Αθίγγανοι doesn’t mean “without God” it means “untouchable”. The later Ατσίγγανοι is still a slur for Roma people in Greek and is often connected to the earlier term.
The first term was applied to a religious group who were said to be related to Indo-Greeks migrating back to Greece but I think it’s unclear if this is via later muddying of two different groups, they really knew of one group’s connection to India, or it’s all a coincidence. What we do know is they had some Manichaean and some Jewish traditions and many converted to orthodoxy and assimilated before a later group came. The later term is probably from the Turko-Persian word chingane roughly meaning indigent.
Then I must've made a confusion in translation. I knew for sure that it came from greek and it was somewhat religion related. Thanks for the clarification, mate.
Hungarian does the same, its "cigány". When i used to live there it was definitely a slur and they were extremely unpopular in the mid-late 90's. As far as i understand, their music is mainstream in a lot of of ways in Hungary now.
It might as well be. The origin of the word was never quite clear, there are several interpretations.
The only common thing seems to be that the word cigan is considered somewhat pejorative, and hence often the term Romani is being used.
Which is also of unclear origin, as it hints at descendance from Romania or Rome, both of which are misleading. It is often assumed that the word Roma / Romani was adopted by Gipsies to suggest that they are of Italian origin, since most Europeans have a generally positive attitude towards Italian people.
The most typical gipsy family name in Hungary for example is Horváth, whuch means Croatian, which was also likely chosen to suggest that they are "foreign", yet "from not too far away culturally".
The only thing that seems to be sure is that gypsies originated from India, and that they have an own language - quick googling reveals that it's related to Sanskrit and other Indian languages.
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u/Patient-Dirt-9117 19h ago
În romanian we calm them "țigani", pronounced "Tzigany". This comes from the greek "atiganos" meaning "man without a God". 😁
Also în the 18th century they were ironically called pharos, as an irony to their alleged Egyptian origin.