Sinti
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
Sinti or Sinta (Singular masc.=Sinto; sing. fem.=Sintisa) is the name of some communities of the nomadic people usually called "Gypsies" in English. This includes communities known in German and Dutch as Zigeuner and in Italian as Zingari. They are closely related to, and are usually considered to be a subgroup of, the Roma people.[1]
While the Sinti were, until quite recently, chiefly nomadic, today only a small percentage of the group remains unsettled. In earlier times, they frequently lived on the outskirts of communities, generally in squalor.
The Sinti arrived in Germany and Austria in the Middle Ages, eventually splitting into two groups: Eftavagarja ("the Seven Caravans") and Estraxarja ("from Austria"). These two groups then expanded, the Eftavagarja into France, where they assimilated into the local Romani groups (Manouches), and the Estraxarja into Italy and Eastern Europe, mainly what are now Croatia, Hungary, Transylvania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, eventually adopting various regional names.
In Italy they are present mainly in Piedmont region.
The Sinti have produced a great number of renowned musicians, such as jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.
[change] References
- ↑ The origin of the name "Sinti/Sinte" is unclear, although it bears a similarity to the toponym Sindh (and inhabitants' name, the Sindhis), the area which linguistic and cultural evidence indicates was the likely geographic origin of the Roma, in the Southeast of what is today Pakistan.
[change] Further reading
- Walter Winter, Struan Robertson (Translator) Winter Time: Memoirs of a German who Survived Auschwitz Hertfordshire Publications, (2004), ISBN 1-902806-38-7
- Reviewed by Emma Brockes "We had the same pain" in The Guardian November 29, 2004
- Open Society Intitute: The Situation of Roma in Germany (2002)
