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Yenish people
- merename 3y agoOther links https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/threatened-minorities_nomadic-people-in-switzerland-and-their-endangered-way-of-life/45249662 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/threatened-minorities_n... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Z3X7yTiDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Z3X7yTiDQ https://www.equaltimes.org/the-cultural-genocide-committed https://www.equaltimes.org/the-cultural-genocide-committed https://historum.com/t/the-yenish-yeniche-people.127900/ https://historum.com/t/the-yenish-yeniche-people.127900/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariella_Mehr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariella_Mehr
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- placesalt 3y agoThe song 'Move Along', by Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy, about Gypsies / Irish Travellers, is very affecting: https://youtu.be/vV7suDUeXSc?t=286 https://youtu.be/vV7suDUeXSc?t=286
- hooli_gan 3y agoThanks for the great song suggestion
- DrDroop 3y agoReminds me a bit of the Cagot people who lived around the border region between France and Spain. These people where hated, discriminated and prosecuted for more then a thousand years while people had forgotten what they ever did to deserve this. Already in the 16th century the Pope published a edict saying let bygones-be-bygones and forgave them for whatever perceived crime. Historians don't believe they where ever responsible for this perceived crime and that the Pope probably knew this but forgave them anyway in a hopeless attempt to stop the discrimination.
- ithkuil 3y agoI didn't know you actually had to "do" something to deserve to be discriminated against and persecuted. Generally you just need to "be"
- nine_k 3y agoCrimes would usually be ascribed to the hated group as an afterthought.
- ithkuil 3y agoYes but even if some ancestor of your committed a crime, what did you actually do to deserve being mistreated for generations? Your only crime is to _be_ part of that group, often in a way that you can't get away with. When it's skin color it's easy to see how you can't hide, but often people can't escape their group/caste even if they don't physically look particularly differently. Humans have a strong mechanisms to make sure every body knows the ingroups and the outgroups.
- rgrieselhuber 3y agoMany times throughout history it seems tied more to a refusal to conform to the consensus reality of the ruling class, e.g., not worshipping some emperor as a god, not having the same theology, questioning “settled” narratives, etc.
- 3y ago
- sakex 3y agoWe have some people of the road in Geneva. I'm not sure if they're Yenish or not but the usually arrive at the beginning of Spring and leave at the end of the Summer.
- mortureb 3y agoWhere do they go in winter? That being said, a nomadic lifestyle sounds so interesting and romantic. Too bad most nomads are heavily discriminated against.
- detourdog 3y agoFor a while I really wanted to be a Bedouin. In the end it just didn’t seem to be realistic. I ended up getting a job like everyone else. It just didn’t seem right.
- borski 3y agoI think that’s the thing, actually; everyone needs something different, by their nature, how they were raised, and so on. Combine that with a deep sense of the grass being always greener on the other side, and it becomes super important not just to find happiness but to know it when you’ve found it. My ex will never be happy, as she is unable to recognize happiness when she’s there. My wife, on the other hand, enjoys the moment, despite her ambition. It’s a huge part of why I married her. I, too, have dreams of escaping to a log cabin in the woods, with nobody to tax me, nobody to bother me, and nobody to get in the way of the exciting things I want to do. Of course, if I did that, I’d quickly dive deep into depression; I’m an extrovert, who am I kidding? But the dream remains all the same. :)
- nixass 3y ago> For a while I really wanted to be a Bedouin. In the end it just didn’t seem to be realistic. I ended up getting a job like everyone else. It just didn’t seem right. It could have worked. Travelers normally suck all support and benefits government provides and live relatively care free life.
- fuzztester 3y agoAt first I thought this was about a variant of the Romani people, due to having talked just a few days ago with an Italian guy who was half Jewish and half Romani. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people We had a talk about the Romani, the discrimination against them, and some other interesting topics. I mentioned to him that, as a teenager, I had read a book titled Lavengro, a fictional work about a gypsy, by George Borrow. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavengro https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavengro https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Borrow https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Borrow
- skissane 3y ago> At first I thought this was about a variant of the Romani people, due to having talked just a few days ago with an Italian guy who was half Jewish and half Romani. In the history of Europe, there were several of these nomadic/itinerant groups on the margins of society. They had distinct languages/cultures/origins, but occupied similar societal niches. Due to that similarity, there was a certain degree of interchange/movement/intermarriage between these groups. Romani language and culture originally comes from northern India; the Yenish spoke a dialect of German. However, that dialect included Romani loanwords, suggesting a history of interaction/intermarriage with Romani and/or absorption of Romani into their community. Their language also includes some Yiddish loanwords, suggesting a similar history of interaction with some Jewish people
- fuzztester 3y agoWe have Banjara / Lambadi people in India, who are like gypsies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjara https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjara
- xattt 3y agoI’m not sure, but does it seem like a stretch to suggest that current homeless problems in the West are part of some nomadic subculture, that’s framed within the medical model as mental illness?
