I met lucky people

This to notice a book of the same name by Yaron Matras, an academic linguist, about the Gypsies, bought by me on the basis (I think) of a short notice in the TLS. A book which while interesting irritates on three counts.

On the interest front, there seems to be little doubt that the Gypsies originally came from central India (rather than the Egypt of some stories), were possibly swept up in one of the central Asia waves of Turkic invasion and carried off to what is now Turkey. From there to Byzantium (acquiring lots of Greek loan words in the process) and from there radiating out over the rest of Europe - and now beyond, with Gypsy communities having reached places like San Francisco. In the language tree, Romani appears in the Indo part of our Indo-European language group, positioned between Kashmiri and Singhalese.

However, despite being an ancient language, the Gypsies did not bother to write it down until quite recently and their tradition is largely an oral one, and rather a limited one in consequence. You do not reach the pinnacles of civilisation without the written word.

Occupationally they seem to have specialised in itinerant trades, an important business in the days when country villages could often not afford to have, for example, their own tinker. Or horse dealer. Or musician.

They also have some rather old fashioned customs, still observed it seems in parts of east and central Europe. All kinds of taboos about washing, eating and life in general, taboos which rather reminded me of those of Orthodox Jews. I imagine, although this is not in the present book, that Gypsy society is rather old fashioned in lots of ways. Very patriarchal and very possibly very anti-gay. Plenty of drunkenness and domestic violence.

Which brings me onto my first irritation, which is that this book is rather partisan. It does not face up to what I believe to be unpleasant facts. Another example of which would be that Gypsies are very aggressive and their men are trained to be fighters from early childhood, a trait which does not endear them to the rest of us. I am reminded here of an otherwise amiable young man who once told me that it was all right for me because I could express my anger in words and did not, in consequence, feel the need to hit anyone.

The second irritation is that author does not explain why he is so interested in Gypsies. One wonders about the omission and one would have liked to have known whether there was any blood or family connection.

The third irritation concerns the Gypsies themselves, and is rather unfair, perhaps even racist. To me the Gypsies are a something of a nuisance. They have clung on, through the centuries, to a way of life which does not fit very comfortably into the modern world. They are only too happy to buy the products of that world, like flashy cars and caravans, but they do not want to be part of it. To pay taxes and obey the rules. Not to make a mess of such green space as is available to the rest of us. Why can't they just assimilate and become like the rest of us, like untold billions before them?

That said, we could do a lot better at providing them with camping grounds. And as I have said before in these columns, casting them out is neither decent nor possible. And furthermore, given the history, we need both to care and to take care to behave properly. For camping, see reference 1.

I should also add that Gypsies are not the only people who travel and that there are plenty of Gypsies who do not travel, or at least not very much. They might even own houses. With other people who like to travel including the New Age types, presently, I think, on the wane. Traveling for such people being a way to escape the rules, regulations and responsibilities of regular life. The three R's which our newly energised PM plans to bring to an infant school near you.

PS: which reminds me of the irony, in the present juncture, of having a PM with a much more obviously Scottish name than that of the leader of the Scots.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/spring-miscellany.html.