Languedoc-Roussillon
Languedoc-Roussillon is a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it is part of the new region Occitanie, it comprises five departments, borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, Spain and the Mediterranean Sea on the other side. It is the southernmost region of mainland France; the first part of the name of the province of Languedoc-Roussillon comes from the French langue d'oc. In southern France, the word for "yes" was the Occitan language word oc. Prior to the 16th century, the central area of France was referred to as Languedoil, there the word for "yes" was oil in Old French becoming "oui"; these old place names referred to the areas where Old French were spoken. The Edict of Villers-Cotterets made French the official national language in 1539. Roussillon was the name of the medieval County of Roussillon; the region is made up of the following historical provinces: 68.7% of Languedoc-Roussillon was part the province of Languedoc: the departments of Hérault, Aude, the extreme south and extreme east of Lozère, the extreme north of Pyrénées-Orientales.
The former province of Languedoc extends over what is now the Midi-Pyrénées region, including the old capital of Languedoc Toulouse. 17.9% of Languedoc-Roussillon was the province of Gévaudan, now the department of Lozère. A small part of the former Gévaudan lies inside the current Auvergne region. Gévaudan is considered to be a sub-province inside the province of Languedoc, in which case Languedoc would account for 86.6% of Languedoc-Roussillon. 13.4% of Languedoc-Roussillon, located in the southernmost part of the region, is a collection of five historical Catalan pays, from east to west: Roussillon, Conflent and Cerdagne, all of which are now part of the department of Pyrénées-Orientales. These pays were part of the Ancien Régime province of Roussillon, owning its name to the largest and most populous of the five pays, Roussillon. "Province of Roussillon and adjacent lands of Cerdagne" was indeed the name, used after the area became French in 1659, based on the historical division of the five pays between the county of Roussillon and the county of Cerdagne.
Llívia is a town of Cerdanya, province of Girona, Spain, that forms a Spanish exclave surrounded by French territory. At the regional elections in March 2004, the socialist mayor of Montpellier Georges Frêche, defeated its center-right president. Since Georges Frêche has embarked on a complete overhaul of the region and its institutions; the flag of the region, which displayed the cross of Languedoc as well as the Flag of Roussillon, was changed for a new flag with no reference to the old provinces, except in terms of the colors, which are the colors of both Languedoc and all the territories from the former Crown of Aragon. Georges Frêche wanted to change the name of the region, wishing to erase its duality and strengthen its unity. Thus, he wanted to rename the region "Septimanie". Septimania was the name created by the Romans at the end of the Roman Empire for the coastal area corresponding quite well to present day Languedoc-Roussillon, used in the early Middle Ages for the area; this name, has not been in use since the 9th century, it sounded quite odd to French people.
Strong opposition of the population led to Georges Frêche giving up on his idea. He declared that he could not go ahead without a mandate. Catalan nationalists in Roussillon would like the Pyrénées-Orientales department to secede from Languedoc-Roussillon and become a region in its own right, under the proposed name of "Catalunya Nord", as part of the Països Catalans, a new country; this idea has minimal popular support. On the other hand, there are some who would like to merge the Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées regions, thus reunifying the old province of Languedoc, creating a large region, it seems probable that Georges Frêche, with his idea of a "Septimanie" region, would not support such plans, although political leaders in Béziers, Nîmes, would support such a merger, hostile as they are to Montpellier, chosen as the capital of Languedoc-Roussillon instead of their own city, which they accuse of hegemony. Prior to the 20th century, Occitan was the language spoken in Languedoc, Catalan was the language spoken in Roussillon.
