The Roma number at least twelve million people and are located in many countries worldwide. The Roma are an ethnic minority distinguished by Rom blood and the Romani, or Romanes language. The Roma or Romani people have been known by many names including Gypsies (or Gipsies), Tsigani, Tzigane, Cigano, Zigeuner, and others. Most Roma have always referred to themselves by their tribal names, or as Rom or Roma, meaning "Man" or "People." The Roma have included many different groups of people from the very beginning, and have absorbed outsiders into their culture throughout their history. Because they arrived in Europe from the East, the first Europeans assumed that they came from Turkey, Nubia, Egypt, or any number of vaguely acknowledged non-European places, and they were called, among other things, Egyptians or ‘Gyptians, which is where the word "Gypsy" originates from. There are four Rom "tribes", or nations (natsiya), of Roma: the Kalderash, the Machavaya, the Lovari, and the Churari. Other groups include the Romanichal, the Gitanoes (Calé), the Sinti, the Rudari, the Manush, the Boyash, the Ungaritza, the Luri, the Bashaldé, the Romungro, and the Xoraxai. 

There have been several great migrations, or diaspora, in Romani history. The first was the initial dispersal from India about a thousand years ago. Some scholars suggest there may have been several migrations from India. No one knows for certain why the original Roma began their great wandering from India to Europe and beyond, but they have dispersed worldwide, despite persecution and oppression through the centuries. The second great migration, known as the Aresajipe, was from southwest Asia into Europe in the 14th century. In Europe, Roma were either kept in slavery in the Balkans (in territory that is today Romania), or else were able to move on into the rest of the continent, reaching every northern and western country by about 1500. In the course of time, as a result of having interacted with various European populations, and being fragmented into widely-separated groups, Roma have emerged as a collection of distinct ethnic groups within the larger whole. The third great migration of Roma was from Europe to the Americas in the 19th and early 20th centuries after the abolition of Romani slavery in Europe in 1856-1864. Some scholars contend there is a great migration occurring today since the fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe. The Romani language is of Indo-Aryan origin and has many spoken dialects, but the root language is ancient Punjabi, or Hindi. 

The spoken Romani language is varied, but all dialects contain some common words in use by all Roma. There have been many large-scale, state-sponsored persecutions or pogroms, against the Roma throughout European history. The Nazi terror of World War II is the most infamous and is responsible for the deaths of up to 1.5 million Roma in the Porrajmos (Holocaust). The recent collapse of the communist governments of Eastern Europe have rekindled anti-Roma sentiment in Eastern and Western Europe. Violent attacks against Romani immigrants and refugees have been permitted to occur with little or no restraint from government authorities. The Romani people remain one of the least integrated and most persecuted peoples in Europe. Almost everywhere, their fundamental civil rights are threatened. Racist violence targeting Roma is on the rise after the fall of Communism. Discrimination against Roma in employment, education, health care, administrative and other services is observed in most societies and hate speech against them deepens the negative anti-Roma stereotypes which are typical of European public opinion.

Shashi, Shyam Singh, 1935-. - Roma, the Gypsy World. - Delhi : Sundeep Prakashan, 1990.
Classified at: Traveller/Roma Collection 305.891497/SHA

Sinti and Roma : Gypsies in German-speaking Society and Literature. Oxford : Berghahn, 1998.
Classified at: 305.891497/TEB

Memorial book : the Gypsies at Auschwitz-Birkenau / edited by State Museum o. - München; New York : K.G. Saur, 1993.
Classified at: Traveller/Roma Collection 940.5318/PAM

Puxon, Grattan. - Roma : Europe's Gypsies - 4th ed.. - London : Minority Rights Group, 1987.
Classified at: 305.89149704/PUX

The roads of the Roma : a PEN anthology of gypsy writers / edited by Ian Hancock - Hatfield : University of Hertfordshire Press, 1998.
Classified at: Traveller/Roma Collection

Roma, Gypsies : Texts Issued by International Institutions Paris : Centre de recherches tsiganes; Hatfield : University of Hertfordshire, 2001.
Classified at: Traveller/Roma Collection

Eder, Beate. Geboren bin ich vor Jahrtausenden- Bilderwelten in der Literatur der Roma. - Klagenfurt : Drava, 1993.
Classified at: 940.0491497/EDE