- mock-possum 3y agoYeah that’s a gigantic stretch.
- viraptor 3y agoMassive stretch. There's lots of publications about the progression to homelessness, like https://web.archive.org/web/20150614052612/http://www.thecyrenians.org/Resources/Tyneside%20Cyrenians/Resources/Research%20Reports/Homelessness_%20Pathways%20to%20Exclusion%20and%20Opportunities%20for%20Intervention.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20150614052612/http://www.thecyr... so no reason to raise extreme theories. Lots of people are just a couple of bad events away from homelessness.
- poulpy123 3y agothat's a stretch the size of jupiter
- ryukoposting 3y agoI'd lean towards "BS" over "stretch." If you went up to every homeless person in SF, Chicago, etc and ask them why they're homeless, you'd have a hard time finding a single one who's in that situation by choice or cultural caste.
- tptacek 3y agoYou will not have a hard time finding Chicago people who are unhoused by choice. (I don't know the broader point you're responding to or trying to make here, so don't take me as trying to refute whatever that is; I just noticed the "Chicago" mention, and that your data point is broken; your larger point might still be fine.)
- 3y ago
- Fnoord 3y agoUnder notable people it says Rafael van der Vaart a known former Dutch football player.
- carschno 3y agoAs a little exercise, I started looking into this. The claim that he grew up in a trailer park is repeated on his English Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_van_der_Vaart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_van_der_Vaart): > He grew up on a trailer park, with him belonging to a Dutch cultural minority called the Woonwagenbewoners, with them sharing ties with Irish Travellers and the Yenish people, and often pretended to be Romário while playing football. Yenish are only mentioned as "sharing ties" though. There are two sources provided: one article in De Volkskrant, and one in The Mirror. However, both links are dead now, but available in the Web Archive. The one in The Mirror only very vaguely supports the claim: > 2) He enjoyed a Romany lifestyle as a child and used to pretend to be Brazilian ace Romario in kick-abouts on the caravan park. https://web.archive.org/web/20100901205748/http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/blogs/football-spy/Tottenham-new-signing-Rafael-van-der-Vaart-Top-10-things-you-need-to-know-plus-watch-outrageous-goals-and-tricks-and-pictures-of-super-WAG-Sylvie-van-der-Vaart-article439089.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100901205748/http://www.mirror... The cited article in De Volkskrant, a credible Dutch newspaper, is quite fuzzy as well, essentially saying the van der Vaart grew up at the trailer park "until he and his family moved to Beverwijk". http://web.archive.org/web/20131005045224/https://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2686/Binnenland/article/detail/773555/2006/06/21/Rafael-van-der-Vaart-verloochent-zijn-afkomst-niet.dhtml http://web.archive.org/web/20131005045224/https://www.volksk... Van der Vaart's Dutch Wikipedia page (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_van_der_Vaart https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_van_der_Vaart) does not mention any of this. There does not seem any support for van der Vaart's Yenish origin at all. I wonder about the origins and intentions of the claim...
- gerdesj 3y agoMany comments here are along the lines of: "we have ... gypsies ... here too and they are called ...". I recently visited a museum in (Kingston upon) Hull - 'ull. The Streetlife one. A wall board managed to describe most of the wandering tribes hereabouts (UK and Éire), where they hail from, their modus operandi, a brief history and how to refer to them with a fair chance of not causing offence. I had no idea that Roma and Romany were not the same thing ... well it hadn't crossed my bows. That is probably most people's approach - largely indifference and a fair dose of what is effectively racism - passive but nonetheless ... racist. There are several TV series here eg "My big fat gypsy wedding" and some serious documentaries that are educating us and at least shining a light on travellers and travelling societies. The interplay between staid society and travelling societies has always been a tricky one. I think the world would be a much poorer place without travellers. My house overlooks a park - its on the side of a valley. Our garden has a 40' drop to the lawn, with a zig zag path down. An urban stream (Dodham Brook, Yeovil, Somerset, UK) runs along the bottom. On the other side of the stream is the QEII meadow - about an acre of flatish ground, with a cafe at one end. For a couple of years a bunch of travellers have rocked up on the meadow - Irish. I think. Their boy trotted his pony and trap up the path of the old railway line (long gone - cheers Mr Beaching) for a few quid. They repaired some cars and sat around a fire, long into the night. Funny thing is that late night noise went down. My new neighbours simply fitted in. All they left was some scorch marks on the grass, which was better than the twats who allowed a barbie to set fire to the meadow. There are some concrete BBQ stands less than 50m away.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rendall 3y ago> I had no idea that Roma and Romany were not the same thing ... They aren't? Would you mind saying more about what this?
