#rromni

[femb0y-joker]

Shut the f up. Shut the f up. Shut the f up. Shut the f up!

me @ Whoopi Goldberg

[hungee-boy]

blocked someone last night for calling me a fed just cus I was too tired to deal with it

and now I'm kinda glad I did cus if I woke up and said what future I want America to have I'd be put on a watchlist

[mytsunami]

Just because I experienced the best natural hair day of my fucking life. I was 100% obsessed.

[screamscenepodcast]

A Point of Clarification (More Linguistics, CW: Slurs)

Another Dracula Daily related post. In the novel Dracula, the count has minions who are a racist caricature of people of the Rromani ethnicity. Stoker uses a variety of terms in the text, and as a person of Romanian ethnicity, I would like to clear up some possible places of confusion. The most commonly known word in the English speaking world that Stoker uses for Rromani people is Gypsy. This is an English word ultimately descended from the word Egyptian, based on a misunderstanding by medieval European Christians that the itinerant Rroma were nomadic Egyptians, based on an interpretation of the Bible that the ancient Egyptians were scattered by God. This is incorrect, and most historical, linguistic, cultural, and genetic evidence suggests that the Rroma originated in northern India, which might have been obvious if medieval Europeans talked to any of them, or knew anything about India. Most Rroma today consider Gypsy to be a slur, although some do not - this is (ironically) similar to the attitude about the word Indian by indigenous peoples of the Americas. Among social justice activists, both words are regarded as slurs and faux pas, and at the bare minimum both are inaccurate. So, if you are still using that word in 2022, and you are not a Rromani person, knock it off. Stoker, however, also uses the word Romany in his text, which is just his spelling for Rromani, because by the 19th century it was known in English that “Romany” was the endonym (the word a people use for themselves) as opposed to the exonym (the word a people use for others). If you’re a descendant of settlers and live in North America and you find yourself often confused by the “changing” names of Indigenous groups, its usually because -- as is the case here -- the exonym for that group was a slur, and got adopted into English simply because settlers encountered that group’s enemies before encountering the group itself. The word “Rrom” means “man” in the Rromani language. “Rromni” means woman, “Rroma” is plural. “Rromani” is a female adjective, “Rromano” is a male adjective. Now, where we can really get into some misunderstandings in the context of Dracula is with the term Romanian, which Stoker often spells Roumanian. Rromani =/= Romanian. Romanians are people from the country Romania, of which Transylvania is a part, as well as Wallachia and part of Moldavia and Bukovina. Stoker’s Castle Dracula is located in Romania. Galatz is in Romania, and is called Galați in Romanian. The words Romania, Romanian, etc. have nothing to do with the words Rroma, Rromani, etc. The name of the country of Romania comes from a belief on the part of the Romanian people that they are historically descended from a province of the Roman Empire once called Dacia. The greatest piece of this evidence is that Romanian is a Romance language, which is to say a language descended from the language of the Romans, Latin. Despite being surrounded by nations speaking Slavic tongues, Romanian is closer to Italian than it is to Ukrainian, despite cross-pollination over the years. The reason I use a double-r (representing a trilled r) in my spelling of Rroma for the nomadic ethnic group is for disambiguation purposes, because in the Romanian language the word for Romanian people is Români. The double-r spelling is also used within Romania for this reason. Historically Romania has always had a relatively high population of Rroma, and historically speaking they have I think it is fair to say almost never been treated well. Today Rroma are the second largest ethnic minority in Romania behind Hungarians, but despite the similar names the Români have never treated Rromani people very well. From the time of their arrival in the region in the 1370s until the emancipations of the 1840s and 50s, Rromani people were enslaved within the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and made serfs in Transylvania. In the 1940s there were genocidal programs carried out against them, and under the Communist regime there were attempts made to force Rroma to live in government built housing and abandon their traditional culture. Since the fall of the Communist government Rroma are extremely discriminated against in Romania, and it is mainstream there to be racist against them. Which brings us to Szgany, which can be a confusing word in Dracula until you know that the Romanian language didn’t have standardized orthography until 1881. Basically the only place you’ll see the word Szgany today is in Dracula or in modern gothic horror fiction copying Dracula without thinking and treating “Szgany” as just the word for Dracula’s servants or something. In the novel, Stoker uses it as if it referred to a specific group of Rromani people, ones native to the area around Castle Dracula, in the Călimani Mountains. However, Szgany is really just a phonetic transliteration of the Romanian word Țigani, which is just the Romanian word for “Gypsy”. The letter Ț in Romanian indicates a kind of “tz” sound, like in the word “pizza”. It is also found in Vlad Drăculea’s epithet -- Țepeș means “the Impaler”, and is pronounced like “Tze-pesh”. So Țigani sounds like Szgany, and is also similar to the word for “Gypsies” in many other languages: Zingari in Italian, Çingene in Turkish, Cigány in Hungarian, Tsingánoi in Greek, etc. These are all still slurs, and descend from the word Atsínganos from the Greek speaking Eastern Roman Empire, which means “untouchable.” Țigani is still a commonly used word in Romania, partially due to the racism and partially due to the desire on the part of Români to avoid association with Rromani. There is a feeling in Romanian that the word Rromani gives Romanians abroad a “bad name” due to racism against Rromani people in many parts of the world. This is all, of course, absolutely terrible. So, to summarize: Gypsy = at best inaccurate, at worst a slur Romany = 19th century English for Rromani, often spelt today as Romani, a common acceptable name for a diverse group of nomadic peoples ultimately descended from northern India Roumanian = Romanian, a person from Romania Szgany = Stoker’s attempt at spelling Țigani, a Romanian language slur for Rromani people.      

