ORIENTALISM AND GYPSYLORISM

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ORIENTALISM AND GYPSYLORISMAuthor(s): Ken LeeSource: Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, Vol. 44, No.2 (November 2000), pp. 129-156Published by: Berghahn BooksStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23166537 .

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SOCIAL ANALYSIS Issue 44(2) November 2000

ORIENTALISM AND GYPSYLORISM

Ken Lee

Introduction

Orientalism means different things to different people, and "the word 'Orientalism' has

changed its import over the last twenty years. It always had a multiplicity of meanings, but

the significant new shift is one of normative tone" and it has been reconstituted in a "radical

and dissenting form .... In short, the word 'Orientalism' has come to have a complex life of

its own" (Mackenzie 1995:iii, emphasis added). The term Orientalism was introduced by Sir William Jones, a judge of the East India

Company, in the late eighteenth century (Mukherjee 1968; Rocher 1993). He argued that

the East India Company should govern India according to Indian laws and customs, and that

the administrators of the East India Company should immerse themselves in the languages

and cultures of their subjects. To aid this objective, in 1800, the East India Company founded the College of Fort William in Calcutta, where their officers were trained for two

years in Oriental languages and the duties of colonial administrators. A similar curriculum

was followed in England in the East India College at Haileybury, Hertfordshire, founded in 1802. However, even from its inception, there was ambiguity associated with this form of

Orientalism. It was clear, for instance, that early Orientalist scholarship by Halhed, Jones

and Colebrook in translating legal codes was a prelude to their use by English colonial

administrators. Jones made this clear when he argued that "native interpreters of the

respective laws must be duly be selected .... but the learning and vigilance of the English

judge must be a check ...." (Cannon 1970:643, cited in Rocher 1993:234). The practical and instrumental nature of Jones' interest in Sanskrit was made clear in 1875 when he

wrote: "I am proceeding .... in the study of Sanskrit; for I can no longer bear to be at the

mercy of our pandits" (Cannon 1970:683-4, cited in Rocher 1993:235). It is clear then, that

from the outset this form of 'Orientalism' was associated with a relationship of colonial

control and domination.

On the other hand, having learned Sanskrit, Jones immersed himself in Orientalist literary scholarship, reading and translating Sanskrit texts, 'only as an amusement' distinct from his

official duties. To further this more scholarly form of Orientalism, in 1784 Jones and others formed the Asiatick Society of Bengal, and the journal Asiatick Researches, and embarked

on an ambitious program of translation of ancient Indian texts. Indeed, Jones claimed that

his translation of Kalidasa's the Ritusanhara or Assemblage of Seasons was the first book

ever printed in Sanskrit. Jones also saw himself as having a preservationist agenda with his

literary activities, translating material "from the fountainhead, an opportunity which, if lost,

may never be recovered" (Cannon 1970:714-15, cited inRocher 1993:232). Whilst on the one hand Jones mistrusted the Indian pandits as interpreters of Indian law,

(primarily because of his own Eurocentric biases and misunderstanding of the role of the

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)andits as interpreters and commentators), on the other hand, he also saw them as the

:ontemporary representatives of a scholarly tradition that predated even the Greeks. He

ilso clearly saw himself and the Asiatick Society of Bengal as the channel through which

his ancient and beautiful literary and philosophical tradition would be brought to other

Europeans.

This Jonesian form of 'Orientalism' has been contrasted with John Stuart Mill's

Anglicist' approach, based on evangelical and utilitarian grounds, arguing that Indian

subject peoples could better be governed by being educated and trained in British language

ind culture, and thereby westernised. Even though Mill had never visited India, his

irguments had a considerable influence on later colonial policy in India.

Following the Indian Mutiny, rather different uses ot the term "Urientalism emerged;

irst, one which emphasised the preservation of the powers of the Indian princely states as

in adjunct to British political control; and second, one which emphasised an increased focus

Dn Islamic culture and rulers as a counter to emerging Hindu nationalism.

A third meaning of Orientalism was associated with an artistic movement, developed

principally by the French in the nineteenth century, in which western artists took 'Oriental'

images, themes and styles for their artistic products.

A fourth, and perhaps most commonly accepted view ot Orientalism, was that ot any

form of scholarship having to do with the Orient — from the Middle East to China and

[apan. Some of the problems and shortcomings in this concept of Orientalism have been

discussed and analysed by Malek (1963). The 'significant new shift' referred to above by Mackenzie was ot course the publication

af Edward Said's book Orientalism in 1978, in which he defined — or redefined —

'Orientalism' as: :he corporate institution for dealing with the Orient —

dealing with it by making

statements about it, authorising views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it,

ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient (Said 1978:3),

"most ideologically charged words in modern scholarship

Said's book was strikingly eclectic, stimulating and controversial, and brought a tresn

and powerful message that challenged both existing academic and political positions on the

Orient. Said later summed up this impact in the following terms:

the subaltern and constitutively different suddenly achieved disruptive articulation

exactly where in European culture silence and compliance could previously be

depended on to quiet them down (Said 1989:223) The 'disruptive articulation' that Said had introduced with Orientalism was rapidly taken up in a wide range of disciplines. Said's impact on those who previously could be depended on to be quiet was profound. I can find no more succinct summary than Chatterjee, who

writes:

Orientalism was a book which talked ot things 1 lelt 1 had known all along but had

never had the language to formulate with clarity. Like many great books, it seemed

to say for the first time what one had always wanted to say (Chatterjee, in Sprinker

1992:194). Said's book was a significant paradigm shiit, and it has now become almost impossible to

13U



consider the relationships between West and East without grappling with its insights [and]

its method has been applied to Europe's relationship with other parts of the globe"

(Mackenzie 1995:4). Said's basic message was that the creation of subordinated subjects, the creation of 'The

Orient' and 'The Oriental', and representations of those subjects, was based on the exercise

of power/knowledge by 'The West', and that this representation and subordination has

continuity from the eighteenth century to the present. He utilised Foucault's concept of

discourse as essential to understanding:

the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to

manage — and even produce

— the Orient .... a whole network of interests

inevitably brought to bear on (and therefore always involved in) any occasion when

that peculiar entity the Orient is in question (Said 1978:3, emphases added) The notion that a discursive framework can systematically create the subjects which it

studies, and is thereby always involved in any discussion of these subjects is clearly

explained by Shotter in this fashion: To the individuals socialised into it, an academic discourse provides the possibility of being able (after enough hermeneutical work upon the discipline's texts) to build

up a systematic mental image of its 'subject matter' of being able to 'survey' it. It

may be a fictitious 'reality', a possible and/or imaginary reality, but, like any good science fiction novel, one can get a 'sense' of its nature from within the texts of the

discipline. Indeed, we can get a 'sense' of what activities it would support if it were

truly real; thus from within it, we can discover further 'facts' in its support. Hence

our possibility of 'testing' it. Thus it is in this sense that an academic discourse can

be said to represent a supposedly underlying, or otherwise hidden, reality .... a

reality with an essence (Shotter 1993:141, emphases in original) It is precisely this essentializing of subjects that Said pinpointed in Orientalism, and he

argued that such a discursive formation emerged from assymetrical exchanges of power of

different sorts — military, political, economic, cultural, intellectual and moral — and that in

turn Orientalism helped to re-constitute and perpetuate the unequal exchanges that underlay

the initial discursive formation. Interestingly, Johannes Fabian's book, Time and the Other:

How Anthropology makes its Object (completed, like Said's, in 1978 but not published until 1983) follows a similar line of argument:

The Other's empirical presence turns into his theoretical absence, a conjuring trick

which is worked with the help of an array of devices that have the common intent

and function to keep the Other outside the time of anthropology (Fabian 1983:xi,

emphasis added). Fabian points out that amongst the material available only after he had completed his work, that "most important [was] Edward Said's Orientalism. Similarities in intent, method, and

occasionally formulations between his study and mine confirmed me in my ideas" (Fabian 1983:xii)