Both have been under pressure from French. In 2004, research conducted by the Government of Catalonia showed that 65% of adults over the age of 15 in Roussilon could understand Catalan whereas 37% stated they were able to speak it. In recent years there have been attempts at reviving of both languages, including Catalan-medium schooling through the La Bressola schools. Occitan literature — still sometimes called Provençal literature — is a body of texts written in Occitan in what is nowadays the South of France, it originated in the poetry of the eleventh- and twelfth- century troubadours, inspired the rise of vernacular literature throughout medieval Europe. Aimeric de Peguilhan, Giraut de Bornelh and Bertran de Born were major influences in troubadour composition, in the High Middle Ages; the troubadour tradition is considered to have originated in the region. The Romantic music composer Déodat de Séverac was born in the region, following his schooling in Paris, returned
Archaeology of the Romani people
Archaeology of the Romani people refers to the science of archaeology as applied in relation to the Romani people, an ethnic group dispersed across the world, known under several different names. The Romani people has a long history, most hails from the Indian subcontinent. Throughout said history, the diverse Roma population has faced significant persecution – antiziganism – in many parts of the world, continues to do so today. Due to the Romani people's frequent status as outsiders in regards to mainstream society and a constant minority, lacking any form of nation state and in turn facing structural bias and neglect from many national and local governments and authorities, the research done into Romani history and culture has been either lacking or non-existent. In modern times when this issue being resolved in some areas, the field of Romani archaeology remains unexplored. For example, the prominent Hungarian archaeologist Eszter Bánffy, director of the Römisch-Germanische Kommission of the German Archaeological Institute, has written that in all of post-Cold War era Eastern Europe, she has not found a single archaeologist of Romani heritage, nor anyone interested in researching let alone excavating possible Romani archaeological sites.
While the French sociologist Jean-Pierre Liégeois, director of the Gypsy Research Centre, has asserted that due to their highly mobile lifestyle and frequent societal discrimination, the Romani have left behind no such archaeological sites, there have been some limited field surveys and excavations of Romani-related sites. This is the case in Sweden and Norway, where the Norwegian and Swedish Travellers arrived in the early 16th century. Two sites in particular have gone through several stages of excavation, with a third excavation project beginning in 2015. One is Snarsmon, a Romani village close to the Norwegian border in Tanum Municipality, active as a sanctuary from the 1860s until the first years of the 20th century. Surveys began in 2003, with yearly excavations between 2004 and 2007. Done in the style of community archaeology, participants – other than professional archaeologists – included both local inhabitants of non-Romani origin, as well as members from several Traveller organizations and one Roma cultural association.
One result of this project was the establishment in 2012 of the first Swedish museum exhibition about Traveller history, located in the town of Uddevalla, featuring some of the objects found during the excavations. The second Swedish site is Krämarstaden a Romani village, located near Finnerödja in Laxå Municipality; the village was established in the first years of the 20th century, abandoned in the beginning of the 1920s. Core surveys began at the same time as those in Snarsmon, with two phases of archaeological excavation taking place in 2013 and 2014, which much like the previous project involved professional archaeologists and other scientists, local inhabitants, Swedish Travellers. In August 2015, excavations began in Skarpnäck; the camp was built in 1959 by the Swedish state as a temporary solution, until apartments could be arranged for the Romani, who had just been given full civic rights. The camp soon became permanent as the administrative process was dragged out, its inhabitants – about thirty people – living in tents and two home-built cottages, exposed to the weather.
The two-year project, titled I stadens utkant, is financed by the Swedish National Heritage Board, is a cooperative project between the Swedish History Museum, the cultural association É Romani Glinda, Mångkulturellt Centrum in Botkyrka, Stiftelsen Kulturmiljövård. It will result in a book and an excavation report, in addition to certain finds forming part of the "Sweden's History" exhibition at the Swedish History Museum. Several other archaeological sites belonging to the Romani people and the Scandinavian Travellers exist in Sweden as well as Norway, some of which were surveyed and mapped out in the transnational Scandinavian Traveller Map project. One of these, Tattardalen in Kungälv Municipality, is a ruined farmstead dating back to the 1600s, is therefore the oldest Scandinavian site connected to the Travellers. Another example of Romani-related archaeology is a June 2010 excavation of the "Caird’s Cave" in Rosemarkie, Scotland, a site inhabited by Scottish Gypsy and Traveller groups.
