Quote:
Originally posted by The Hierophant:
Just out of curiosity, how do people here define and identify 'gypsies'?
Here in Southern New Zealand there are a few tiny gypsy nomadic communities. They travel from town to town, stay for a week or so, sell a few odds and ends, peddle a few fortune readings etc etc.
It's easy for people to look at their camp and say 'Ah, there go the gypsies', but at the same time they are indentified by their lifestyle, not their ethnicity, because for the most part their 'race' is not uniform. For instance, it would be absurd to think of a gypsy here as having a house, being settled, sending their children to school etc. By NZ law, schooling is mandatory, but most gypsies get around this by state-sanctioned home-schooling.
The gypsy identity doesn't really have much to do with race, more with lifestyle. At least that's how it is here, I'm just curious as to how gypsies are identified in other parts of the world.
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Yeah you are right, normally gypsies are people who don't live permanently anywhere and travel around. The term is used differently in different countries.
In England, you think of "pikies" who live in caravan parks and own loads of dogs and can move their caravans when they want. Anyone seen "Snatch"? That's what I'm talking about.
However, in Hungary, as dplax said - they ARE a race - Romany. They look like Indian or Pakistani Asians - i.e. have light brown skin and black hair as opposed to Hungarians who are white. They also have their own "sub-language" which is actually a dialect of hungarian but have different words for many things.
Now Wellard, here is a positive stereotype for you: Gypsies are good musicians and they are famous for their violinists etc. My cousin who is a professional violinist and is in an orchestra has many gypsy friends and collegues and he learns all their vocabulary and teaches us - it's pretty funny.
I understand that you're saddened by the situation, but I hope you understand, it's not like the gypsies are persecuted - like I said - an increasing number of them do fit into the society - but the ones that don't, they think of hungarians just as negatively as they are thought of and the only reason they seem to come off worse is because there are less of them. But as I said, in recent years I have seen a great increase in gypsies/romanies and white hungarians hanging out together and being friends. It is actually in the places where the greatest concentrations of gypsies live (in some small towns they outnumber the white hungarians), that there is still the most tension (eastern hungary).
And now a joke for dplax, since he's the only one who'll understand (it's a word joke and non-offensive don't worry.
Eloszor azt kell tudni hogy a cigany szo a faszra az "kár" (az unokatesomtol tudom).
Ket cigany beszelget:
- He Gaszi, kepzeld tegnap betortek hozzam!
- Tenyleg? Es mekkora a károd?
- Hat ez meg hogy jott bele?!
Hehehe