Said's book, like many pivotal and crucial works that introduce new ways of looking at

the world can be (and has been) faulted in many particulars; however, at the same time, its

underlying themes cannot be ignored. Said himself noted some of the limitations of his work in the introduction to Orientalism. He also addressed some of his critics in Orient

alism Reconsidered (1983), and further elaborated on his position in Representing the

131



Colonised: Anthropology s Interlocutors (1989). [The latter two words were drawn from

the conclusion to Fabian (1983:164)] Some of the difficulties with Said's work that have been noted are: his crude binary

approach to 'The Other'; his notion of unchallenged Western dominance; his lack of

theoretical consistency (which he has later acknowledged); his male-generated and male

dominated texts of Orientalism; his concentration on elite texts; his often ahistorical

approach; his apparent unwillingness to grapple with notions of political economy or class;

and the difficulties of linking discourse and representation to agency and practice (see

Clifford 1988). However, because of the paradigmatic shift brought about by his work, and the sub

sequent academic and intellectual work it sparked off, many of the faults evident in

Orientalism have been partially addressed and overcome — or in some cases amplified and

expanded. Responses to Said, both positive and negative "have extended the multi

disciplinary character of the Orientalist debate, implicating it in the central intellectual

developments of the late twentieth century" (Mackenzie 1995:7). Such responses have

produced a wide range of more specific and nuanced studies based on the themes and issues

raised in Orientalism. For example, there has been a wide range of feminist writing on

depictions and representations of the Orient that have countered the male-dominated

examples given in Orientalism (for example, see Emberley (1993); Lowe (1991); Melman

(1992); Mills (1991); Pratt (1992) and Suleri (1992)). More nuanced analyses of the

complex relationships between coloniser and colonised can be found in the work of Inden

(1986, 1990); Ludden (1993) and Bernard Smith (1992). Post-colonial writers such as

Bhabha (1983), Guha and Spivak (1988) and Rattansi (1993) have, in a variety of ways, extended Said's ideas to produce arguments for more ambivalent relationships between

coloniser and colonised. Breckenridge and van der Veer's Orientalism and the Post

colonial Predicament is a timely analysis, survey and review, clearly based on the

extension and analysis of Said's work (1993). In this paper I will argue that a parallel and similar system of discourse to Orientalism,

Gypsylorism, was developed in relation to 'The Gypsies'1. Just as Said argued that 'The

Orient' is an externally imposed discursive construct that represents an alleged underlying

essential reality, so too I argue that 'The Gypsies' is an externally imposed discursive

construct that likewise represents an alleged underlying essential reality. Gypsylorism can

thus be seen as that field of study that discursively constitutes as its subjects 'The Gypsies'.

Like Orientalism, Gypsylorism is a discursive formation that emerges from asymmetrical

exchanges of power of different sorts (political, economic, cultural, intellectual and moral) that in turn help to re-constitute and perpetuate the unequal exchanges that underlay the

initial discursive formation. It could be said that Gypsylorism is but a particular variant of

Orientalism, in that it began with the discovery that the Romani populations of Europe had

originated in India, that is, that they were indeed an exotic and Oriental Other. Whilst

Orientalism is the discursive construction of the exotic Other outside Europe, Gypsylorism

is the construction of the exotic Other within Europe — Romanies are the Orientals within.2

There are clearly both commonalities and differences between the Orientalism and

Gypsylorism; this paper is a preliminary exploration, part of a much longer-term project to

examine these commonalities and differences. I hope of course, in this wider project to be

aware of and take into account the modifications and challenges to Said's ideas.

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Gypsylorism

I will initially examine Gypsylorism in a restricted sense; that is, those people who were

members of the Gypsy Lore Society [hereafter GLS] which constituted 'The Gypsies' as

specific subjects for examination and who also published material relating to 'The Gypsies'

either in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society [hereafter JGLS 3] or elsewhere. The

members of the GLS and JGLS claimed a privileged epistemological position, asserting that

they were the only internationally recognised source of scholarly information about 'The

Gypsies'4.

Clearly, there is a much wider compass to Gypsylonsm than this restricted sense, since

the influence of its discursive power, both intellectual and popular, extend beyond mere

membership of the Society or publication in its journal. Furthermore, there were writers

writing about Gypsies before the GLS was ever formed, and writers writing about Gypsies

after it was formed, who were not members of the GLS. However, for any understanding of

Gypsylorism, the foundation and operation of the GLS and publication of the JGLS in 1888

and the constitution of 'The Gypsies' as specific subjects for study must be the starting

point. The conventional wisdom about the life and times of Gypsylonsm is roughly as follows.

In 1887, in Notes and Queries, William John Ibbetson wrote:

I would venture to suggest that the Anglo-American Romany Rais should form

themselves into a club or correspondence society, for the purpose of compiling and

publishing by subscription as complete a vocabulary and collection of songs as may

be attainable at this date, and also of settling a uniform system of transliteration for

Romany words, which is a great desideratum (1887:97). As a result of Ibbetson's suggestion, the Gypsy Lore Society was formed in 1888, by a

handful of enthusiasts: the president was Charles Godfrey Leland, the vice-president Henry

Thomas Crofton; David MacRitchie, who acted as secretary and editor of the journal,

assisted by Francis Hindes Groome; other inaugural members were Mrs Elizabeth Robins

Pennell (Leland's niece), the Archduke Joseph of Austria, Sir Richard F. Burton (a noted

Orientalist), Monsieur Paul Bataillard, Mr J. Pincherle, Mr W.H Pollock and Mr W.J.

Ibbetson. To this dozen, approximately another sixty members were added, including a

considerable number of university and public libraries and learned societies. Once founded,

the GLS then began publication of the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society. After a brief

burst of scholarly output from 1888 to 1892, the GLS wound up and the Journal ceased,

only to be reincarnated in 1907; again be extinguished in 1914 by the onset of WWI; be

reincarnated again in 1922 and to continue an uninterrupted output until 1974, ending only with the death of the indefatigable Honorary Secretary, Dora Yates. The Society then

languished until 1978, producing only four issues of the JGLS and eventually fading out of

existence in the UK. In the meantime, a small but dedicated band of Americans, The North

American Chapter of the GLS, continued the sterling work, and in 1991 eventually reincarnated the Society, voting to incorporate it in the United States under the original name of Gypsy Lore Society and reviving the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, also under

the original name, for the Fifth Series, which is still going strong today. This stylised account is of course too neat a mythology, and gives a spurious precision to what was a

much more complex and diffuse process of genesis to the discursive formation that is

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Gypsylorism.

Discursive Dilemmas of Gypsylorism

From the early fifteenth century, although Roma were demonstrably present in Europe, they did not know where they had come from; they were a people without an origin, and, to use

Eric Wolfs term, a people without history. The mystery of their origins constituted an

unresolved uncertainty that made it impossible to precisely position them in European

society. Hence, the receiving societies of Europe generated a wide range of accounts to try

to explain Romani origins(Liegeois 1987). The ambiguity about Romani origins created a subtle discursive dilemma that made them

a continuous threat to order and stability of European territories, and they were always noted in contemporary accounts as alien Other occupying peripheral positions — spatially,

socially and racially. These assorted discourses of Othering the Romanies changed with a

paradigm-shift that placed their origins in India.