- skissane 3y agoThere are several different groups which speak the Romani language(s). As the Romani spread throughout Europe, they began to diverge into different groups, with separate identities, dialects, traditions, etc. These groups have various names, including Rom, Sinti, Kale, Vlax, among others. The term Rom/Roma is ambiguous, because some authors use it to refer to the Romani-speaking groups collectively, others use the term to refer to particular subgroup(s) known by that name, as opposed to other subgroups such as the Sinti. So the above commenter had learned the “synonym for Romani collectively” definition, but is now exposed to the “specific Romani subgroup” definition, and is being introduced to that by people who view the first definition as incorrect. (I’m not much of a linguistic prescriptivist, so not sure if I agree it is “incorrect” per se, but certainly if one dislikes unintended controversy it is better avoided.)
- timcobb 3y agoOof: > From the 1920s until the 1970s, the Swiss government had a semi-official policy of institutionalizing Yenish parents and having their children adopted by members of the sedentary Swiss population.
- mastazi 3y agoWhen reading that passage, it reminded me of Australia's "stolen generation". Terrible injustice.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- daliusd 3y agoYou would be surprised to find out when Swiss women got right to vote
- flakeoil 3y agoI don't defend that policy, but on the other hand, the children who stay and live the Yenish life will often not get a good education and will have to continue to live a life outside the regular society.
- hef19898 3y agoSo, while not defending taking children away from their parents, you think it has benefits? Interesting take.
- flakeoil 3y agoI don't think it has any benefits to remove children from their parents. That's why I think that was a bad policy. I think however it would be beneficial for the children if their parents adapted their lifestyle to fit the modern society and better integrate into society. 150 years ago their lifestyle might have made sense, but less so today where they could get better jobs if they had a better education and they could also get support from society if needed. It's sad to see these parents taking away so many opportunities for their children.
- eru 3y ago> The Kingdom of Prussia in 1842 introduced a law forcing municipalities to provide social welfare to permanent residents without citizenship. As a consequence, there were attempts to prevent Yenish people from taking permanent residence.[6] Recently established settlements of Yenish, Sinti, and Roma, dubbed "gypsy colonies" (Zigeunerkolonien), were discouraged and attempts were made to incite the settlers to move away, in the form of various forms of harassment, and in some cases physical attacks. A law meant to help a group lead to more difficulties for said group. Why does that sound all too familiar?
- hnbad 3y agoWell, it's less that the law led to difficulties and more that the law ignited pre-existing bigotry, similar to some poor white Americans being opposed to welfare out of biases against poor black Americans thanks to a successful (implicitly racial) hysteria about "welfare queens". The Prussians were "fine"[0] with travelers as long as they were second-class citizens who didn't have access to welfare. As soon as citizenship stopped being a requirement, they were no longer fine with them and "they just want to live her to get our money" became a compelling narrative to fuel the bigotry against them. As a German it hurts to admit this, but Europeans are still extremely bigoted against travelers (and yes, if you prompt them, they will have very good rational reasons and cite crime statistics, which may sound familiar to Americans and suffers from the same limitations of surface-level analysis of social problems). It's just that we successfully deported and murdered enough of them in Germany that the discourse usually only involves Sinti and Roma people nowadays. [0]: "Fine" in the sense most conservatives say they are "fine with homosexuals", i.e. "as long as they keep to their own".
- H8crilA 3y agoThe crime statistics are real, though. Failing to recognize the problem created the likes of Alternative für Deutschland, Marine Le Pen, Brexit. Let me reiterate it, because it is crucial: liberal policy of pretending that the problem doesn't exist is what created all those garbage political organization. Which, interestingly, are often co-financed by Russia.
- eru 3y agoGerman Wikipedia has a lot more https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenische https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenische You can use https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Jenische?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Jenische?_x_t... if you don't read German.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoA. Learned a new word: endogamy, or intermarriage within the group. It's a known root cause of genetic disorders. B. We should stop creating a war between settled peoples and wanderers.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thinkingemote 3y agoI wonder if any specific religious practices are a characteristic of the people, do they have a common church for example, or maybe there's nothing definate over the years. Can't find any mentions on it in wikipedia anyhow. I'd imagine before the 20th century the situation would be different than now.
