mercedo's Journal: Roman, Romany, Romania

Roman is needless to say ancient Roman who built the Roman Empire. People in modern Romania are thought to be one of direct descendants from Roman people who colonised and settled in this region of Eastern Europe. As a matter of fact, they use Roman alphabet and their language is related to Latin. So there's no particular problem on this.

The question I've been holding is the word Romany. Gypsy was called so because they were thought to be from Egypt in Europe, but actually they are thought to be originated from northen India. At some time in history they started moving to the West for unknown reasons.

They call themselves Romany or they prefer to be called so, in Romany, their language, Rom means just 'man' or 'husband'.

Eskimo don't like to be called so but Inuit that means 'man' in their language, Ainu don't like to be called so but'Utari' that means 'man' in their language. Why?

All three people have had hard times in their long history, perhaps their men were killed and women were forced to marry newly arrived people, and as the times go by people in their tribe unintentionally started calling themselves in their master's name. The name used to be a master's name but in the end because they are so interchanged and mingled that they couldn't notice who they were any more.

I don't think it related to harship

[sam_handelman]

The sioux name for themselves (Lakota) more or less just means "people". It is quite common for any population that does not live in cities to simply refer to themselves as "the people" in their own language. Whether or not they prefer that outsiders use the same name generally depends on what the name imposed by outsiders means - the Lakota are perfectly happy to be called Sioux (which means deadly enemy in Crow, quite macho), but Eskimo (which means eaters of raw fish) is derogatory.

For the other names I

Re:I don't think it related to harship

[mercedo]

Probably the Romany word for man and the people who are from Roman descendants happened to be the same which differs to the other two (or more)cases of Inuet and Utari. Once I asked one of my friends who majored European history about it, he replied 'It is a coincidence'.

My assumption is intuitive not inductive and only applied in this particular case -prefix Rom, therefore not endurable in academic thoughts. Next time I'm going to find more inductive one, e.g. there are so many cases to back my assumption,

Re:I don't think it related to harship

[kesuki]

the 'city' of rome is named after a person, and so thus the whole roman empire is named after one guy who founded a city ;) thus it is coincidence...

Re:I don't think it related to harship

[mercedo]

Yeah Rome was founded by twin brothers Romurus & Ramus ( I hope I could spell their name correctly.) and older brother killed younger one Ramus then the history of Roman Empire started.

Certainly Rom is based on human name, thanks.

And Japanese gets in the way

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Romulus and Remus.

Re:And Japanese gets in the way

[mercedo]

Romulus and Remus. Next time I need to confirm first, obviously it is not difficult, thanks.

Re:And Japanese gets in the way

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Like I said- going from even katakana to romanji is kind of tough for a native Japanese speaker when it comes to l's and r's.....:-) Completely understandible error.

I hate to pick nits, but...

[Interrobang]

The plural of the native word for "Eskimo" is Inuit, not "Inuet," and the singular is Inuk. So, one Inuk, many Inuit.

Personally, I think the trend is indicative of a cultural change within our culture, where we've become more sensitive toward calling people what they want to be called, instead of just imposing a name on them and calling them what we want to call them.

Re:I hate to pick nits, but...

[mercedo]

Thanks for correction. Next time I need to confirm if it's dubious.