[ArabianKnight]

Not all of them decent from the low castes of Indian society, it seems most of them decent from the Kashtryia or warrior caste of Northern India. They were forced out of their homeland, when the Turkic Ghazvanid attacked India, and they began to move Westard ever since. They seem to be very close to one subgroup of the Kashtryias, is that of the Rajputs.



Based on linguistic evidence (the similarity of the Romany language to Hindi, Panjabi, and related languages of Northern India) and anthropological evidence (body habitus and ABO blood group distributions closely approximating those of the warrior classes of northern India), there is now a clear consensus of opinion that the modern day Roma of the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and the Americas originated in Northwestern India. There is also a general consensus regarding the approximate timing of their emigration, or at least the bulk of it if you believe in more than one wave of emigration - ie in the 11th century.

The most recent evidence, some of which is not yet published, will suggest a mixed population (warriors and their "camps") leaving Northern India in the 11th century over the first 25 to 30 years of the century. Linguistic evidence points to a northerly exodus through the upper Indus Valley. After crossing the Himalayas, it is likely that they followed the Silk Road west to the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, up along the west coast to the foothills of the Caucasus range, through Armenia and into the Byzantime Empire. This proposed route of migration is based on the numbers and types of words in Romani - Persian, Armenian, and Greek.
Many attempts to summarize their appearances in Europe are available, most of which report them in Southeastern Europe sometime in the early 1300's, Central/Eastern Europe in the 1400's and in Western and Northern Europe later in the 1400's into the early 1500's (3,5). The Patrin, a great internet learning resource, has summarized the history and provided a timeline as well. Although we might disagree with the route and a few of the details, this is a very useful history, certainly more comprehensive than the present page, and certainly accurate in spirit. Also extremely useful is the sumary provided by the Union Romani Espagnole.