[linguisticcolonialism]

a list of words that mean “white person” or “white people” in as many languages as possible

please feel free to reblog with any other words you might know, or correct any mistakes Dakota : wasi'chu Lakota : wasi'chu Nasa Yuwe (paez) : mushka Namtrik (misak, guambiano) : pølelø Kabyle, Chaoui (Amazigh languages) : rumi, rumiya, irumiyen Egyptian Arabic : khawag, khawagi, khawaga Algerian Arabic : gawri, gawriya, gwer Moroccan Arabic : nasrani Hassaniya : nasrani Mooré : nasara Pulaar (peul) : toubakou Wolof : toubab Malinke : toubab Medumba : mekat, bah mekat Yoruba : oyibo Akan (Ashanti Twi, Akuapem Twi et Fante) : oburoni, obroni Anyi (Brosa, Aowin) : brofo, brofwe Ga : blofo, blofonyo Ewe : yovo Fon (Fon-gbe) : yovo Mina (Gen, Gen-gbe) : yovo Lingala : mondele, mundele, mindele Tswana : lekgoa Somali : cadaan Amharic : frenji Tigrinya : tseadu, tseada Swahili : mzungu, wazungu Shikomori : mzungu, wazungu Luganda : muzungu, bazungu Chichewa : muzungu, azungu Chinyanja : muzungu, bazungu Kinyarwanda : umuzungu, abazungu Kirundi : umuzungu, abazungu Bemba : musungu, basungu Kisii : omusongo, abasongo Sena : muzungu, azungu Shona : murungu, varungu Xhosa : umlungu Sisiwati : umlungu Ndebele : umlungu Zulu : umlungu, abelungu Malagasy : vazaha Mauritian Creole : zorey, zoreille Reunionese Creole : zorey, zoreille Martiniquan Creole : béké, bétché, bétcha, zorey Guadeloupean Creole : béké Noongar : wadjela Cook Islands Maori : papa'a Maori : pakeha Niuean : palagi Samoan : palagi, papaalagi Tongan : palangi, papaalangi Fijian : vavalangi Hawaiian : haole Urdu : gora, gori Hindi : gora, gori Tamul : வெள்ளைக்காரர் vellaikaarar, வெள்ளைக்காரி vellaikaari, வெள்ளைக்காரன் vellaikaaran, வெள்ளைக்காரர்கள் vellaikaarargal Thaï : farang Khmer : barang Indonesian : bule, totok Vietnamese : mỹ trắng Cantonese : 鬼佬 gweilo, gwailou, 死鬼佬 sei gwailou, 鬼仔 gwaijai, 鬼妹 gwaimui, 鬼婆 gwaipo, 白鬼 baakgwai, 西人 sai yan, 洋人 yeung yan Mandarin : 白人 bairen, 白种人 baizhongren, 老外 laowai, 洋鬼子 Yang guizi Japonese : 白人 haku jin Dari : safed, safeda Turkish : beyaz Greek : aspro Rromni : gadjo, gadji, gadjé Romanian : alb Polish : biały Slovak : bielý German : weiß Dutch : wit, witte mensen Flemish : blank Italian : bianco, bianca, bianchi  Portuguese : branco, branca, os brancos Spanish : blanco, blanca, los blancos, blanco-mestizo, gringo, güero, mono, gabacho, bolillo, guait, guaitero, guaitera French : blanc, blanche, les blancs, babtou, les babtous English : white, whitey, white people, wypeepoo, cracker, mayo

[all4roma]

Rroma camping outside Perth, Perthside, Scotland. 1920

[chorrorri]

Baxtalo Internationalno Women's Day!

These women have all inspired me:

Baba Edita, my grandmother (with my son, Phoenix Song)

Haena (Trykhaena/Luli), my daj

Ceija Stojka, author, artist, Holocaust survivor

Tera Fabianova, author, poet, activist

Bibi Lemija, my aunt and the strongest woman I ever, EVER, knew.

