It is claimed by the supposed experts in Romani Studies that the word “Gadje” originates with the name of Mahmud Of Ghazni (who lived from 971 A.D. - 1030 A.D), the Muslim raider – a raider after gold who, according to reports, never seem to actually have taken slaves – who harassed India in the early 11th century. His son later settled in India and became a Sufi saint.
Those raids into India by Mahmud Of Ghazni are well after the time that the Rom must have left for, according to the International Romani Union the year 2001 was the Millennium of Rom in Europe. Apparently the Rom entered Europe from Asian Constantinople at the year 1001. This, in fact, were the Roma and not those that already were in Europe, such as the Sinti groups. It is high time for a rethink, methinks, for those that think they know and for the truth being told to the world.
How, pray, would anyone, even allowing for pronunciation shifts and the like, arrive from the place name of Ghanzi at the word “Gadjo/Gadji/Gadje” for non-Romani or outsiders from the People? Gadje does simply mean farmer or peasant and originates, in the same was as the word Chalo or Xalo or Xulaj with the lanfuages of the area from whence our People come, meaning, the same as the Romani-Calo word “payo”, basically “peasant”. All the clap-trap of the linguists and experts in Romani studies just does not add up to me, and I also believe it does not to many others that have an open mind amongst the People.
Sure I do not have proof for this, before anyone asks. All I am doing is to get you, dearest readers, to think as to whether things are as clearcut as the experts would want us to believe and it certainly is not. Somewhere along the line there seems to be a hidden agenda amongst the so-called experts on the Romani for all try their hardest to make everyone believe that – one – we are all Roma and that – two – we all left India together at the same time, at the time of Mahmud Of Ghazni's raids into India, and that it then took us just a few weeks or months to arrive at the Bosporus. And bawle fly, certainly.
Just think on it...
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), March 2008
