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| A Spanish gypsy girl |
A nomadic people, Gypsies are believed to have left India by way of Persia and Egypt (hence the name Gypsy) sometime before the end of the first millennium
A.D. Traveling in large bands into northern Europe and the British Isles, across Africa and into Spain, the Gypsies eventually established themselves throughout the Western world, including the United States. South America and Australia. Although some have been assimilated, the majority remain a people apart, speaking a separate language, Romany, and living Gypsy lives whether in the middle of New York or on the edge of a Hungarian village. As the perennial and ostentatious "other" wherever they happen to be, Gypsies have been persecuted throughout history: in the Middle Ages they were accused of witchcraft; in World War II an estimated 500,000 European Gypsies were murdered by the Nazis. Despite lesser harassment today, some 5 million Gypsies are thought to live in various parts of the world.
