Ian Francis Hancock (
Romani: Yanko le Redžosko; born 29 August 1942) is a linguist,
Romani scholar and political advocate. He was born and raised in England and is one of the main contributors in the field of
Romani studies.
He is director of the Program of Romani Studies and the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at
The University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...
, where he has been a professor of English, linguistics and Asian studies since 1972. He has represented the
Romani people
{{Infobox ethnic group
, group = Romani people
, image =
, image_caption =
, flag = Roma flag.svg
, flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress
, po ...
at the United Nations and served as a member of the
US Holocaust Memorial Council under President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
, who, Hancock claims, has Romani ancestry. He also represented the Romani people at the 1997
Rafto Prize
The Professor Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize (''Raftoprisen'') is a human rights award established in the memory of the Norwegian human rights activist, Thorolf Rafto.
Organization
The prize is awarded annually by the Rafto Foundation for Human R ...
award.
Early life
Hancock was born in London in 1942. His mother, Kitty, is
Romanichal
The Romanichal ( ; more commonly known as English Gypsies) are a Romani people, Romani subgroup in the United Kingdom. Many Romanichal speak Angloromani, a mixed language that blends Romani language, Romani vocabulary with English syntax. Roma ...
; his father, Reginald (Redžo), was part
Romungro, the descendant of a Hungarian speaker of
North Central Romani named Imre Benczi. He acquired the surname Hancock by Imre's daughter, Maria, who married a member of an English
West Country
The West Country is a loosely defined area within southwest England, usually taken to include the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Bristol, with some considering it to extend to all or parts of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and ...
showman family of that name.
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 reading about an incident in which three Romani children were killed in a fire caused by a lamp after police officers, who had arrested their parents, attempted to use a bulldozer to forcibly remove their caravan while they were still inside. In 1971, he graduated with a Ph.D. in linguistics from the
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...
.
Romani studies
Hancock has published more than 300 books and articles on the Romani people and
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
(particularly the
Vlax dialect). These works analyse the Romani people through not only Romani linguistics but also 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
Ralph Lilley Turner's views on
Romani history based on the Romani language. In particular, Hancock agrees that the
Dom left India much earlier than the Romani people i.e. before 1000 AD. 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 of the Romani people. He considers it possible that the
Lom split off from the Romani people on reaching
Armenia
Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...
.
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 Ghazni
Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Sabuktigin (; 2 November 971 – 30 April 1030), usually known as Mahmud of Ghazni or Mahmud Ghaznavi (), was Sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire, ruling from 998 to 1030. During his reign and in medieval sources, he is usuall ...
. As evidence, he points to the presence of Indic words specifically of military origin and to a
Banjara
The Banjara are nomadic tribes found in India.
Etymology
The Gor usually refer to themselves as ''Banjaras'' and outsiders as ''Kor'', but this usage does not extend outside their own community. A related usage is ''Gor Mati'' or ''Gormati'', ...
oral legend telling of
Rajput
Rājpūt (, from Sanskrit ''rājaputra'' meaning "son of a king"), also called Thākur (), is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating fro ...
s who left India through the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...
during the
Ghaznavid
The Ghaznavid dynasty ( ''Ġaznaviyān'') was a Persianate Muslim dynasty of Turkic ''mamluk'' origin. It ruled the Ghaznavid Empire or the Empire of Ghazni from 977 to 1186, which at its greatest extent, extended from the Oxus to the Indus Va ...
invasions and never returned.
He also believes that the Romani language originates in a
koine language
Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written during the Hellenistic ...
, which he calls "Rajputic," between the many Indian languages spoken by the prisoners of war. He finds it thus similar to several other Indian languages, especially
Hindustani.
As for Romani history, he points out a "Pariah syndrome" throughout time and space, culminating in the
attempted genocide at the hands of Nazi authorities that was simultaneous to that of the Jews and part of the same "
Final Solution
The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a plan orchestrated by Nazi Germany during World War II for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official ...
of the Jewish and Gypsy Problem" project.
