Ian Hancock (
RomaniRomani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is the language of the Romani people. It is an Indo-Aryan language, sometimes included in either the "Central" or the "Northwestern" group, sometimes treated as a branch of its own.Romani is a macrolanguage in the ISO 639 classification, taken to consist of...
:
Yanko le Redžosko) is a linguist, Romani scholar, and political advocate. He was born and raised in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and is one of the main contributors in the field of
Romani studiesRomani studies is an emerging interdisciplinary ethnic studies field concerned with the experiences of the Romani people. Romani studies drawn on aspects of sociology, anthropology, linguistics and political science...
.
He is director of the Program of Romani Studies and the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at The University of Texas at Austin, where he has been a professor of English, linguistics and Asian studies since 1972. He has represented the Romani people at the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
and served as a member of the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial CouncilThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' living memorial to The Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM is dedicated to help leaders and citizens of the world to confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen...
under President
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president; only Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were younger when entering office...
, who, according to Hancock, has Romani ancestry. He also represented the Romani people at the 1997 Rafto Prize award ceremony.
Early life
Dr. Hancock's mother, Kitty, is
RomnichalThe Romanichals are groups of Romani people found in some parts of the United Kingdom, notably England. The word "Romanichal" is derived from Romani chal, where chal is Angloromani for "fellow"....
. However, his father Reginald (
Redžo) is part Romungro: in particular, he is the descendant of a Hungarian speaker of
North Central RomaniNorth Central Romani is one of a dozen of major dialect groups within Romani, an Indo-Aryan language of Europe. The North Central dialects of Romani are traditionally spoken by some subethnic groups of the Romani people in the Czech Republic, Slovakia , southeastern Poland, the Transcarpathia...
named Benczi Imre. He inherited the surname "Hancock" through Imre's daughter Maria, who married a member of a British West Country showman family of that surname.
He lived in Canada for less than six years before moving back to England in 1961. There, he dropped out of 9th grade. This was not uncommon among Romanies; in fact, few or none of his other family members were literate.
He then took up several kinds of jobs, including that of a spray painter. It was at this time that his roommates, university students from
Sierra LeoneSierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea in the north, Liberia in the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean in the southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has a population estimated at 6.4 million...
, helped him to learn the
Krio languageKrio is the lingua franca and the de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 98% of Sierra Leone's population and unites all the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each other...
of that country. His knowledge of Krio and some academic connections helped him to enter the
University of LondonBased primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes...
. He was one of only two candidates in an affirmative action program who qualified to receive higher education.
In the late 1960s, he became a Romani rights activist after reading reports about anti-Romani discrimination in Britain. In particular, he took up the cause of Romani rights after British police caused a fire that killed two Romani children. In 1971, he graduated with a
Ph.D.Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated PhD , for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", or alternatively, DPhil, for the equivalent , is an advanced academic degree awarded by universities...
in linguistics. He was the first Romani in Britain to obtain that degree, though he began his postgraduate studies withnout a
high school diplomaA high school diploma is a diploma awarded for the completion of high school. In the United States and Canada, it is considered the minimum education required for government jobs and higher education...
or a college degree.
Romani studies
Hancock has published more than 300 books and articles concerning the Romani people and
languageRomani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is the language of the Romani people. It is an Indo-Aryan language, sometimes included in either the "Central" or the "Northwestern" group, sometimes treated as a branch of its own.Romani is a macrolanguage in the ISO 639 classification, taken to consist of...
(particularly the
Vlax dialectVlax Romani is a dialect of the Romani language. Vlax Romani varieties are spoken mainly in Southeastern Europe by Romani people. Vlax Romani can also be referred to as an independent language or as one dialect of the Romani language. Vlax Romani is the most widely-spoken dialect subgroup of the...
). These works analyze the Romani people not only through Romani linguistics but also through history, anthropology, and genetics. He has also appeared in the documentary
American Gypsy. He is currently writing a book called
On Romani Origins and Identity.