Grellmann s Paradigm-Shift

An Outline of Grellmann's Book

Accepting "the late eighteenth century as a very roughly defined starting point" for

Orientalism (Said 1978: 3), we can likewise locate the discursive disjuncture that initiated

the conception of Gypsylorism at the same time, with the publication of Heinrich

Grellmann's book Die Zigeuner in 1783. The book was popular, and rapidly disseminated,

with a second German edition in 1787, an English edition in 1787 (entitled Dissertation on

the Gypsies), with a second English edition in 1807, French translations in 1788 and 1810

and a Dutch translation in 1791.5

It was in Grellmann's book that 'The Gypsies' were first constituted as discursive

subjects for systematic study, based on what he saw as rational and coherent arguments. Indeed, a contemporary review of the first English edition stated that "no connected and

rational account, so far as we recollect, has hitherto been given of this nomadic horde"

(Anon 1788:57, emphasis added). By introducing a theory based on linguistic comparisons to account for the origin of the Gypsies in India, Grellman's work marked a significant

genealogical disjuncture in the Othering process of Romanies. Wilson makes this

abundantly clear: "Grellmann may be regarded as the founder of the modern study of gypsy

lore .... Of his successors who have really added to our knowledge of the gypsies, there

have been surprisingly few" (1955:41). As a result of this discursive disjuncture, Die Zigeuner became a central and pivotal

source, the primary master-text for intertextuality in Romani studies for the next two

hundred years, and still heavily influences writers about Romanies.

Grellmann's book was divided into two parts, each having its own separate Chapter

numbering. In the first part, Chapters I-XII (approximately 35% of the book) described the habits and customs of the Gypsies (dress, marriage and funeral rites, occupations etc.) and

in effect laid down the pattern for subsequent descriptive anthropological study of the

Romanies. Chapters XIII-XV (approximately 15% of the book) specifically dealt with

134



fundamental social issues (the relationship of the Gypsies to the state, and how a state

should deal with them) and initiated the pattern of subsequent sociological/social policy

study of the Romanies.

In the second part, in Chapters I-IV (approximately 15% of the book), Grellmann

examined the history and existing theories of origin of the Romanies, which also provided

the foundation for subsequent investigations into Gypsy origins. Finally, Chapters V-VI

(approximately 35% of the book) introduced Grellmann's linguistic comparison of Romani

dialect and 'Hindoostanee' and his theory of the origin of the Gypsies in the Suders of India. This theory was to form the basis of most subsequent linguistic studies of the

Gypsies. In a number of places in his text, Grellmann also emphasised the need for the Christian

salvation of the Gypsies, which also initiated a pattern of evangelical and missionary

interest in the Gypsies that has continued to the present. Grellmann is remembered pri

marily for the second part of his book, which established the theory of the Indian origin of

the Gypsies through comparative philological analysis, even though the material he

presented in the first part was equally as important in informing subsequent anthropological

and sociological enquiries into Gypsies. From the outset, Grellmann's work was Orientalist, in the sense that he assumed a priori

that the Gypsies had 'an Oriental mind'; in his Preface he states "The Gypsies are an

eastern people, and have eastern notions. It is inherent in uncivilized people, particularly

those of Oriental countries, to be strongly attached to their own habits" (1787 English

edition:x). Following Grellmann's paradigm-shift, Gypsies could be the subjects of study in three

broad areas. First, in a primarily sociological perspective, they could be seen as archaic and

anarchic anomalies in a modernising nation-state and thereby the source of social problems, and thus subject to inclusionary measures of social control that would attempt to

incorporate or assimilate them into the receiving societies. In the later part of the nineteenth

century, many of the studies of Gypsies became linked to wider sociological developments,

like the dividing practices and scientific classification (such as hereditary criminality,6 scientific racism and eugenics) that Foucault saw as part of the disciplinary spiral of

power/knowledge of the modernising state. Within this broad perspective, the missionizing

urge, to save the souls of Gypsies and also make them suitable subjects of the state, forms

an important sub-category. For example, Hoy land, an English Quaker, wrote on 'The

Gypsies' of England in 1816, drawing heavily on Grellmann's work. Crabb, author of The

Gypsies' Advocate (1832), established a school and settlement for Romanies in Hampshire.

Woodcock suggested that they could be recruited for missionary work and that "Their

former hardy and vagrant habits would admirably prepare them for some department of

Missionary service. Most likely a Gipsy Missionary would ramble with peculiar pleasure in

Cabool, Beloochiston, Bokhara and Khorassan" (Woodcock 1865:un-numbered title page). Woodcock's suggestion eventuated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when

Rodney 'Gypsy' Smith, a Romani evangelist, conducted tent-based missionary activities in

England, the United States, South Africa and Australia. Many of these missionary activities

often included translations of scriptures and gospels into a variety of Romani dialects, a

process that began in the mid-nineteenth century and continues today.

Second, in a primarily anthropological perspective, Romanies could be seen as exotic and

135



inachronistic outsiders in a modern setting — the exotics/primitives within — and thus

suitable subjects and sources for an emerging 'scientific' study into language, cultural

;ustoms, music and dance. Gypsies also provided an important symbolic construct as a

rhetorically idealised source of Romantic principles of freedom and Nature. To be suitable

subjects for this type of study, they needed to be kept separate from their receiving

societies, and thus dealt with by exclusionary practices. During the century following the

publication of Grellmann, the positioning of Gypsies as suitable subjects for study extended

into the developing and overlapping fields of comparative philology, folklorics, musicology

and Indology. This anthropological perspective was particularly important in the United

States, where 'The Gypsies' were constituted primarily as exotic Other, rather than social

problem. American anthropologists have produced a series of ethnographies of Romanies,

beginning withCotten (1950) and continuing to the present. An important sub-set of this anthropological perspective was examination of the Uypsies

is practitioners of the occult arts, particularly various forms of fortune telling. Charles

Godfrey Leland, foundation President of the Gypsy Lore Society, was a crucial figure in

this area. In the introduction to a reprint of his 1891 book Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune

Telling, Silver argued that "Leland's thesis .... is that the gypsies, to a greater extent than

anyone was yet aware, have been for at least a thousand years the international

"colporteurs" of .... witchcraft, swapping memories, magics and medicines with most of the

world's peasantry in the course of their own long westward trek" (Silver 1962:vii). Leland's 1899 work Aradia, the Gospel of the Witches, a collection of material from an

Italian witch, is a crucial text in Wiccan revival. In an ironic twist, the person credited with

introducing a British form of Wicca to the United States is a Romani, Ray Buckland, who

has a history of publishing occult material, from Witchcraft, the Religion in 1966 to Gypsy

Witchcraft and Magic in 1998.7

Many of the early Gypsylorists continued Leland's interest in the Romanies as

practitioners of occult arts. Many of the eastern European folk-tales published in the early issues of JGLS were concerned with the witches, ghosts and the supernatural (see, for

example, Koperernicki (1889); Wlislocki (1889, 1890, 1891). Other material was specif

ically concerned with the occult was written by Ranking (1909), McCormick (1909),

Mayers (1909) and Weiner (1909, 1910). Trigg's 1973 Gypsy Demons and Divinities was

a compilation of material drawn from the pages of the JGLS.

Third, in a primarily linguistic perspective, 'The Gypsies' could be studied tor ttieir

dialects and their links to Indian languages. Like the anthropological perspective, this

approach also exoticised the Romani, as the carrier of an Indie language into European

societies. Comparative philological analysis of the similarities between European Romani

dialects and Indian vernacular dialects, developed and continued throughout the nineteenth

and twentieth centuries, and continues to the present (Matras 1995; Matras, Bakker and

Kyuchukov, 1997). In this area of study, dialect and language could be (and often was)

separated from the actual speakers; there is the apocraphyl anecdote that Pott, the German

philologist who produced a major comparative study of European Romani dialects, had

never spoken to or seen a Romani. The missionary activity which engaged in translation of

scripture into Romani dialects clearly links with this linguistic strand.

Of course, the categories or The Gypsies as social problem, Ihe Gypsies as exotic

Other and 'The Gypsies' as carriers and users of an Indie language, were not mutually

136



exclusive, and could be conflated as interlocking supporting discourses. For example, the

linguistic evidence that demonstrated Romani Indian origin could also be used to show that

as Orientals, they were alien to Europe, and thus unable to adapt to European receiving

societies. This line of argument was used by the Nazi regime, and later in the 1980s by Vekerdi in Hungary, when he argued (in an Orientalist journal) that the Romanies were still

entrapped in the Asiatic mode of production and thus could not adapt to socialism (Vekerdi

1981). There is a fundamental tension and conflict between the sociological and

anthropological/linguistic forms of subject-construction, for the more successful are the

inclusionary methods of social control of the former, the less available as subjects are the

essentialised exotics kept separate by exclusionary measures of the latter, and vice versa.

