pls hold my hand, graspie, google is hard :c

dukhal man o shoro
aka HOLY EFFING ESS WHY IS THIS NECESSARY

Words have different meanings in different languages. Sometimes these meanings are similar – for instance, the word vonga in Romani means money, and the word wonga in English means money too! But sometimes, words change meaning, or have different connotations when the language changes, such as chav – in Romani, a gypsy child, in English, working-class scum.

Roma is one of the latter.

In English, the word Roma refers simply to the rasa Roma. That's why people always do that annoying "Sinti/Roma" listing thing when they mean Romani. If it meant all gypsies then they wouldn't feel the need to list Sinti too, would they? But they do because the word Roma refers to the subgroup and nothing else. There are lots of gypsies who are neither Roma nor Sinti: the Gitanos, the Ciganos, the Kale, the Boyash, the Manouche, etc. That's why we use the word Romani instead of Roma when speaking English. It's a matter of inclusion. Because when you say "Roma" what you're actually saying is "none of the rest of you count".

Is that clear?

So next time a gypsy says "don't use Roma" don't fucking respond with:

a) I totally didn't know it was wrong omg! Please waste precious minutes of your life explaining it to me because wow I have no idea how to find this info myself even tho at the top of the post you're grumbling that someone always derails your posts in this comm which means there is at least one other post that I can go and read to see if I can work out the answer myself!

Because that's really annoying. So so so annoying. It means you can't be bothered to do the research. It means you're saying you care but not enough to actually put some effort in. This is literally 101 stuff, here. LITERALLY.

b) I was taught to say that (by my white teacher/friend/neighbour/politician/cat)!

Big deal. Gadje aren't really the people you should be listening to anyway, especially not white ones. Whereas you should be listening to gypsies bc omg we know best! I know it's hard to think of us as anything but uneducated thieving liars, but trust me (lol, no pun intended), your white bff is far less educated about this stuff than we are. BECAUSE IT IS OUR LIFE.

c) I heard a gypsy use it! So I can use it too!

You are not Romani. You do not speak any dialect of Romani.Fuck, I'm willing to bet you don't speak Punjabi either, which is where Romani comes from. You have no claim to that language or any words of that language. You're using English and therefore the English meanings of the words you use are the ones that you'll be held accountable to. So don't fucking try using "HDU i'm using the romanes word roma not the english one!!!!" as a defence because when you do you're just being an appropriating dickscab.

d) But the ERRC is a gypsy thing and they use Roma to mean all gypsies! Are you saying they're doing it wrong? Clearly you do not know what you're talking about!

Well, that's the thing you see. Unlike you, Gypsies can use words in Romani because it is our own language and we know what the words mean and how to use them. In Romanes (the Romani word for the Romani language, do try and keep up) the word Roma has a different meaning to English. You see, whilst in English it refers to a subgroup of gypsies, in Romanes Roma doesn't actually mean gypsy at all. We tell you it means that if you're being nosey and annoying and we want you to shut up and go away. But it doesn't actually mean that.

Really, it means human.

You see, the world thinks we're nothing but scum, and that we deserve all that genocide and rape and murder and poverty and complete and utter lack of human rights. And it hurts knowing that, it really fucking hurts that to so many people we are literally nothing, not even animals.

So we have this word, this stupid little word in our stupid little language that only we can use, to remind us that no matter what we are human. And it's so fucking galling of you -- the white people who have made our lives hell for a millennium -- taking our word to remind us of our humanity and using it like it's your word too... god. I just can't. 

And if some gypsies wanna make a charity or a group or whatever and they want to use Roma in that way then they can. And when referring to those charities/etc, yes, you should use the word Roma because that's what those gypsies wanted it to be called. But does that mean you can go around randomly firing off the word Roma every time you see a gypsy in the news? No, because you're still speaking English and that word still has a meaning.


And that, my poor little gadje, is why we tell you "use Romani, pls use Romani". And it's also why it annoys me that instead of taking it at face value and accepting Romani as the right word to use without fuss, you keep asking and asking and asking and not ever listening.

So here I am, holding your fucking hand and taking you through it because apparently clicking the romani tag and going back a few posts to see the last time this was explained is too much work for some of you. Can this be the last time, please? Do you think you can handle it now?

Because if you can't be bothered to listen to us when we tell you these things then I'd rather you ignored us completely.


eta: And when the scary nasty angry gypsies explain this shit for the hundredth time JUST FOR YOU, especially when they make a point of telling you that they're never seen as human by people like you, don't fucking run off to your personal journal to whinge and compare said gypsies to fucking DOGS^[]. You know, that's kinda impolite. Now my ~delicate sensibilities have been offended.