Hancock supports some of
R.L. TurnerSir Ralph Lilley Turner MC was an English Indian languages philologist and university administrator. He is also the author of some publications concerning the Romani language....
's views on Romani history based on the Romani language. In particular, he agrees that the
DomThe Dom of the Middle East are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group. Some authors relate them to the Domba people of India.They have a rich oral tradition and express their culture and history through music, poetry and dance...
left India much earlier than the Romani people, and that the latter left no earlier than 1000 A.D. In fact, he claims that the Indian musicians mentioned in the
Shah-Nameh and the
atsingani mentioned in
The Life of St. George the Anchorite, both of which were previously believed to be ancestors of the Romani people, may have been the ancestors of the Domari people but not those of the Romani people. It is possible, in his view, that the Lom split off from the Romani people on reaching
ArmeniaArmenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
.
Contrary to the popular view that the Romani people are descended from low-caste Indians who brought their occupations to Europe, he argues that the Romani people are descended from Indian prisoners of war of
Mahmud of GhazniMahmud of Ghazni , also known as ' was the most prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty and ruled from 997 until his death in 1030...
. As evidence, he points to the presence of Indic words specifically of military origin and to a
Banjara
oral legend telling of Rajputs who left India through the
HimalayasThe Himalaya Range or Himalayas for short , meaning "abode of snow", is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
during the Ghaznavid invasions and never returned.
He also believes that the Romani language originates in a
koiné languageIn linguistics, a koiné language is a standard language or dialect, that has arisen as a result of contact between two mutually intelligible varieties of the same language. Since the speakers understand one another from before the advent of the koiné, the koineization process is not as rapid as...
, which he calls "Rajputic," between the many Indian languages spoken by the prisoners of war. In this regard, he finds it similar to several other Indian languages, especially
HindustaniHindustani or Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language that spans several closely related dialects in Pakistan and northern India. Although Hindustani is based largely on the Khariboli dialect, it also includes several nonstandard dialects of the Hindi languages...
.
Creole language studies
Hancock is as well known in the field of linguistics -- particularly in the area of
pidginA pidgin language is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common, in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different to the language of the country in which they reside...
and
creole languageA creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable language that originates from a mixture of various languages. The lexicon of a creole usually consists of words clearly borrowed from the parent languages, except for phonetic and semantic shifts...
s -- as he is in the world of Romani studies and Romani social activism. In addition to his research on the Krio language of Sierra Leone, he has studied the
Gullah languageThe Gullah language is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people , an African American population living on the Sea Islands and the coastal region of the U.S...
of coastal
South CarolinaSouth Carolina is a U.S. state that borders Georgia to the south and North Carolina to the north. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence from the British Crown during the American Revolution. The colony was...
and
GeorgiaGeorgia is a state in the United States. One of the original Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution, it had been the last of the Thirteen Colonies to be established, in 1733. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January...
and the
Afro-Seminole CreoleAfro-Seminole Creole is an English-based creole spoken by Black Seminoles in scattered communities in Oklahoma, Texas, and Northern Mexico. Speakers of Afro-Seminole Creole live in Seminole County, Oklahoma and Brackettville, Texas in the United States and in Nacimiento de los Negros, Coahuila, in...
language spoken by a community of Black Seminole descendants in
Brackettville, TexasBrackettville is a city in Kinney County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,876 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Kinney County.-History:...
. Hancock was the first scholar to report the existence of Afro-Seminole Creole, and he later identified another variety of that language spoken in a village called Nacimiento in the
MexicanThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
state of
CoahuilaCoahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza , is one of Mexico's 31 component states. It is located in the north of the country.To the north, Coahuila accounts for a stretch of the U.S. - Mexico border, adjacent to the U.S...
. He maintains that Afro-Seminole Creole and Gullah are closely related languages.