Grellmann's Influence

The concepts and perspectives that Grellmann introduced have become sedimented in both

scientific and lay discourse during the last two centuries and have provided discursive

rationalisation and legitimisation for a wide range of both scholarly studies and of state

practices towards Romanies. Willems and Lucassen have examined the way in which

Grellmann's notions have been perpetuated in Dutch encyclopaedias (1990). Hancock has

traced the manner in which fundamental errors originating with Grellmann have been

transmitted through successive writers (1996). It is not difficult to find Grellmann's ideas

recurring unchanged in studies of 'The Gypsies' two centuries after he wrote. One example

should suffice here. In 1783, Grellmann wrote:

They [Gypsies] have no care about futurity; they are unacquainted with either

anxiety or solicitude; and pass through every day lively and satisfied (1787:68,

English edition). Stewart, an anthropologist who studied Romanies in Hungary, wrote

For the Gypsies there is no angel of history, nor is there a past to be redeemed.

They live with their gaze fixed on a permanent present that is always a becoming, a

timeless now in which their continued existence as Rom is all that counts

(1997:246).

After Grellmann

Clearly, when in 1887 Ibbetson wrote to Notes and Queries with his suggestion for the

formation of a club, he believed that there were enough scholars interested in 'The Gypsies'

as subjects to create the critical mass needed to form a learned society and produce a

journal. Prior to the founding of the GLS, six of the dozen original founders (Leland,

Crofton, MacRitchie, Groome, the Archduke Joseph and Bataillard) had already published books on 'The Gypsies'. With the foundation of the GLS a century after Grellmann wrote,

the 'Anglo-American Romany Rais' that Ibbetson had appealed to, had formalised 'The

Gypsies' as specific subjects for study. The formation of the GLS in 1888 is clearly a

crucial discursive disjuncture, as important as Grellmann's original paradigm-shift; the

possibility of a system of knowledge production with 'The Gypsies' as its specific object of

study was openly articulated, and thus began — to paraphrase Said — a body of knowledge

for dealing with 'The Gypsies', making statements about 'The Gypsies', authorising views

137



3i The Gypsies , descnbing The Gypsies', by teaching [about] the Gypsies', [and] ruling

3ver 'The Gypsies'.

But what and who exactly were these Romany Rais ? To understand this we need to

:onsider the influence of George Borrow.

George Borrow and Gypsylonsm

Borrow is a pivotal figure in the development of Gypsylonsm, but he died before the GLS

was founded, was never a member and thus never described himself as a Gypsylorist.

According to Elizabeth Pennell (Charles Godfrey Leland's niece, and herself later a

President of the GLS) when in 1874 Leland suggested the formation of a society for the

study of Gypsies, Borrow refused to become involved (Pennell 1906). However, in his

writings Borrow introduced and popularised two crucial concepts that were central in the

development and perpetuation of Gypsylorism: that of the true Romany, and that of the

Romany Rye, each of which was has been embedded in discourse to the present.

rhe True Romany — Fact or Fiction/

Die 'true Romany' is essentially a discourse that privileges a particular constellation ot

attributes as constituting an 'authentic' Romani identity. The popularity and attraction of

Borrow's representations for many middle-class Victorians effectively sedimented a crucial

distinction between the 'true Romany' on the one hand and other types of nomads and

itinerants (who were constructed as degenerates, and therefore suspect and dangerous) on

the other. Miscegenation between 'pure' Romanies and other 'impure' itinerants produced

dangerous hybrids (the 'half and halfs') that began not just a biological degeneration, but

also a linguistic and cultural decline (Acton 1974). These exonymic classificatory schemes

used to categorise Romanies are both implicitly racialised and racist. Focussing on a rigid racial hierarchy, and sedimenting notions of nineteenth century degeneracy, the binary

opposition between the 'real' Romani (exotic, of Indian origin 'racially', culturally pure,

uncontaminated and ahistorical — and living in a tent), and the inclusive category of all

other degenerate hybridised 'mixed bloods' (all other miscellaneous nomads,

autochthonous, racially and culturally mixed and contaminated, but the product of

contemporary social and economic forces — and thus living rough under hedges or in the

new-fangled caravans) served to guide sedentarist-nomad relationships in England for over

a century.

For example, in 1953 m an article entitled I he Gypsy Problem, rraser wrote:

One can rarely be certain whether the word I uypsy J is being used in its proper

sense, to describe the obstinately surviving minority race of pure-bred Romanies —

that is, as pure bred as one finds in these times — who still uphold as best they can

the nomadic traditions of their ancestors; or whether the true Gypsies are being

lumped together with other social groups, like mumpers, squatters and tramps (Fraser 1953:82, emphases added).

More recently, a UK Conservative Party Consultation Paper on Reform oj the Caravan

Sites Act 1968 states "gypsies (sic) no longer follow the traditional occupations of many

years ago such as horse dealing, handicrafts and fortune telling" and are no longer "up

holding the nomadic traditions of their ancestors" (1992, section 10). That is, by relin

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quishing a 'traditional' way of life, they have ceased to behave as 'true Romanies', safely

existing only in a mythic past. The more that 'The Gypsies' are actually seen in the present,

the more they are shifted from ahistorical Romanticised exotics to real, dangerously

inauthentic, social problems. The Consultation Paper quite explicitly states that "The

problem has grown faster than its remedy" (Section 8).

The Romany Rye

The other crucial contribution that Borrow made was the concept of 'the Romany Rye',

writing a book of that title (1857). The phrase has the idiomatic meaning of "a patron

(always gaje) [non-Romani] whose familiarity with and generosity to Gypsies has earned

him an honoured status among them" (Behlmer 1985:237). The term was also used idio

matically to mean 'Gypsy (sic) Scholar' in the sense of a scholar who studies Romanies.

Borrow used the phonetic spelling 'Rye'; later Gypsylorists used the alternative spelling

'Rai', which has gained greater currency. It was an honorific that was more often self

ascribed than bestowed by Romanies.

The concept of 'the Romany Rai' privileges a particular power/knowledge relationship between the Rai as a favoured outsider, and the 'true Romany' as the source of authentic

information within the Romani collectivity. Rais, of course, never had anything to do with

degenerate (and therefore inauthentic) half-breeds; for example, an early Gypsylorist wrote

as follows: "she is no posh-rat [half-blood] but a real tachi Romani chai [true Gypsy girl] with the blood of the old Hemes, Boswells and Lovells in her veins" (Thompson 1909:19).

Having access to privileged and authentic information, the Rai could then interpret this

knowledge for re-presentation to individuals outside the group. The pages of the JGLS

were filled by people making such claims to privileged access and the capacity to interpret and represent Romani life.

Thus the 'Romany Rai' is an ambiguous figure, not Romani, but because of their

privileged relationship, having a special attachment to 'true Romanies'. The Gypsylorist

cited above makes this relationship abundantly clear; "they were our Gypsies, and we were

their Rais" (Thompson 1909:19, emphases added). Rais often claimed to have access to hermetic knowledges denied to those clearly of non

Romani identity or blood, and particularly those other gaje scholars of Romani affairs who

were not fortunate enough to be accorded the status of Rai. This mediating position, and

the claim to privileged access to authentic knowledge, enabled the Rais of the GLS to

effectively control the direction of research and scholarship into Romanies.

