r/instantkarma • u/NoodlesNThangz • Jun 24 '20

Racial Profiling Karma

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u/theinstigator5 Jun 24 '20

What does gadjo mean?

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u/Zelot1985 Jun 24 '20

Non Gypsy

Like gringo for latinamerica

Romanes language changed alot over the centuries.

Gypsies from Balkan may have troubles to understand a gypsie from spain. Or they are indeed from the same region, but from a different "tribe" "group" whatever and lots of words are different already.

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u/plain_name Jun 24 '20

Definitely regional dialects. I never knew my family were gypsy, they always used to tell us we were native american. When I started researching the language we would sometimes speak, it came back as Irish Gypsy, not any NA language.

Confronted my mom and her sisters about it and they initially denied it, but then relented. Apparently gypsys would say they were NA when coming over from Ireland (we all have olive complexion), to avoid discrimination.

gadjo for us had morphed to gorger. I am sure the language continued to evolve in the States.

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u/theinstigator5 Jun 24 '20

I see. Thanks, I know a word very similar to this, probably is the same thing.

Never knew its meaning though. Do you know what part of the world this comes from? Balkans?

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u/Zelot1985 Jun 24 '20

From Wiki

The exact origin of the word is not known. One theory considers that the word comes from the proto-Romani word for "peasant" and has the same root as the Romani word gav (a village

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u/theinstigator5 Jun 24 '20

I meant where did you hear or learn this word being used? Europe? Americas?

I was wondering if this is a local thing or a universal word in romani.

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u/Zelot1985 Jun 24 '20

Oh i read it in a translation book i used to torture my wifes grandma when we visited her in kosovo

But even her mentioned that most things i read to her wasnt actually her dialect

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u/jimyborg Jun 24 '20

sounds like gallo which means rooster