They are one of several groups identified as "Travellers", a closely related group being the Scottish Travellers.
- Irish TravellersHowever, recent DNA testing has shown that the Irish Travellers are of Irish origin but are genetically distinct from their settled counterparts due to social isolation, and more groups are being studied.
- Itinerant groups in Europe248 related topics
Romani people
The Romani (also spelled Romany, ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants.
Though often confused with them, the Romani people are culturally different from Irish Travellers and the Yenish people, two groups who may be related to each other.
Nomadic peoples of Europe
True nomadism has rarely been practiced in Europe in the modern period, being restricted to the margins of the continent, notably Arctic peoples such as the (traditionally) semi-nomadic Saami people in the north of Scandinavia, or the Nenets people in Russia's Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Sometimes also described as "nomadic" (in the figurative or extended sense) is the itinerant lifestyle of various groups subsisting on craft or trade rather than on livestock.
Romani people and Irish Travellers are the best known of these.
Ethnic group
Ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups.
Ethno-cultural, emphasizing shared culture or tradition, often overlapping with other forms of ethnicity – example: Travellers
Scottish Romani and Itinerant people groups
Scottish Travellers, or the people in Scotland loosely termed Romani persons or travellers, consist of a number of diverse, unrelated communities that speak a variety of different languages and dialects that pertain to distinct customs, histories, and traditions.
Yenish people
The Yenish (German: Jenische; French: Yéniche) are an itinerant group in Western Europe who live mostly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and parts of France, roughly centred on the Rhineland.
Sinti
The Sinti (also Sinta or Sinte; masc. sing.
They were traditionally itinerant, but today only a small percentage of Sinti remain unsettled.
Cant (language)
Jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.
In linguistics, the derivation is normally seen to be from the Irish word caint (older spelling cainnt), "speech, talk", or Scottish Gaelic cainnt. It is seen to have derived amongst the itinerant groups of people in Ireland and Scotland, who hailed from both Irish/Scottish Gaelic and English-speaking backgrounds, ultimately developing as various creole languages. However, the various types of cant (Scottish/Irish) are mutually unintelligible. The Irish creole variant is simply termed "the Cant". Its speakers from the Irish Traveller community know it as Gammon, while the linguistic community identifies it as Shelta.
Shelta, from the Irish traveller community in Ireland
Names of the Romani people
The Romani people are also known by a variety of other names; in English as gypsies or gipsies, and Roma, in Greek as γύφτοι (gíftoi) or τσιγγάνοι (tsiggánoi), in Central and Eastern Europe as Tsingani (and variants), in France as gitans besides the dated bohémiens, manouches, in Italy as zíngari and gitani, in Spain as gitanos, and in Portugal as ciganos.
The definition includes such groups as New Age Travellers as well as Irish Travellers and Romany.
Shelta
Shelta (Irish: Seiltis) is a language spoken by Rilantu Mincéirí (Irish Travellers), particularly in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Irish people
Ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common history and culture.
Irish Travellers are an ethnic people of Ireland, a DNA study found they originally descended from the general Irish population, however they are now very distinct from it.