A FEW weeks ago, you said that gypsies or travelling people originated from somewhere near northern India. I always understood that they were called gypsies because they came from Egypt. - Bill Hutchinson, Chester-le-Street.

TRAVELLING people have been known as gypsies in Britain for hundreds of years. It is certainly a corruption of Egyptian and a few centuries ago they were often referred to simply as Egyptians.

One theory is that, in 1418, a band of them appeared in Europe, commanded by a leader named Duke Michael of Little Egypt. However, I think the name is just a case of ignorance and mistaken identity. Because the early European gypsies were not northern European in appearance and spoke a non-European language, people probably attributed their origins to Egypt, because it was a well-known non-European civilisation with ancient origins.

Linguistic studies prove that Romany, the language of the gypsies, is most closely related to Sanskrit. This was the dominant classical language of the Indian subcontinent and strongly suggests that the gypsies originated from India. Further study shows that the Romany language belongs to a linguistic sub group called Indo-Iranian and that Romany is most closely related to languages in North-West India. The blood groupings of gyspies are most similar to tribal peoples of southern Himalaya.

The Romany language has around 5,000 words and these are chiefly of Sanskrit origin, but some words are borrowed from other languages, including Persian, Armenian and Greek. This might give some indication of the historic travels of the gypsies.

It is thought that the gypsies left north west India around 1000 AD and headed towards Persia (modern Iran) where they divided up into three main tribal groups called Gitanos, Kalderash, and Manush. Some groups moved north and others west and, by the 15th Century, groups started to appear in Europe, when the Little Egypt theory of their origin is thought to have developed.

By the beginning of the 16th Century they were found in every part of Europe. They are still familiar in many parts of Europe today and are known by many different names. Today there are around seven million gypsies throughout the world, including many in the United States where they first arrived in the late 19th Century.

If you have a Burning Question, or can improve on any of the answers above, please write to Burning Questions, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF or e-mail david.simpson@nne.co.uk

Published: Monday, November 12, 2001