The Roma - III

A previous paper on Roma found maternal lineages originating from north-west of India. A new paper is now reporting that even their paternal lineages could be traced to the same location[1]. Their main lineage H1a1a has haplotype matches with a nomadic tribe, Doma, hailing from that region. They reconcile their linguistic and folk origins which puts them in the Gangetic belt (Central Indo-Aryan) by noting Doma's spread from north-west to eastern India.

Of course, there is the Gyaneshwar Chaubey(one of the authors in the study) special in the study:

Scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes are the endogamous groups in India that are given a special status by the Government of India to uplift their social status (for more details, refer [47]). Historically, the assimilation of so-called tribals into the caste system generally did little to ameliorate the socio-economic barriers or enhance the marriageability of former outcastes to members of the middle or high castes.

Let's analyze those sentences.
1. This is a research paper. Do you introduce a group as something that has been given special status? That should be the last sentence in a long essay. I suppose an introduction to untouchability and isolated non-mainstream groups in India would have been in order.

2. In the second sentence, the use of the word 'assimilation' gives a positive spin to what in reality a 'name calling' and exclusion of groups. The word assimilation in fact puts the onus of the failure directly at their doorstep.

3. Basically, those two sentences are some kind of observation and not really neutral definition or introduction thus a complete absurdity in a research paper.

Reference:
1. The Phylogeography of Y-Chromosome Haplogroup H1a1a-M82 Reveals the Likely Indian Origin of the European Romani Populations - Niraj Rai et al. (2012)

The Roma - ii

In my previous post on the Roma, I speculated that they were mainly from central-east Indian region. My understanding was based on two factors;
- Romas are predominantly Y-Haplogroup H people. They have negligible R1a1. Had they been north-western people this wouldn't have been the case. Considering that Y-Haplogroup H dominates among tribes (mainly Dravidian) of central-east, their origin should be from that region.
- There is an opinion that Romani language is related to Sinhalese and Sinhalese were originally from eastern India region.

Along with those two points we need to note that there is a similar community called the Domba, who majorly speak the Dravidian languages, and found in south and east India.

There is a new study[1] on mtDNA lineages of the Roma people.

Previous genetic, anthropological and linguistic studies have shown that Roma (Gypsies) constitute a founder population dispersed throughout Europe whose origins might be traced to the Indian subcontinent. Linguistic and anthropological evidence point to Indo-Aryan ethnic groups from North-western India as the ancestral parental population of Roma. Recently, a strong genetic hint supporting this theory came from a study of a private mutation causing primary congenital glaucoma. In the present study, complete mitochondrial control sequences of Iberian Roma and previously published maternal lineages of other European Roma were analyzed in order to establish the genetic affinities among Roma groups, determine the degree of admixture with neighbouring populations, infer the migration routes followed since the first arrival to Europe, and survey the origin of Roma within the Indian subcontinent. Our results show that the maternal lineage composition in the Roma groups follows a pattern of different migration routes, with several founder effects, and low effective population sizes along their dispersal. Our data allowed the confirmation of a North/West migration route shared by Polish, Lithuanian and Iberian Roma. Additionally, eleven Roma founder lineages were identified and degrees of admixture with host populations were estimated. Finally, the comparison with an extensive database of Indian sequences allowed us to identify the Punjab state, in North-western India, as the putative ancestral homeland of the European Roma, in agreement with previous linguistic and anthropological studies.

The important thing here is they found most of the Indian mtDNA (72% ) belong to north-west India. And also, around 20% belong to eastern India.

These findings certainly do not reject the origin of male Romani population in eastern India. However, their linguistic identity could be from north-western India. Or their linguistic identity is matrilineal.

The male population with overwhelming Y-Haplogroup H, was most likely a breakaway group of Dombas whose original language belonged to the Dravidian family. However, they took local women as wives during their stay in Punjab (another break away group, Domaki, is still found in Pakistan) and thus linguistically became Indo-Aryans. This identity they have retained after they left Indian borders which is now in Pakistan.

Their origin in eastern India could be detected in the mtDNA lineages too as eastern mtDNAs are the second largest among their Indian mtDNAs.

Ref:
1. Reconstructing the Indian Origin and Dispersal of the European Roma: A Maternal Genetic Perspective
 - Isabel Mendizabal et al. (2011)
2. Domba people

The Roma

"Who are these people?" asks the man behind the counter in the photo store in Southall, an area also known as London's Little India.
He is handing over my order: a hefty pile of colour photographs, of which a picture of two Roma women and their children (above) is the first.
"They look just like the Banjara in Rajasthan - that's where I come from," he says.
He points to a beautiful print on the wall, showing a glamorous group of female Banjara dancers.
The similarity is striking.
Historians agree that the Roma's origins lie in north-west India and that their journey towards Europe started between the 3rd and 7th Centuries AD - a massive migration prompted by timeless reasons: conflicts, instability and the seeking of a better life in big cities such as Tehran, Baghdad and, later on, Constantinople.
Some of these Indian immigrant workers were farmers, herdsmen, traders, mercenaries or book-keepers. Others were entertainers and musicians.
They settled in the Middle East, calling themselves Dom, a word meaning "man".

Post-war European governments on both sides of the Iron Curtain denied the Roma Holocaust survivors any recognition or aid
To this day they retain their name and speak a language related to Sanskrit.
Large numbers moved into Europe, where the D, which was anyway pronounced with the tongue curled up, became an R, giving the word Rom. Today's European Roma (the plural of Rom) are their descendants.

Via BBC on the Roma

In my opinion, comparing the Roma with the Banjara (Lambani) because of their looks can be misleading. It's obvious that the comparison has stemmed out of their relative lighter skin tone as compared to South and South East Indians.

But the Lambani and the Roma are two different groups. The Roma can be only compared to Domba (another nomadic group in India). But Dombas look just like South or South-East Indians.

The Roma are predominantly Y-haplogroup H and Y-Haplogroup R2 people. Interestingly they carry negligible or nil Y-Haplogroup R1a1, a predominant north-west Indian lineage.

There is also a view that their language which was initially thought to be close to north-west Indian languages could be in fact close to Sinhala. The ancestors of Sinhalese are from eastern India.

Considering their haplogroup profile coupled with their linguistic roots, they would rather match with central-east Indians than north-west Indians.

Now, the fact is many of them do look like light skinned Lambanis(or vice versa). The light skin of the Roma is because of their admixture with West Asians and south-western Europeans.(The route they took appear to be north-west India->West Asia->Mediterranean->south-western Europe/north-eastern Europe-> Central Asia).

But what explains Lambani lighter skin tone? Well, interestingly, it appears they are European nomads in India, just like the Roma are Indian nomads in Europe. According to Sahoo et al.(2006), they carry Y-haplogroup R1b at around 28%(5/18). Considering the fact that they lack J and E, they are most likely from central-west European lands than from West Asia. It should be noted here that Y-haplogroup R1b is hardly present in castes and tribes of India. Also, curiously, they carry mtDNA N1a. There is N1a in India which is close to Iranian samples(Mountain et al.(1995), Baig et al (2004)). However, Lambani N1a is different (according to a Russian expert on mtDNA). I wonder whether their R1b haplotypes and N1a motifs could be compared to present or ancient DNA found in Europe.

Whatever the case, the Roma are from the present day nation state India. But making that point from the skin deep observations is pointless. In fact, as I have explained above, it might ironically show non-Indian inputs in this case. But BBC has always been a fine example of Anglo-Saxon literal view.