- Biologist123 3y agoThere is still a tradition of very small family-owned travelling circuses in parts of Germany, where tents seat about 40-50 people, and all acts are performed by circus family members. I wondered who the performers were and what there origin was. They definitely spoke good German, but the circus names don't seem 100% Germanic. At one I attended 3 or 4 years ago, the ringmaster threw daggers at volunteer spectators, missing them and pegging a wooden board behind them. Are the owner/operators Yenish? If anyone knows more about this tradition, I would be keen to know.
- anon2929 3y agoTraveling carnivals have very little to do with itinerant groups like Yenish people or travelers. Due to itinerant lifestyles, there can occasionally be members of itinerant groups working in that occupation but that is not typical. Most carnies have a home base. And many historically itinerant groups have become “sedentary” including many Yenish people. Though over time the sedentary tend to assimilate, intermarry and lose their distinct cultural character.
- i_am_a_peasant 3y agoI grew up in Eastern Europe among many minorities. I had friends who were Lipovans (Russian old believers who escaped persecution in Russia in the 17th century), Armenians that escaped the genocide by the turks, descendants of Phanariots (ottoman Greeks), and of course Gypsies both "white" and otherwise. We would refer to white gypsies as "blonde gypsies". I am pretty sure the guy who we would call "blonde gypsie" was a person of yenish background because he did speak a language of his own, and I did notice words of hebrew origin that in yiddish my community would have used the germanic version of rather than the hebrew (my family is Jewish). He had a proclivity to getting into trouble a lot and liked pulling pranks on everyone, but underneath it all he was a very warm person that had a lot of goodness and love within him. We had also a macedonian person in highschool that spoke some dialect that i could understand 10% of. Not sure where I'm going with this story, but I do feel like I grew up in some pre-nationalism bubble where it was completely normal for everyone to come from very diverse backgrounds that were very well preserved despite all of us living together in the same society and getting along just fine. People often liked discussing the similarities and differences between each other's cultures. I remember a gypsie person being fascinated by the fact that gypsies and jews share some customs, such as covering the mirrors when people die and putting away their shoes.
- sneak 3y agoFor others: Old Believers (a new term to me) are Russian orthodox catholics that didn't fork with the rest of Russia in the eastern orthodox schism in the 17th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers
- i_am_a_peasant 3y agoThey are predominantly not catholic, still eastern orthodox. But I think the eastern orthodox church had some reforms that they did not agree with.
- skissane 3y ago> They are predominantly not catholic, still eastern orthodox. I don't know what the grandparent meant, but the official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is "Orthodox Catholic Church", so the phrase "Russian Orthodox Catholics" is technically correct, if prone to confuse the uninitiated. It is possible their native language isn't English, and in their native language, (the equivalent of) "Orthodox Catholic" is a common phrase, as opposed to the confusing obscurity it is in English. While in popular (English) parlance the Roman Catholic Church has somewhat of a monopoly on the word "Catholic", theologically speaking all Christian groups which accept the Nicene Creed claim to be (or to be part of) the "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" in which that creed proclaims belief, and hence Orthodox and (creedal) Protestants officially believe they are Catholics too. (Some less ecumenically-minded Orthodox and Protestants will even go so far as to believe that they are the only real Catholics, and Roman Catholics are fake Catholics.) > But I think the eastern orthodox church had some reforms that they did not agree with. The Russian Orthodox Church decided to abandon some of its own liturgical traditions and replace them with imported Greek ones instead. This upset the Old Believers, and the Church refused to compromise, so they left. Later, it decided to become more tolerant, and allow individual congregations to keep the old practices, so some of them (the Edinoverie) returned. But other groups of Old Believers insisted the reforms were heretical, and hence the Russian Orthodox Church were a bunch of heretics and it was a sin to rejoin them, even if they were now willing to allow the old practices to be retained.
- _nalply 3y agoI just found out that the Swiss word for restaurant/bar, namely "Beiz" is a Yenish word. This word is very popular in Switzerland. Source: http://www.sifaz.org/Engelbert_Wittich_jenische_Sprache.pdf http://www.sifaz.org/Engelbert_Wittich_jenische_Sprache.pdf page 7 (German)
- 1letterunixname 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptians_Act_1554 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptians_Act_1554 The Romani, disparaged as "Egyptians" and demonized as criminals, were ordered on pain of execution in the 16th c. to settle or leave England. Perhaps British of that era lacked the words in their lexicon: "racist", "classist", "conformist", and "Hobson's choice."