideal.
And no, that was not an excuse to post a Shakira video for Agnostic’s benefit, or to squeeze Rafael Nadal into the conversation.
Oh OK then, I’m lying, it was.
September 20th, 2010 at 6:10 am
Off note but about the derivation of the word Gypsy from Egypt.
I was looking it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry_(etymology)
The basic roots of the word “chemistry”, essentially, derive from the ancient study of how to transmute “earthen” metals into “gold” in combination with thoughts on alchemical spells as well endeavors into a quest for the Philosopher’s stone. The majority of authors agreed that the word “chemistry” has an Egyptian origin, based on the ancient Egyptian word kēme (chem), which stands for black. [4][5] In short, most agree that alchemy was born in ancient Egypt, where the word “Khem” was used in reference to the fertility of the flood plains around the Nile.[6]
Some, however, maintain that the word “chemistry” has a Greek origin, based on the Greek word χημεία (chemeia) meaning “cast together”.[7] Others reason that the word alchemy is derived from the Greek for “The Egyptian Art”.[8]
September 20th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Steve Sailer said:
Irish Travelers/Tinkers — are they genetically related to Gypsies or did they culturally converge on a similar way of life?
Steve,
The common perception of Irish Travelers (official term), Tinkers (People who mend pots and pans – considered derogatory), Knackers (People who remove dead animals – considered derogatory), Pavee (Preferred term by the people themselves), is that they are descendant of native Irish people who had their lands confiscated by Oliver Cromwell and roamed the countryside ever-after as homeless people engaged in odd jobs. Other say that they were displaced by the Plantation of Ulster. In the countryside they sometimes are engaged in farm labor, but more usually in horse trading. They are known as thieves, and will raid a farm yard at dawn and be gone before the farmer can stop them.
I read a paper about 7 years ago that analysed their DNA and found that they were most similar, on a county by county basis, to people from Co Cavan, which straddles the border with Northern Ireland. They are definitely genetically native Irish people, though IIRC they had more haplogroup I than most groups. I remember them as having more blonde hair then average, and predominantly blue eyes.
By way of illustration, there are Travellers near where I grew up called Cash, and one of them was sentenced to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) for stealing a horse, his grandson is Pat Cash the tennis player.
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:27 am
[...] The Bothnia region of Finland has been more impacted by Swedish settlement historically, while much of northern Sweden has also been settled by Finns, or may have assimilated a substantial number of Sami. What I always notice is how Finns tend to be all over the map, and also be at some genetic remove from other Northern Europeans, who are a homogeneous lot. To left is an MDS that I took out of the supplements of a PLoS One paper from last year. Kuusamo is in the northeast of Finland, on the Russian border. Apparently it was settled by ethnic Finns only in the 18th century. This sort of weird pattern shows up in a lot of these papers. From what I recall the common explanation is that Finns have been through some bottlenecks which have made them a strange folk genetically. The Kuusamo cluster could for example just be due to a founder effect from its recent settlement. I don’t know if I buy this. Perhaps if I see something similar for scions of the Puritan Great Migration. An even older model, derived from historical linguistics in the early 20th century, is that modern Finns, and to a greater extent Sami, are stabilized admixtures of East Eurasian migrants and native Europeans. I’m not sure if I find this plausible at this point, at least in its starkest form. A third model, which barely lean toward (in that my confidence is low and my uncertainty high), but think is possible, is that the “Finnish signal” (look at the line from the Swedes to Kuusamo) is due to the successive dilution of the unique genetic profile of an ancient indigenous Baltic population which has slowly been overwhelmed by people who brought agriculture from the South. In many ways a similar model to the one I reviewed in relation to Gypsies. [...]
September 26th, 2010 at 4:28 am
[...] Khan – “Gypsies on a Genetic Island“, “Swedes are Not Sexist or [...]
September 26th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Irish travellers in Ireland have little or no genetic connection to the Roma people. They are supposed to be descended from a combination of (a) former travelling tinsmiths and (b) people who became dispossessed either in the aftermath of Cromwell’s invasion or the 19th century Famine. There are about five or six surnames that are identifiable as traveller surnames, all of which are of Irish origin (although other people not members of the travelling community also share those surnames). They would appear to be of the same basic genetic stock as the rest of the Irish but due to intermarriage for generations and certain features as well as surnames make them identifiable in a lot of cases (although again, other Irish people not members of the travelling community also share those surnames)
There is as far as I’m aware only one genetic study on the Irish traveller community details of which are extracted here and which indicates a genetic connection to certain counties in Ireland. This connection would in my view correspond with both the family names & the phenotypes.
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7929
September 27th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
There was a bushranger in Tasmania called Martin Cash, quite famous:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Cash
My mother bought some investment properties in Launceston, Tasmania, one of which was known, she said, as Cash Martin. There was a story that it was bought with money(“cash”) from turning in Martin Cash, but I rather doubt this tale.
The anthropologist John Relethford discusses the Irish Travellers in his “Reflections of Our Past”. He notes that they are genetically Irish, not Gypsies.
September 28th, 2010 at 1:05 am
[...] variance, as well as their potential host (European) and source (Indian) populations. Since I recently posted on the topic, and Dienekes didn’t post some of the figures, I thought I’d do so. In particular [...]
September 29th, 2010 at 1:07 am
[...] have migrated there in the last 10 years. 3. toto Says: September 20th, 2010 at 1:59 am …Read More.. WHAT TO DO NOW? Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback [...]
September 29th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
[...] combination of Europeans, Middle Easterners, and South Asians, genetically or culturally. …Read More.. WHAT TO DO NOW? Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback [...]