In addition to archaeology directly relating to Romani sites, there have been some research done into the archaeogenetics and "linguistic archaeology" of the Romani people. An example of this is the discovery of a skeleton in a Anglo-Saxon cemetery under Norwich Castle in Norfolk, which – as reported by British Archaeology – was genetically identified as a possible Romani man. Contemporary archaeology Ethnoarchaeology Timeline of Romani history
Romani people in the Czech Republic
Romani people are an ethnic minority in the Czech Republic Roma making up 2–3% of the population. Migrants from North Western India sometime between the 6th and 11th centuries, they have long had a presence in the region. Since the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the Romani population have experienced considerable hardship, having been a main target of Nazi extermination programs during World War II, the subject of forced relocation and other radical social policies during the Communist era. In the successor state, the Czech Republic, challenges remain for the Romani population with respect to education and poverty, there are frequent tensions with the ethnically Czech majority population over issues including crime and integration. According to the 2011 census, the Romani population was 13,150, 0.2% of the total number reporting some nationality. Of these, 5,199 responded by listing only Romani nationality. In the 2001 Census, 11,746 people reported their nationality as Romani – 0.1% of those claiming some nationality.
However, 40,370 respondents to the 2011 census reported Romani language as their language. The Romani people originate from Northern India, most from the northwestern Indian states Rajasthan and Punjab. Linguistic evidence indicates. More Romani shares its basic lexicon with Hindi and Punjabi, it shares many phonetic features with Marwari. The results of a genetic study in 2012 suggest that the Romani originated in North Western India and migrated as a group; the study indicates that the ancestors of present scheduled tribes and scheduled caste populations of North India, traditionally referred to collectively as the Ḍoma, are the ancestors of modern European Roma. In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, the Indian Minister of External Affairs stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India; the conference ended with a recommendation to the Government of India to recognize the Roma community spread across 30 countries as a part of the Indian diaspora. During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II, Romani were exterminated by Nazi mobile killing units and in camps such as Lety, Hodonín and Auschwitz.
90% of native Romani were killed during the war. During the communist years unsuccessful attempts to change the nomadic living style of Romani were undertaken by the government. Many Romani people were rehoused in panelák housing estates, which subsequently fell into acute disrepair, such as the Chánov housing estate near Most. After 1989, some Romani women accused the state of "forced sterilizations" arguing that they were not properly informed of what "sterilization" meant. According to Czech ombudsman Otakar Motejl, "at least 50 Romani women were unlawfully sterilized"; the Czech representative at the United Nations protested against the accusations, claiming that they were "false" and that Romani women "exaggerate in all cases". A hospital in Vitkovice, apologised to a Romani woman, sterilised after her second caesarean, but a request for a compensation of 1 million Czech crowns was rejected by the court. Many Romani left the country after the independence of the Czech Republic, saying that they felt unsafe due to a surge in right-wing activity.
Countries such as Ireland, the UK, Norway and Sweden took in large numbers, but most Romani returned home after a few years. Immigration rates to Great Britain dropped after financial support for refugees started to be paid out in the form of food tickets in summer 2000; the following year, British customs officers began to check the passengers flying to the UK from Prague airport and rejected those of Romani origin. In October 1997, after receiving over 1,000 requests for asylum from Czech Roma within a single year, Canada reinstated a visa regime for Czech citizens; the Romanis are at the centre of the agenda of far-right groups in the Czech Republic, which spread anti-ziganism. One publicized case was the Vítkov arson attack of 2009, in which four right-wing extremists injured a three-year-old Romani girl; the public responded by donating money as well as presents to the family, who were able to buy a new house from the donations, while the perpetrators were sentenced to 18 and 22 years in prison.
In January 2010, Amnesty International launched a report titled Injustice Renamed: Discrimination in Education of Roma persists in the Czech Republic. According to the BBC, Amnesty argued that while cosmetic changes had been introduced by the authorities, little genuine improvement in addressing discrimination against Romani children had occurred. According to a 2010 opinion poll, 68% of Czechs have antipathy towards Romani; the survey found that 82% Czechs oppose any form of a "special care of Roma rights", 83% of Czechs consider Romani asocial, 45% of Czechs would support the expulsion of Romani people from the Czech Republic. A 2011 poll, which followed a number of brutal attacks by Romani perpetrators against white victims, reported that 44% of Czechs are afraid of Roma people; the majority of Czechs do not want Romani people as neighbours, viewing them as thieves and social parasites. Despite a long waiting list for adoptive parents, Romani chil
Romani society and culture
The Romani people are a distinct ethnic and cultural group of peoples living all across Europe, who share a family of languages and sometimes a traditional nomadic modes of life. Their exact origins are unclear and though their culture has been victimized by other cultures, they still found a way to maintain their heritage and society. Linguistic and phonological research has traced the Roma people's first place of origin to places in the Indian subcontinent linking Proto-Romani groups to Central India. Many report in extracts from popular literature that Romani emerged from the North-west regions of India, rather than from Central India. Features of phonological developments which emerged during the early transition stage from Old to Middle Indic prove that the history of Romani began in Central India; the Romani language shares many features with the Central Indo-Aryan languages such as the Hindi, Urdu and Rajasthani languages. Linguists use these phonological similarities as well as features of phonological developments which emerged during the early transition stage from Old to Middle Indic to conclude that the history of Romani began in Central India.
