Re: Romany

From: John Croft
Message: 2858
Date: 2000-07-22

Mark wrote

> What's really interesting is the dating sequence. If we are to
accept the exodus of Romany out of India at about 1200, they would be
just ahead of the Mongols, or more interestingly, maybe in the
company
of them. Are there any Mongolic borrowings? The lack of such
borrowings, though, is probably not that important. As I remember it,
it was the Mongols specifically who re-opened the Silk Road. I would
not be suprised if a small element of the original Golden Horde was
Romany. As for their sojourn in Armenia and Persia, you also wonder
about their relationship to the Il-Khans.
>
It would seem that an interest in "things Indian" began during the
period of the Samanids (819-1005 CE). Indian mathematicians and
theologians were encouraged to come to the court of the long
reigning
Nasr II ibn Ahmed (913-943). Under his realm this authority
stretched
from Rei (Teheran) to Shash, Ferghana and Kashgar, and Bukhara was
the
centre of trade routes leading from India to the Viking Rus (many
Samanid silver dirheims have been found in Sweden), and from China to
Baghdad.

This was the period of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Al Razi and Firdhausi,
all
of whom cultivated intellectual contacts with India. When Nasr's
grandson Abdul Malik (954-961), died suddenly, the notables of
Bukhara
wrote to Alptakeen, commander of Nishapur asking his advice as to
whom
should be their next ruler, another of Nasr's sons (a man aged 30) or
his grandson, Mansur (still a child). He suggested the wrong
candidate, as a clique brought Mansur to the throne. When
Alptakeen's
letter was opened by the new monarch, Mansur's courtiers prepared to
assassinate their Turkish commander. Despite being urged to march on
Bukhara when the news broke to the Turkish commander, he insisted
upon
his loyalty to the Samanids. He abandonned his wealthy properties in
Khurasan, and keeping away from Bukhara, he marched on Ghazna, where
he set himself up as a ghazi who attacked into India.

These attacks led to a large number of Indian refugees to seek
support
in the Samanid court, protected by the rivals of Alptakeen. They
avoided travelling out of India via Afghanistan (under control of
Alptakeen's dynasty, travelling north through the Dardic lands.
Alptakeen died in 963 followed by his son in 977). Although it is
not
mentoned, it is not unlikely that the Roma travelled out of India
during this period, and continued during the reign of Mahmud of
Ghazna, who similarly attacked throughout northern India, capturing
and destroying the Hindu temple at Somnath in Rajasthan, where the
Rom
are supposed to have originally been a caste of temple performers.

A number of Karakhanid princes ruled Kashgar, Bilasaghoon and
Ferghana, and in the reign of Nuh II ibn Masur (976-997), a number of
the Turkish generals to the Samanid monarch wrote to the Prince of
Bilasaghoon suggesting he attack Bukhara. Saved by the Ghaznavid
ruler Subtakeen (the father of Mahmud), the Samanids were reduced to
a
tiny buffer state between the Karakhanids who ruled from the Jaxartes
to Mongolia.

Seljuk, a Turkic leader of the Oghuz tribesmen had sought service
under the Samanids, and although his son Aslan had been imprisonned
in
India by Mahmud of Ghazna, his nephew Turghril Beg had managed to
escape back to the steppes. In the power vacuum caused by the death
of Mahmud, they expanded into Khurasan, and attacked west to Mosul.
The Oghuz tribesmen under Alp Aslan ibn Daod, Tughril Beg's nephew
drove through into Armenia and at Malazkirt defeated the Byzantine
army of 50,000, creating the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum.

These moves were to spread the population of Indian refugees
sheltering amongst the Samanids, throughout the length and breadth of
the Near East.

Thus when Mark wrote
> Even more interesting, though, is the migratory paradigm.
Remarkable
as it is, we have a parallel in the Tocharians, Western IE speakers
located in Xinjang, and even that of the Hungarians. Unlike the
Tocharians or Hungarians, the Roma never managed to found their own
nation-state.
>

No, that is because they were spread and dispersed by more militarily
powerful Turkish tribesmen, who like the nomadic pastoralists of the
seppe you mentioned Mark, were preadapted to a military way of life.

Mark continued
> There is also the fact, that from our point of view in the West,
much of European history is propelled by movements of peoples from
the
east -- Scythians, Huns, Avars, Mongols, Turks, etc. Usually, it's
movement via the Steppe, but with the Turks -- and the Roma -- it was
via Anatolia. And much of this movement was one people being pushed
westward by the depredations of a group to the east of them.
>
> We can even speak of the Slavs in this context, in how that
expanded
to fill the vacuum left by the wreck of the Hunnic confederacy, and
managed to overrun just about all of the Western Steppe and the
Balkans. Looking a map, you'd think Bulgarian entered Bulgaria via
Ukraine and Romania, but (if I'm remembering this right), it came via
Hungary, wheeling down the Danube into Macedonia and then back east.
>

Mark, it wasn't the Hunnic confederacy into which the Slavs expanded,
but that of the Avars. These people began as the Juan Juan in the
Mongolian Steppe, and had followed the Huns westward. It was the
Avars that drove the Lombards out of Hungary into Italy, and
proceeded
to eliminate all German peoples east of the Oder River. It was into
this vacuum that the Slav's expanded.

The Bulgarians were in fact the remnant of the Huns who had split
into
two groups. One had been pushed north along the Volga where they
remained until being incorporated into the Mongol Empire. The others
did come from the Ukraine into the Balkans.

You conclude
> My point, if there is one, is to call attention to the immense
speed
and immense distances a language can move. I think we should not
marvel as we usually do when it comes to Tocharian.
>

Yes, it is also very hard to trace some of these movements
archaeologically. Especially with tent dwelling nomadic
pastoralists,
little shows up except a burn horizon in urban settlements, with
possibly more impoverished squatters settling amidst the ruins. The
culture that is rebuilt eventually resembles that destroyed, as urban
governance is difficult for nomads. Thus Persianate government was
rebuilt for the Ilkhans, Russian under the vassals of the Golden
Horde
and Chinese under the successors of Kubulai.

Regards

John