[stfugadje-blog]

Dear gadje, or, White Mummy Blues

Gadje, I want us to talk.

I do a lot of contract work in my field. Until a few months ago I worked with a bunch of you. It seemed like it was all going well with you - with my gadje co-workers. I liked everyone I was working with, I liked the environment I was working in, I was doing good work. You asked me about my racial and cultural background and, feeling good about things, I told you: I'm Rroma, I'm diddikai...

Months later when my contract ended, you withheld my final pay, while you accused me of stealing from you. Thieving gypsy. You, so pro-Palestinian, so sure you couldn't be racist because you had Black friends, you said I was a thief.

I still do not know if you fully understand the implications of what you accused me of, knowing that I am Rroma.

I get asked - by you, gadje - what race I am a lot. You would come up to me in laundromats and in libraries, in bars and bookstores --

Gadje: So, where are you from?

Me: Well, I was born here [in North America]...

Gadje: Oh, but where are you REALLY from? Be honest now! Where is your family from?

Me: I'm not sure what you mean... [I always knew exactly what you meant, gadje, but we mixed race people, we gypsies, we know how to lie and we know why it's necessary. I hope you will forgive me my dishonesty.]

Gadje: You're so... exotic looking. Are you from Brazil? Are you middle Eastern? Are you Jewish?

Gadje, I was raised not to trust you. My grandparents suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder at your hands. My eldest aunt was born on a freight train, fleeing your violence, your hatred. This is what my family - half of my family - taught me: to appease you. To get along with you. But never to trust you.

I think about this particularly when it's hot. It's June right now. It's been sunny for weeks, where I am. I walk around outside and my skin, normally pale, absorbs the sun, darkens fast, and suddenly I am bombarded with your curiosity, your entitlement. Who am I? You never care when you think I'm one of you. Winter-white, I contemplate tanning salons. I wear eyeshadow that brings out the brown undertones of my complexion, I read poems by Leah Samarasina and quote her in my mind when you make offhand racist remarks to me, assuming I am one of you:

Brown is the color

Of an unlived land

Whose dust I scatter

Wherever I go

You have no idea.

Gadje.

I made this blog for you.

I know many of you are upset with me, because I tell you to shut the fuck up.

You fight with me, like my own mother. She says: I love your curly black hair. You're so lucky, it's so thick. Your olive skin, it's so pretty, you have that exotic look. I know you were bullied as a child, but I always knew that when you were an adult, you'd be appreciated for the exotic beauty you are. She says, it makes sense you've married a [Native] man. After all, I fell for your father! I always loved colored men the most. I wonder what color my grandchildren will be!!

My father purses his lips and does not say much. He smokes his cigarettes and reads his books. He's glad I found a husband. He wishes I'd married a Rroma man, but he will make do. He always has. He says, why make such a problem of things? Tell people you are white! They'll never know, so what's the harm? You can just say you are Italian, or maybe Jewish, or Greek, or Spanish. There are so many things I could be for you, gadje.

My husband says, I think of myself as something new. He is Native and white. Our skin tones match almost exactly. He says there's no word for what he is, but there are words for what I am, in many dialects. Diddikai. Pharnavi. Light skinned. Mixed race.

He says our children will be unique. They will be 1/4th Rroma, 1/4th Indigenous Turtle Islander. 1/2 white, settler. They may be dark skinned, like some of their relatives, but more likely they will be light skinned. I am afraid they will not be able to relate to me, my light skinned children, my something new.

(Or perhaps just my white children.)

Gadje, you may be my grandchildren someday.

I want you to know that I do not hate you.

Gadje.

You outsiders, who deem me other, often while implicitly including me in my own othering.

What am I to do with you, gadje? When you say you want to be a "gypsy". When I tell you who - what - I am, and you laugh, and spend the next hour telling me about how you hopped trains as a teenager, thinking that I'll be able to relate to that because I must have grown up like that, right?

I am often angry with you, gadje.

I do not know how to make you understand this anger! I do not think you can ever really understand. And I'm sad for that, I really am, because I WANT you to understand, gadje! I really do. I wish I could make you understand.

But I know you cannot.

And so I write these things. I shout into this void, a void I straddle when I think about my own parents.

I write things like this. I spend weeks on these writings and post them in fits of boldness.

Dear gadje, I wish you could just make it easier to love you.

Dear gadje, I wish I could hate you without feeling as though I am hating a part of myself, and most of my friends and many of my loved ones.

Dear gadje

Dear gadje

Dear gadje

what am I to do with you?

sincerely,

STFU Gadje, a woman who is half you, half Gypsy, and so often torn between the two.