Hancock has also done extensive research on other English-based creole languages spoken in West Africa and the West Indies. He is known especially for his views on the historical development of these languages. He maintains that all the English-based pidgins and creoles spoken in the Atlantic basin region -- both in West Africa and in the Caribbean -- belong to a single language family he calls the "English-based Atlantic Creoles." He argues that all of these languages can be traced back to what he calls
Guinea Coast Creole EnglishWest African Pidgin English, also called Guinea Coast Creole English, was the lingua franca, or language of commerce, spoken along the West African coast during the period of the Atlantic slave trade...
which arose along the West African coast in the 17th and 18th centuries as a language of commerce in the
Atlantic slave tradeThe Atlantic slave trade, also known as the transatlantic slave trade, was the trading, primarily of African people, to the colonies of the New World that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries...
. He argues that Guinea Coast Creole English was spoken in coastal slave trading bases like
James IslandJames Island is an island in the Gambia River, 30km from the river mouth and near Juffureh in the country of The Gambia. It contains a fort known as Fort James...
,
Bunce IslandBunce Island is the site of an 18th century British slave castle in the Republic of Sierra Leone in West Africa....
, and
Elmina CastleElmina Castle was erected by the Portuguese in 1482 as São Jorge da Mina Castle, also known simply as Mina or Feitoria da Mina) in present-day Elmina, Ghana . It was the first trading post built on the Gulf of Guinea, so is the oldest European building in existence below the Sahara...
where the offspring of British slave traders and their African wives used it as their native language.
Hancock maintains that Guinea Coast Creole English ultimately gave rise to the pidgin and creole languages spoken in West Africa today, such as the
Aku languageAku is a variety of Sierra Leone Krio, an English-based Creole language of Western Africa. Aku is spoken in Gambia, mainly by the Aku people, who are descendants of the Sierra Leone Creole people. In many ways the Akus are an extension of the Sierra Leone Creole community....
in the Gambia,
Sierra Leone KrioKrio is the lingua franca and the de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 98% of Sierra Leone's population and unites all the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each other...
, Nigerian Pidgin English,
Cameroonian Pidgin EnglishCameroonian Pidgin English, or Cameroonian Creole, is a linguistic entity of Cameroon. It is also known as Kamtok . Five varieties are currently recognised:...
, etc. He also maintains that some of the Africans taken as slaves to the New World already spoke Guinea Coast Creole English in Africa, and that their creole speech influenced the development of creole languages spoken today on the American side of the Atlantic such as
GullahThe Gullah language is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people , an African American population living on the Sea Islands and the coastal region of the U.S...
,
Afro-Seminole CreoleAfro-Seminole Creole is an English-based creole spoken by Black Seminoles in scattered communities in Oklahoma, Texas, and Northern Mexico. Speakers of Afro-Seminole Creole live in Seminole County, Oklahoma and Brackettville, Texas in the United States and in Nacimiento de los Negros, Coahuila, in...
, Bahamian Dialect,
Jamaican CreoleJamaican Patois, known locally as Patois or Jamaican, and called Jamaican Creole by linguists, is an English–African creole language spoken primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora. It is not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English...
,
Belizean KriolBelizean Kriol, or simply known as Kriol by its speakers, is an English Creole most closely related to Miskito Coastal Creole, but also Limón Coastal Creole, Colón Creole, and San Andrés and Providencia Creole. Guyanese Creole and most English creoles of the Caribbean show similarity as well...
, Guyanese Creole,
Sranan TongoSranan is a creole language spoken as a lingua franca by approximately 400,000 people in Suriname. It is the mother tongue of the Creoles...
in Suriname, etc.
Hancock's views on the connections among the Atlantic creole languages is controversial. The strong similarities among these languages is undeniable, but many linguists prefer to explain those similarities through convergence rather than historical relationships. Nonetheless, Hancock is recognized as one of the founders of the field of pidgin and creole linguistics.
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