Other factors such as blood groups and unwritten customs suggest Central Indian origins of the Roma. The Roma find issues with documenting their own exact origin due to a lack of finding specific records left by ancestors, their history however is retold by clan family customs, such as storytelling. Records cannot identify why the Roma migrated from India; the Romani people are today found in many countries. Romani adopt given names that are common in the country of their residence. Do modern Romani use traditional names from their own language, such as Papush, Patrin, etc. Being the only Indo-Aryan language, spoken around Europe since the Middle Ages, speakers use many terms for their language, they refer to their language as řomani čhib translated as ‘the Romani language’, or řomanes, ‘in a Rom way’. The English term, has been used by scholars since the 19th Century, where they had used the term'Gypsy Language'. Traditionally, Roma place a high value on the extended family. Marriage in Romani society underscores the importance of family and demonstrates ties between different groups transnationally.
Traditionally an arranged marriage is the desired set up, with the parents of each family looking for an ideal partner for their child. Parents force a particular spouse on their child, although being married by your mid twenties is regarded as the norm. School, other marriages, events are a popular environment for finding a prospective spouse, however they should be supervised by an adult. With the emergence of social media such as Facebook and mobile phones, education in women becoming more prominent and conservative views are becoming less rigid. In some Romani groups, for example the Finnish Roma, the idea of marriage is ignored altogether. Traditionally, it is a patriarchal society and virginity is considered essential in unmarried women, this is because it is a visible representation of the girl's representation and the honour of her family. Men and women marry young; the Romani practice of child marriage has generated controversy in many countries. In 2003, one of the many self-styled Romani "kings", Ilie Tortică, prohibited marriage before the parties were of legal age in their country of residence.
A Romani patriarch, Florin Cioabă, ran afoul of Romanian authorities in late 2003 when he married off his youngest daughter, Ana-Maria at the age of twelve, well below the legal marriageable age. Bride kidnapping is thought to be a traditional Romani practice. Girls as young as twelve years old may be kidnapped for marriage to teenage boys; this practice has been reported in Ireland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Slovakia. Kidnapping has been seen as a way to avoid a bride price or a way for a girl to marry a boy she wants but that her parents do not want; the tradition's normalisation of kidnapping puts young women at higher risk of becoming victims of human trafficking. The practices of bride kidnapping and child marriage are not universally accepted throughout Romani culture; some Romani women and men seek to eliminate such customs. Romani customs establish that the groom's family must pay a bride price to the bride's parents. Romani social behaviour is regulated by purity laws respected by most Roma and among Sinti groups by the elder generations.
This regulation affects many aspects of life and is applied to actions and things. Parts of the human body are considered impure: the genital organs, because they produce impure emissions, the lower body. Fingernails and toenails must be filed with an emery board. Clothes for the lower body, as well as the clothes of menstruating women, are washed separately. Items used for eating are washed in a different place. Childbirth must occur outside the dwelling place. Death is seen as "impure" and affects the whole family of the dead, who may remain "impure" for a period after the death, it should be noted. Many of th
Alsace
Alsace is a cultural and historical region in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. From 1982 to 2016, Alsace was the smallest administrative région in metropolitan France, consisting of the Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin departments. Territorial reform passed by the French legislature in 2014 resulted in the merger of the Alsace administrative region with Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine to form Grand Est. Alsatian is an Alemannic dialect related to Swabian and Swiss German, although since World War II most Alsatians speak French. Internal and international migration since 1945 has changed the ethnolinguistic composition of Alsace. For more than 300 years, from the Thirty Years' War to World War II, the political status of Alsace was contested between France and various German states in wars and diplomatic conferences; the economic and cultural capital of Alsace, as well as its largest city, is Strasbourg. The city is the seat of bodies; the name "Alsace" can be traced to the Old High German Ali-saz or Elisaz, meaning "foreign domain".
