The Roma & the origins of our ethnic name - the Roma
Introduction As I mentioned in earlier article History of the Ḍom People (ancestors of the Roma) within the South Asia (and partly beyond) our ethnic name, the Roma, comes from the Ḍom and the Ḍom(a) are connected to the drumming nomadic community , etymology of that caste name comes from the Dravidian origins - the ṭamaṭama (where ṭ reads close to Indo-Aryan Ḍ, it means retroflexed R) and ṭamaṭama is a type of drum "tomtom" . Why ethnic name Roma comes from Ḍom(a) & who are the Ḍom(a) ? The Ḍom(a) are the nomadic group , the Ḍom(a) is same as the case of the Roma in Europe a umbrella ethnic term, which in fact contains various Jatis (castes) ranging from ritually clean Śudra (almost Vaish-like Varna), via the ritually unclean Śudra to straight-up Dalits (ritually unclean untouchables). The Ḍom(a) are often misunderstood by the Gora (Whites) and by the Indians (or by other South Asians as a whole), where they (non- Ḍoma) claim that all the Ḍom ...