To become an effective Gypsylorist, one had to aim to become a Romani Rai, or at least

be found acceptable by existing Romani Rais. For example, Brian Vesey Fitzgerald was a

writer on naturalist and country matters, and editor of the naturalist magazine The Field. He

had never researched or written anything about Romanies, yet he was able, with the

assistance of members of the GLS, to compile and publish a book, The Gypsies of Britain

in 1944, complete with a dedication in deep Welsh Romani dialect.8 This was approvingly reviewed in the pages of JGLS, and accepted as a long-awaited definitive popularising on

the subject of British Gypsies — hardly surprising. Shortly after, Vesey Fitzgerald joined the GLS, began contributing to the JGLS and reviewing books on Romani topics. He was

soon accorded the status of a Romani Rai. He, too, absorbed the concepts of miscegenation

139



ind degeneracy involved in the discourse of the true Romani, as is clear from his review of

Dominic Reeve's book Smoke in the Lanes. Vesey Fitzgerald criticised Reeve for

dismissing the work of the early Gypsylorists, and "practically everything that has been

written in this Journal" and for Reeve's insistence that only Romanies or part-Romanies like

tiimself could understand Romani life (Vesey Fitzgerald 1958 137)9. Vesey Fitzgerald then

reinforced his acquired epistemological position as a Romani Rai by explaining the reason

for Reeve's errors was that he was not writing about 'true' Gypsies:

Ihe picture of Romani life drawn here would revolt the tace Kale [literally true

Blacks'; the Kale were the Romanies from North Wales, allegedly the purest of the

'true Romanies' in the British Isles, so that idiomatically, the phrase implies the

truest of the 'true Romanies']. Equally the posh-rat [half-blood] would be revolted

.... What he is describing is life among the 'travellers' [non-Romani itinerants]. And

there is a world of difference separating 'travellers' and tace Kale. These are the

diddikais [a Romani term of contempt]. Some of them can boast Romani blood,

though in most cases, I fancy, it is, by now, a pretty thin stream (Vesey Fitzgerald

1958:137). Since Borrow's day, what 'Romany Rai' has often meant in practice is that self-appointed

qaje 'experts' and 'scholars' created and projected discourses, narratives and represen

tations of Romanies that served their own ends. That is, they were the equivalent of the

Orientalist scholars who created the subject of 'The Orient' and 'The Oriental'.

Gypsylorism and Orientalism.

Once Romani Otherness had been better explained by Grellmann through an exotic Oriental

origin in India, the discursive task of locating them as Other became more manageable, and

the study of 'The Gypsies' was expanded and elaborated. Once the GLS had been formed, the construction of 'The Gypsies' as a specific subject for study was formalised, and

scholarship about Romanies became more sharply focussed. Much of the early scholarship

of Gypsylorism sought to refine and clarify the origin of the Romanies; this was termed 'the

Gypsy problem' by the Gypsylorists. They also sought to determine the timing and routes

of their migratory movements from India into Europe, and the degree to which they had

retained Indian elements of culture, and particularly of language. Hence most of the early

studies of Gyspylorism were embedded in Orientalism. The links between Orientalism and

Gypsylorism can readily be seen from the membership list of the inaugural GLS, which

contains a number of prominent Orientalists and Indologists, including Sir Richard Burton

and G. A. Grierson, who later administered the Linguistic Survey of India and was also later

a President of the GLS. There were also a small number of members actually resident in

the Orient.

Furthermore, in the 1889 issue of JGLS, Crotton had compiled a list ot Books etc in

English Relating to Gypsies, comprising some 270 items, including Asiatic Researches, The

Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, The American Antiquarian and Oriental

Journal, an Anthropological Society monograph on the Gypsies of Bengal, Alexander

Paspati's Memoir on the Language of the Gypsies in the Turkish Empire, The Gypsies of

India by David MacRitchie, editor of JGLS, The Gypsies of Egypt by Captain Newbold, and more (Crofton 1889).

140



Poor to the establishment of JGLS, some of the earliest studies of Romani language and

nigration appeared in Orientalist journals.10 The epistemological position of Gypsylorism

is a variant of Orientalism was made overt in the second issue of JGLS, when Grierson

wrote "Romany is almost letter for letter the same as Domani, the plural of Dom" and in a

footnote the editor commented "this resemblance is not apparent to non-Orientalists

11888:71).

The Orality of Gypsylorism

All fools, said Mrs Petulengro, catch at words, and very naturally, as by doing so

they hope to prevent the possibility of rational conversation (Borrow 1857:33).

[ wish to examine the articulations and connections between Orientalism and Gypsylorism

3y utilising the concept of orality as an example of the way in which the Gypsylorists instructed 'The Gypsies' as subjects.

The notion of an Indian origin of the Romanies, popularised by Urellmann, though not

initially discovered by him, was based on linguistic comparisons of written forms of

Romani. Since Grellmann, linguistic analysis of Romani dialects has been a central feature

jf Gypsylorist investigation, continuing to the present (Matras 1995; Matras, Bakker and

Kyuchukov 1997). However, with the advent of the GLS, the later Gypsylorists sought to

move closer to the original spoken sources of Romani dialects. Romani dialects, although

subject to comparative philological analysis through the nineteenth century, were also living

spoken dialects. Part of the Gypsylorist project involved extending their control over the

oral expression of Romani dialect.

Young has argued that the development of racism was grounded in academic discourse,

beginning with Blumenbach in Gottingen, and that later nineteenth century constructions of

typologies of 'races' was also intimately linked with the development of comparative

philology, particularly German philology (Young 1993). Orientalist scholarship, partic

ularly Sanskrit scholarship and the search for an Indo-European Ur-language, was

embedded in a nineteenth century conception of philology as "a comprehensive historical

discipline", whereby language, thought, societies, civilisations are inseparable and the

"intertwined ends and means of philological investigation" thus making philology "a master

science of the human mind" (Dharwadker 1993:175-176). The notion that language was the

key to civilizations and to human origins meant that the search for the Indo-European Ur

language was inextricably linked to the construction of racism, since by finding the group of

people who spoke the Ur-language, one would thereby find the first and purest civilisation,

from which others were merely derivative. As Pollock (1993) has convincingly argued,

during the nineteenth century, the major intellectual and financial investment in Orientalism,

particularly philology and Indology, occurred in Germany. He has also shown how this

German Orientalism was specifically focussed on the philological roots of a putative Indo

European language and an Aryan civilisation that was later to provide an ideological foundation for Nazism. Hence, it is impossible to consider the development of academic

disciplines — including Orientalism and Gypsylorism — without also considering the role

of philology and of the development of racism.

Beginning with Grellmann, whose theory ror the origin 01 the Gypsies was grounded in

comparative philology, the development and continuation of Gypsylorism was also in

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extncably linked with the development of nineteenth century racism and comparative

philology. Grellmann was based at Gottingen, and knew Blumenbach, a monogeneticist, who with his classificatory system for human types had introduced the terms 'Caucasian',

'Mongoloid' and 'Negroid' in to discourses on race (Willems 1997:40-41).

Just as the racists argued for biological degeneracy from the state of original racial purity,

because of mixing and hybridity, so too the philologists argued for a linguistic degeneracy

from the Ur-language (originally Hebrew, but subsequently shifted to an earlier but

undiscovered Indo-European language) also through mixing and hybridity. Borrow initially,

and later the Gypsylorists, also accepted these notions of biological and linguistic

degeneracy through hybridity in relation to 'TheGypsies'.

Orientalism, Gypsylorism and Linguistic Hybndity

Orality versus Literacy

I want to now examine a particular form of linguistic hybridity, what Bakhtin (1986) has

called utterances, as part of the Gypsylorist project. 1 also want to examine some of the

ways in which Gypsylorism operated at the boundary of orality and literacy, and the way in

which the ambiguities of these boundary conditions influenced the development of

Gypsylorism as a discursive formation.

Just as 'Oriental' Jones had instrumental and practical reasons for learning Sanskrit, so to

the early Gypsylorists had much the same instrumental and practical reasons for learning

Romani dialects — first to exert control over unreliable native informants, and second, for

the pleasure and amusement provided by the use of the language.

In his seminal work, Orality and Literacy, Walter Ong examined some of the fundamental

differences between oral cultures, where speech is primary, and those he termed

chirographic and typographic, where writing and printing respectively are dominant (1982). He examined some of the significant differences between orality and literacy and, in

particular, the many ways in which the advent of writing has produced 'autonomous'

discourse, detached from its author and thereby unavailable for questioning and challenge in

the same immediate way as oral discourse. He argues that "more than any other single

invention, writing has transformed human consciousness"(Ong 1982:78).