An alternative explanation is from a Germanic Ell-sass, meaning "seated on the Ill", a river in Alsace. In prehistoric times, Alsace was inhabited by nomadic hunters. By 1500 BC, Celts began to settle in Alsace and cultivating the land, it should be noted that Alsace is a plain surrounded by the Vosges mountains and the Black Forest mountains. It creates Foehn winds which, along with natural irrigation, contributes to the fertility of the soil. In a world of agriculture, Alsace has always been a rich region which explains why it suffered so many invasions and annexations in its history. By 58 BC, the Romans had established Alsace as a center of viticulture. To protect this valued industry, the Romans built fortifications and military camps that evolved into various communities which have been inhabited continuously to the present day. While part of the Roman Empire, Alsace was part of Germania Superior. With the decline of the Roman Empire, Alsace became the territory of the Germanic Alemanni; the Alemanni were agricultural people, their Germanic language formed the basis of modern-day dialects spoken along the Upper Rhine.
Clovis and the Franks defeated the Alemanni during the 5th century AD, culminating with the Battle of Tolbiac, Alsace became part of the Kingdom of Austrasia. Under Clovis' Merovingian successors the inhabitants were Christianized. Alsace remained under Frankish control until the Frankish realm, following the Oaths of Strasbourg of 842, was formally dissolved in 843 at the Treaty of Verdun. Alsace formed part of the Middle Francia, ruled by the eldest grandson Lothar I. Lothar died early in 855 and his realm was divided into three parts; the part known as Lotharingia, or Lorraine, was given to Lothar's son. The rest was shared between Louis the German; the Kingdom of Lotharingia was short-lived, becoming the stem duchy of Lorraine in Eastern Francia after the Treaty of Ribemont in 880. Alsace was united with the other Alemanni east of the Rhine into the stem duchy of Swabia. At about this time, the surrounding areas experienced recurring fragmentation and reincorporations among a number of feudal secular and ecclesiastical lordships, a common process in the Holy Roman Empire.
Alsace experienced great prosperity during the 13th centuries under Hohenstaufen emperors. Frederick I set up Alsace as a province to be ruled by ministeriales, a non-noble class of civil servants; the idea was that such men would be more tractable and less to alienate the fief from the crown out of their own greed. The province had a central administration with its seat at Hagenau. Frederick II designated the Bishop of Strasbourg to administer Alsace, but the authority of the bishop was challenged by Count Rudolf of Habsburg, who received his rights from Frederick II's son Conrad IV. Strasbourg began to grow to become the commercially important town in the region. In 1262, after a long struggle with the ruling bishops, its citizens gained the status of free imperial city. A stop on the Paris-Vienna-Orient trade route, as well as a port on the Rhine route linking southern Germany and Switzerland to the Netherlands and Scandinavia, it became the political and economic center of the region. Cities such as Colmar and Hagenau began to grow in economic importance and gained a kind of autonomy within the "Décapole", a federation of ten free towns.
As in much of Europe, the prosperity of Alsace came to an end in the 14th century by a series of harsh winters, bad harvests, the Black Death. These hardships were blamed on Jews, leading to the pogroms of 1336 and 1339. In 1349, Jews of Alsace were accused of poisoning the wells with plague, leading to the massacre of thousands of Jews during the Strasbourg pogrom. Jews were subsequently forbidden to settle in the town. An additional natural disaster was the Rhine rift earthquake of 1356, one of Europe's worst which made ruins of Basel. Prosperity returned to Alsace under Habsburg administration during the Renaissance. Holy Roman Empire central power had begun to decline following years of imperial adventures in Italian lands ceding hegemony in Western Europe to France, which had long since centralized power. France began an aggressive policy of expanding eastward, first to the riv
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