Theories on the origins of the Romani population

Although linguistic evidence has proved crucial in establishing India as the place of origin and in tracing early migration routes both within and outside India, it has generally not helped explain the reasons for the Romani migration or the social and ethnic background of the Rom's ancestral population. There is no known record of a migration from India to Europe in medieval times that can be connected indisputably with the ancestors of today's Romani-speaking population. Attempts to reconstruct the motivation for the westward migration have relied on piecing together loose descriptions of events that may have encouraged speakers of an Indo-Aryan language to migrate away from India and ultimately into Europe while retaining their ethnic and linguistic characteristics. That the discussion always had an emotional component can be seen already in the views taken by the two contemporaries Rüdiger (1782) and Grellmann (1783). Rüdiger, who sympathised with the Gypsies and regarded them as victims of society's oppression and prejudice (cf. Matras 1999a), suggested that their ancestors may have felt intimidated by invading armies and were forced to move away from their ancient homeland in times of social and political unrest. Grellmann, on the other hand, an advocate of enforced acculturation policies in Europe, who attributed the Gypsies' misery to their own refusal to integrate, argued for an origin in a population of Indian social outcasts, or Śudras. In some variation or other, both ideas continue to appear in present-day discussions.