This transformation of human consciousness also means the loss of attributes of primary

orality (e.g. the use of mnemonics and formulae, additive and aggregative modes in

narration; the use of redundancy, conservative and traditional approaches to memorising

knowledge, concretisation, narration embedded in action, etc., (See Goody 1968; Ong 1982:77). Part of the preservationist scholarship of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

has sought to recapture some of these lost attributes of orality. Shotter has argued that

literacy tends to produce the belief that speech is the "'outer' expression to pre-existing

'inner' ideas, images or thoughts" (Shotter 1993:62); or as Harris puts it: "a string of words with the sound turned off'; such an abstraction has "only one conceivable archetype so far

in human history, the sentence of writing" (1980:18). Trapped in this chirographic system

of thought, it becomes increasingly difficult for "an essentially literate society .... to

conceptualize something it has already forgotten, and which cannot be recalled from its

cultural past; what an essentially non-written form of language is like"(Harris 1980:18).

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Yet in many ways the attempt to capture the lost orality of a discarded cultural past is

exactly what motivated many folMorists and anthropologists and Gypsylorists in their

studies.

An important part of the Gypsylonst project was to 'preserve' Romani dialect, that is, to

conceptualise what an essentially non-written form of language is like. This preservationist

project was part of the much wider concern in the nineteenth century with degeneration; to

preserve was to stop decay (or at least slow down the rate of decay) and thereby stay closer

to some putative original state of purity. To do this, the oral forms of Romani, vocabularies,

folk-tales and folk-songs, had first to be captured, thereby converting the Romani spoken

word into the gaje written word. To facilitate this project in the era before sound-recording, the Gypsylorists were

continually searching for a standardised orthography or a written system for capturing

spoken Romani and accurately transliterating it. Sampson, in his monumental work The

Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales had utilised the services of contemporary phonetics experts

in his field work:

my friend and former colleague Professor Henry Cecil Wyld .... at several seances

with the old Gypsy Saiforella Wood aided me materially in the analysis of Welsh

Gypsy sounds and .... Dr T. Oakes Hirst.... on two visits with me in Merionethshire

made a systematic phonetic study of the speech of Matthew Wood and his sons

(Sampson 1926:xiii) There was much irritation amongst the early Gypsylorists with the difficulty of analysing

word lists and vocabularies which had been collected by earlier compilers using

idiosyncratic systems, which had produced 'inaccurate' notations and 'incorrect'

transliterations. To try to solve this problem, a number of different systems were suggested.

Macfie, in 1910, circulated to members of the GLS and others, a pamphlet on A System of

Anglo-Romani Spelling for English Readers and British Printers, asking for criticisms and

suggestions. In his pamphlet, Macfie had dismissed the method of analogy with common

English words "that .... produces .... hideous forms [and] tends to vulgarize Gypsy Lore

amongst grovelling people who are unworthy to penetrate its mysteries" (Macfie 1910:2).

Many articles in the early issues of JGLS were concerned with correcting, modifying and

codifying word lists and vocabularies that had been collected by idiosyncratic methods

earlier in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sampson, in his Dialect of the Gypsies of

Wales, adopted the phonemic system of Henry Sweet. Other systems were adopted to

transliterate European dialects of Romani. Once the Gypsylorists and Romani Rais had mastered the chirographic and typographic

codes of a standardised orthography, they were then able to capture and concretise Romani

spoken utterance — words, tales and songs — with equal ease. Having done this, they

could then interchange these captured items between themselves, thereby achieving a form

of domination as standardised writers of Romani over the diffuse and fragmented Romani

speakers of Romani. This, in turn, allowed the Gypsylorists to claim for themselves the

privileged position of being able to grasp the oral communications of the Romani people in

ways that Romanies themselves could not grasp. There are numerous examples in the

pages of the JGLS of Gypsylorists describing the actual Romani speech and vocabulary of

Romanies, whilst pointing out how these usages were incorrect and ungrammatical, or not

even 'real' Romani dialect, but some form of debased cant or slang. In a particularly ironic

143



vay, the Gypsylorists even developed their own coinage m Romani to describe this decayed

lialect — poggadi chib — or 'broken-tongue'. As a corollary to this, when English speech

)y Romanies was recorded in the pages of the JGLS, it was more often that not

ransliterated as broken English —

ungrammatical, crudely accented, inarticulate, vulgar;

:or example "I was a-stoppin' by C — for de fair dere, Noar an' I ad' five wery fine mares"

Anon 1910:74).

By presenting Romani speech in these ways, the numerous Uypsylonst instances ot

vord-collecting, assembling of word lists and vocabularies, and analysis of this material

rnabled them to assert that current usage [i.e. the actual oral communication of the

Romanies] was simply a degenerate or decayed version of some earlier and purer language,

i 'deep Romanes, that was closer to the original Ur-language from the Indian homeland.

\s Amin (1994) has shown in relation to collecting and cataloguing Indian agricultural erms in colonial India according to European categorising principles, such written

recording of oral usages can effectively conceal asymmetrical power relationships.

As argued earlier, this search for the Romam Ur-language was intimately ana lnextncaoty

inked to the other 'Gypsy Problem', that is, accurately identifying the Romani Ur

lomeland in India. In a mimesis of Max Muller's Aryanism, much of the late-nineteenth

md early twentieth century philological Gypsylorism was addressed precisely to these two

allegedly interlinked phenomenon (Maw 1990).

From writing to speaking; trom recording to utterance

Having established, through 'capture' and 'preservation' their privileged position or

controlling written forms of Romani, some Gypsylorists then began to extend their domain

into spoken forms of Romani. Many Gypsylorists learned Romani dialects, English, Welsh

ind European varieties and both spoke to and wrote to each other in these dialects.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, John Sampson had begun to capture ana

preserve the 'deep Romanes' of the Welsh Kale, a dialect allegedly one step closer to the

Romani Ur-language. Many of the Gypsylorists eagerly began to learn this, as the 'purest'

Romani dialect available to them. When Sampson finally published his monumental work

The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales in 1926, a later generation of Gypsylorists had an

authentic and authoritative written source of Romani grammar and vocabulary from which

to learn. Some sought out tutors and informants amongst the Romanies, continuing the

preservationist drive by trying to capture the last remnants of the 'pure' speech; the

Gypsylorist, T.W. Thomson had contacted Esmeralda Groome (a Romani woman who was

the widow of Francis Hindis Groome, one of the founders of the GLS); another Gypsylorist, F.G. Huth, had also contacted Esmeralda Groome, and later Rosiana Griffiths and Harry

'Turpin' Wood. The latter two were speakers of the 'deep Romanes' of the Welsh Kale.

However, since the supply of available informants who had command of the fast

disappearing 'deep' Romani was severely limited, much of the learning had to come from

other Gypsylorists. Clearly, this form of learning, primarily based on gaje initiated written

accounts, secondarily on gaje oral sources amongst the Gypsylorists, and with limited

contact with native speakers produced a hybridised form of psuedo-orality.

