British Origin of Gypsies
In his Ancient and Modern Britons, MacRitchie claimed that the Gypsies were not of foreign origin, but were in fact the more conservative element of the native British population who had retained their nomadic way of life while the majority adopted a settled lifestyle. He further claimed that the ancient Britons were a dark-skinned people, a claim which elicited the interest of Afrocentrist authors, but has no support amongst mainstream historians or scientists.
Read more about this topic: David MacRitchie
Famous quotes containing the words british, origin and/or gypsies:
“All of Western tradition, from the late bloom of the British Empire right through the early doom of Vietnam, dictates that you do something spectacular and irreversible whenever you find yourself in or whenever you impose yourself upon a wholly unfamiliar situation belonging to somebody else. Frequently it’s your soul or your honor or your manhood, or democracy itself, at stake.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“My mother said that I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood,”
—Unknown. Gypsies in the Wood (l. 1–2)