Fascinating fact of the day

[andrewducker]

I'm too tired to write anything useful this evening, but heres this:

Gypsies were not from Egypt at all, but from India.

Upon entering Christian Europe, the Roma realized much resentment was building because of their skin and social structure. So, they fabricated the story that they were descendants of the Egyptians who had enslaved the Israelites, explaining that for this reason God had condemned them to perpetual wandering. (Kochanowski 1980:25]. The Roma knew that many European countries were persecuting the Jews and that this false story would take some of the pressure off them. The story worked and the Roma became known as "Gypsies" derived from the word Egyptian.