This process or pseudo-orality, the search by a hterate society to conceptualize wnat a

non-written form of language is like, is particularly well exemplified (ironically) by a book

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)f poetry by John Sampson, the so-called Rai of Rais. The poems were published post

lumously in 1931 as Romane [literally 'Romani Songs'] and subtitled Poems in Romani

vith English renderings, not by John Sampson, but by John Sampsoneste, a Romani

endering of his English name. In the Preface (or as he called it in Romani, Lanano Lav,

iterally 'fore word') he wrote:

xiy first impulse to write verse in Komani arose trom the inspiration ot the tongue

tself, that precious inheritance from the goddess Saravasti [the Hindu goddess of

speech and tongues] .... an ancient and synthetic language which has remained so

fresh and unsophisticated, and so entirely unfettered by any literary tradition

Sampson 1931:5, emphases added) rhus Sampson was here doing a number ot things. Clearly, he was quite explicitly not just

:onceptualising what a non-written form of language is like, an orality 'entirely unfettered

jy any literary tradition', but also claiming to be actively working in such an oral modality,

inspired 'by the tongue itself, and thereby presumably operating in a different form of

consciousness from his literate persona. In so doing, the implication is that he is able to

operate in an oral modality since he has command of a dialect closer to the Romani Ur

language derived from India, 'ancient and synthetic [a] precious inheritance from the

goddess Saravasti'. Paradoxically, while 'deep Romanes' is claimed to be 'ancient and

synthetic' (presumably because it has been transmitted orally, and is therefore still a 'living'

language), it is also simultaneously 'fresh and unsophisticated' for precisely the same

reasons, being grounded in orality, and uncontaminated by 'literary tradition'.

Sampson further grounded his poetry morality by claiming that the poems:

were composed for the pleasure of myself and my friends witnout thought oj

publication. There were no translations, and I fear that the English renderings here

given can convey to the reader but little of the spirit and sound of the original verse

(1931:6 (emphases added) The implication here is that the poems were originally spoken in Komani tor a small circle

of friends, who clearly must also have understood spoken 'deep Romani', and that by being

rendered into written English, something has been lost for the mere reader, that is the

primary orality of the sound of the verse. Furthermore, by producing the poems not just in

Romani, but 'with English renderings', Sampson was confirming his privileged position as a

Romani Rai, displaying not just his command of spoken Romani, but also displaying his

capacity to mediate between the orality of Romani and the written representations of

English. The creation of a specialised and esoteric knowledge ot Komani speech by tne

Gypsylorists was a pseudo-orality, because it was derived originally from a written form,

and mediated through non-native speakers. In this way claims to privileged knowledge

about Romani dialects by Gypsylorists, and especially their spoken utterance, produced a

hybrid in the Bakhtinian sense, that is: a mixture of two social languages within the limits ot a single utterance, an

encounter, within the arena of an utterance, between two different linguistic con

sciousnesses, separated from one another by an epoch, by social differentiation or

by some other factor (Bakhtin 1981:358). In the case of the Gypsylorists, the different linguistic consciousnesses were the primary

orality of the Romanies and the primary literacy of the Gypsylorists; the 'social

145



differentiation was clearly based on the asymmetrical relations of class position and the

concomitant privileges of education, income and status. Clearly, the ways that the Gypsy lorists spoke and wrote Romani dialects differed substantially from the way that the

Romanies spoke and wrote (or did not write) their Romani dialects, and also stemmed from

different motivations.

Bakhtin also examined linguistic hybndity from another viewpoint, that is,

'intentional semantic hybrid', the sort of linguistic game that Sampson had played

producing and publishing the Rotnane Gilia. Bahktin argued that: Intentional semantic hybrids are inevitably dialogic .... Two points of view are not

mixed, but set against each other dialogically .... the novelistic hybrid is an artistic

ally organised system for bringing languages into contact with one another, a

system having as its goal the illumination of one language by means of another, the

carving out of a living image of another language (1981:360-361, emphases

added). This 'intentional semantic hybridity' is precisely what Sampson was doing when he first

spoke and then wrote, then subsequently had printed and published, his Romane Gilia,

shifting from primary orality, to chirography, to typography.

The Gypsylorist Orality Imperative

Gypsylorist Pseudo-Orality and Orientalism

Along with Sampson, other Gypsylorists had to involve themselves in similar language

games, in order to create the privileged dialogue necessary for them to position themselves

as having grasped, and having command of, Romani dialects, both spoken and written. By

creating this privileged epistemological position, they simultaneously constituted and

continued their control of the discursive formation of Gypsylorism. These word-games were popular with the Gypsylorists. In a triple-sided Orientalist closure, Sampson in 1902 had produced a Romani version of the Edward Fitzgerald's English translation of the

Persian Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1902). Many of the other early Gypsylorists also

wrote poetry and songs in Romani and used Romani pen-names, made Romani puns and

riddles, produced a Romani calendar, used Romani rather than euphemistic English for

sexual references and the like. That is, the assumption that knowledge of spoken Romani

(especially 'deep' Romani — the Welsh or European dialects) and the ability to produce

written communication in it was a clear marker of privileged status as a Gypsylorist and a

Romani Rai. This Gypsylorist command of language (note the metaphor of control and domination)

could often be extended to extreme lengths. For example, a prominent Gypsylorist, after

meeting a bear-leader in England, who consistently spoke only Serbo-Croat and French, and

whose only spoken Romani was to count the numerals from 1 to 20, assumed that he must

have been a Serbian Romani, and stated that if he had been able to stay and talk longer, he

knew that the man would have soon conversed in fluent Romani with him!

We saw earlier that the original meaning of Orientalism expressed by Judge William Jones

involved two aspects. There was the practical and instrumental motivation to expedite control of India by removing English dependency on the Indian pandits in legal

146



nterpretations. Jonesian Orientalism thus clearly had a political dimension, creating the

:onditions that allowed further colonial control of India, and in that sense can be said to be

iimilar to Saidian Orientalism. However, since the Gypsylorists had no direct political con

rol over their Gypsy subjects, this element of Jonesian Orientalism is absent. However, the

nore scholarly motivation of Jonesian Orientalism, translating ancient Oriental texts 'for

lmusement' found expression in many of the early Gypsylorist projects (for example,

;ollecting and capturing Romani dialect for preservation, of developing (allegedly) greater

linguistic competence than native speakers, of their creation of a pseudo-orality in their

language-games).

However, intentional hybridity in the tSakhtiman sense enables contestation ana

;hallenge, "a politicised setting of cultural differences against each other dialogically"

Young 1993:22) whereby one voice is able to unmask the other. For Bakhtin, this be

;omes a powerful source of power/knowledge, since he argues that authoritative discourse

:annot enter into intentional hybrid constructions, for by so doing, its single-voiced

authority will be undermined. Authoritative discourse can of course enter into intentional

hybrid constructions to the extent that its literary expression can conceal itself from

exposure; this can be done as long as primary orality renders literary expression

inaccessible. When primary orality shifts towards literate understanding, then the inten

tional semantic hybridity can be unmasked. This cannot occur however, until a sufficient

level of literacy develops amongst those whose primary orality has been appropriated, until

they can see what hybridisation has occurred; only then can they be in a position to unmask

it.

What Said aimed to do with Orientalism was begin this unmasking process, by showing

(low various representations of 'The Orient' by the West had created and perpetuated a

discursive and actual subject-position that was at odds with the realities of the Orient. I

hope that in this paper I have indicated that a similar unmasking process is possible through

examining the discursive construction ofGypsylorism.

Conclusion

Orientalism continues to exert a significant influence on modern scholarship, generating

considerable discussion and criticism. For example, Bakic-Hayden and Hayden have ex

amined "Orientalist variations on the theme 'Balkans'" (1992:1) and Todorova has also

examined 'Balkanisation' as a derivative form of Orientalism (1994). In a more recent

analysis, Bakic-Hayden develops a notion of 'nesting Orientalisms' to examine conditions

in the former Yugoslavia (1995). In a review of reviews, Prakash examines the "seditious

life" of "Orientalism now" (1995:1) whilst O'Hanlon and Washbrook critically problemat ise the Saidian position "After Orientalism" (1992:141). Currie devotes an entire book to

considering the situation "Beyond Orientalism" (1996). As a "form of thought and representation for dealing with the alien , now does uypsy

lorism compare to Orientalism? (Clifford 1988:261). The hegemony of Gypsylorism, that

extended period of discursive domination and subject-constitution of 'The Gypsies' that

began with establishment of the GLS and JGLS in 1888, has not been subjected to the same

level of critical scrutiny and deconstructive exposure as Orientalism. It was not until the

1970s that subaltern challenges from Romani political organisations such as the World

14/



<omam Congress and the International Romani Union questioned the discursive

instruction of Gypsylorism and not until the 1980s that a more direct challenge to the

iiscursive dominance of previous subject positionings of Romani people occurred in

Hancock's article entitled "Talking Back" (1981). From the outset, the British-based CjLS and JuLS were administered as a small-scale

;lub, with the first four series of JGLS always being privately printed for members. The 1GLS never had any formal University or other academic affiliation, thus often escaping the

degree of peer-review and scrutiny normally associated with academic publishing.

After the demise of the UK GLS, the North American Chapter ot the GLS continued to

operate, mounting a total of nine academic conferences on 'The Gypsies' between 1981 and

1988, and publishing the proceedings of six of these, as well as a number of other

Dublications (De Silva, Grumet and Nemeth 1988; Grumet 1985,1986; Lockwood and S.

Salo 1994; M. Salo 1981,1990). These tended to perpetuate the Gypsylorist folkloric,

anthropological and linguistic emphases of the English GLS, although there were some

papers dealing with social issues, for example, the treatment of Romanies in Nazi Germany,

[n 1991, voting to retain the original name of Gypsy Lore Society, the North American

Chapter incorporated the GLS in the USA and began publishing the Fifth Series of the

J GLS, also retaining the original title. Although, like the old GLS, the new GLS was not

University-based, in its running it followed stricter administrative procedures than its British

forebear, electing its Board, (including on one occasion, a Romani woman). In producing the JGLS Fifth Series, conventional scholarly procedures of editorial and peer-review

refereeing were followed. However, the overall thrust of the American GLS and JGLS

perpetuated the earlier Gypsylorist subject-positioning of Romanies as exotic outsiders,

with a heavy emphasis on anthropological and linguistic studies and limited critical

sociological analyses, as Acton has shown (1979). The Fifth Series JGLS, although

including many articles dealing with such pertinent social issues as the treatment of the

Romanies in the Nazi Germany and assimilationist state policies in relation to Romanies in

Poland, still had a heavy emphasis on folkloric, anthropological and linguistic studies. For

example the 1991 JGLS, included a Transylvanian Gypsy folk tale, with songs, analysed by

an ethnomusicologist and historical phonologist(Kovalcsik andTalos 1991)

In late 1999 the Board of the revived American GLS changed the name ot their journal

from Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society to Romani Studies (continuing Journal of the

Gypsy Lore Society)." At the same time, however, it retained the name Gypsy Lore Society.

This is a clear indication of the perpetuation of the Gypsylorist positioning of 'The Gypsies' as suitable subjects for study. The current GLS also continues to claim a privileged

spistemological position in the construction of knowledges about 'The Gypsies'. The GLS

website states:

Because so much of the material published on (jypsies and Travellers on the Web is

misleading due either to stereotyping, antiquated perspectives on ethnicity or

culture, poor scholarship, excessive political correctedness (sic) or other biases and, in some cases, outright fabrication, the GLS does not make any claims for the

accuracy of materials presented on any sites other than its own (http://www.gypsy

loresociety.org/glextlinks.htm). James Clirford poses a crucial question in relation to Orientalism:

The key theoretical issue raised by Orientalism concerns the status oi all iorms or

148



thought and representation for dealing with the alien. Can one ultimately escape

procedures of dichotomising, restructuring and textualising in the making of

interpretive statements about foreign cultures and traditions? (Clifford 1988:261, emphasis in original).

The same question can also be posed of Gypsylorism. The clear links and continuities

between the older British GLS and the newer American GLS seem to indicate that in spite

of gradually introducing contemporary material, there is still a fundamental denial of

coevalness for the Romani people, who continue to be positioned allochronically and

subjected to procedures of dichotomising, restructuring and textualising (Fabian 1983). Said poses a further crucial question in relation to the hegemonic dominance 01

Orientalism, namely, how can we treat the cultural, historical phenomenon of Orientalism as a kind of

willed human work — not of mere unconditioned ratiocination— in all its historical

complexity, detail and worth without at the same time losing sight of the alliance

between cultural work, political tendencies, the state and the specific realities of

domination? (Said 1978:15, emphasis in original). The same question can also be posed of Gypsylorism. Said also defined Orientalism as

The web of racism, cultural stereotypes, political imperialism, dehumanizing

ideology holding in the Arab or the Muslim .... which every Palestinian has come to

feel as his uniquely punishing destiny (Said 1978:27).

Similarly Gypsylorism created and still creates a web of racism, cultural stereotypes,

political imperialism and dehumanizing ideology for the Romanies. On the concluding page of his book, Said states:

the worldwide hegemony of Orientalism and all it stands for can now be challenged,

if we can benefit properly from the general twentieth century rise to political and

historical awareness of so many of the earth's peoples (Said 1978:328). As more of the world's Romanies acquire and develop the analytical tools ana language

to expand their political and historical awareness about their own positions, both

discursively constructed and materially imposed, they can likewise begin the testing of

assumptions and critical interrogations of received wisdom that will mount a sustained

challenge to the worldwide hegemony of Gypsylorism. It is hoped that this paper can

contribute to a situation where the Romanies as "the subaltern and constitutively different"

can begin that "disruptive articulation exactly where in European culture, silence and

compliance could previously be depended on to quiet them down" (Said 1989:223).

NOTES

1. 'Gypsies' is a corruption of 'Egyptian', based on the erroneous belief that they

originated in Egypt. As an exonym, it is considered derogatory. The appropriate ethnonyms,

common to all Romani dialects are Rom (masculine singular), Romni (feminine singular),

Roma (plural) and Romani (adjective); Romanes is the term used for Romani dialect. The

terms Romani people, or simply Romani or Romanies, are also used in English. Where

possible, I have used the appropriate ethnonyms.

2. Brian Vesey Fitzgerald had initially suggested the title The Race Within for his book later

149



published as Gypsies of Britain: An Introduction to their History.

3. The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society was published as Old Series 1888-1892; New

Series 1907-1916; Third Series 1922-1974; Fourth Series 1974-1978; and in the USA as

Fifth Series 1991-present. Each Series began with Volume One. To avoid confusion, the

convention in referencing is to include the Series (shown as OS, NS, Third Series, Fourth

Series and Fifth Series) as well as volume and pages.

4. Although there were organisations and journals other than GLS and JGLS that

constituted 'The Gypsies' as subjects for study, the earliest of these was not formed until 1949

and they never had the history of publication and international distribution that produced the

hegemonic dominance of the GLS and JGLS. Most important of these were Etudes Tsiganes,

publishing Etudes Tsiganes, based in France, Centro Studi Zingari, publishing Lacio Drom, based in Italy, and The Institute for Romani Studies, publishing Roma, based in India.

5. All citations from Grellmann in this paper are taken from the 1787 English edition.

6. Lombroso (1875) had a section on hereditary Gypsy criminality in his work L'Uomo

Deliquente.

7. I am indebted to Professor Geoffrey Samuel, Department of Sociology and Anth

ropology, University of Newcastle, for the information on the link between Buckland and the

Wiccan revival.

8. This was translated into 'deep' Welsh Romani by Dora Yates, Honorary Secretary of the

GLS, from an English version supplied by Vesey Fitzgerald. He had little knowledge of any

Romani dialect at the time of writing his book.

9. Ironically, Reeve later admitted in a BBC TV interview that he was not of Romani

descent.

10. For example: Lieut F. Irvine (1819) "Similitude between Gypsy and Hindi Languages",

Literary Society of Bombay 16:163-174; J.S. Harriott (1830) "Observations on the Oriental

Origin of the Romanichal, or the Tribe Miscalled Gypsey and Bohemian", Transactions of the

Royal Asiatic Society 2:518-588; and A. Curzon (1856) "On the Original Extension of the

Sanskrit Language over Certain Portions of Asia and Europe: and on the Ancient Aryans,

Indians or Hindus of India-Proper", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 16:172-200.

11. Details of the current Gypsy Lore Society can be found at: http://www.gypsylore

society.org/index.html.

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