One of Hancock's papers was cited by the
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; , ) is the highest court in the judicial system of Canada. It comprises nine justices, whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law, and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants eac ...
in ''
R v Krymowski'', a case interpreting
Canada's hate speech laws. The Court concluded that references to "gypsies" can be taken to mean a reference to the Romani people, bringing them within the protection of the ''Criminal Code'' provision.
Creole language studies
Hancock is as well known in the field of linguistics, particularly in the area of
pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
and
creole language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable form of contact language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form (often a pidgin), and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fl ...
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
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...
, he has studied the
Gullah language
Gullah (also called Gullah-English, Sea Island Creole English, and Geechee) is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people (also called "Geechees" within the community), an African American population living in coastal regions of South Car ...
, of coastal
South Carolina
South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...
and
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States
Georgia may also refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
in the US, and the
Afro-Seminole Creole language, spoken by a community of
Black Seminole
The Black Seminoles, or Afro-Seminoles, are an ethnic group of mixed Native American and African origin associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Africans, and e ...
descendants in
Brackettville, Texas, US. Hancock was the first scholar to report Afro-Seminole Creole. He later identified another variety of that language spoken among Black Seminole descendants in the village of in the Mexican state of
Coahuila
Coahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Coahuila de Zaragoza, is one of the 31 states of Mexico. The largest city and State Capital is the city of Saltillo; the second largest is Torreón and the thi ...
, where their ancestors had settled in 1850. He maintains that Afro-Seminole Creole and Gullah are closely related languages, as Black Seminoles were descended primarily from Gullah people of the Low Country of
South Carolina
South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...
and
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States
Georgia may also refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
in the US.
Hancock is recognised as one of the founders of the field of pidgin and
creole linguistics. He has also done extensive research on the 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, which he calls the "English-based Atlantic Creoles." He argues that all of them can be traced back to what he calls
Guinea Coast Creole English, which arose along the West African Coast in the 17th and 18th centuries, as a language of commerce in the
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...
. He says that
Guinea Coast Creole English was spoken in coastal slave trading bases such as
James Island,
Bunce Island, and
Elmina Castle, where the offspring of British slave traders and their African wives used it as their native language.
Hancock says that Guinea Coast Creole English ultimately gave rise to the pidgin and creole languages spoken in West Africa today, such as the
Aku language in the Gambia, Sierra Leone Krio,
Nigerian Pidgin English and
Cameroonian Pidgin English
Cameroonian Pidgin English, or Cameroonian Creole (, from West Coast), is a language variety of Cameroon. It is also known as Kamtok (from 'Cameroon-talk'). It is primarily spoken in the Northwest Region (Cameroon), North West and Southwest Regio ...
. He also maintains that some of the Africans taken as slaves to the New World already spoke Guinea Coast Creole English in Africa. Their creole speech influenced the development of creole languages spoken today on the American side of the Atlantic, such as
Gullah
The Gullah () are a subgroup of the African Americans, African American ethnic group, who predominantly live in the South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within ...
,
Afro-Seminole Creole,
Bahamian Dialect,
Jamaican Creole
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with influences from West African, Arawak, Spanish and other languages, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican ...
,
Belizean Kriol,
Guyanese Creole
Guyanese Creole (''Creolese'' by its speakers or simply ''Guyanese'') is an English-based creole language spoken by the Guyanese people. Linguistically, it is similar to other English dialects of the Caribbean region, based on 19th-century En ...
, and
Sranan Tongo
Sranan Tongo (Sranantongo, "Surinamese tongue", Sranan, Surinamese Creole) is an English-based creole language from Suriname, in South America, where it is the first or second language for 519,600 Surinamese people (approximately 80% of the popu ...
in Suriname.
Hancock's views on the connections among the Atlantic creole languages are controversial. The strong similarities among these languages are undeniable, but many linguists prefer to explain the similarities by
convergence
Convergence may refer to:
Arts and media Literature
*''Convergence'' (book series), edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen
*Convergence (comics), "Convergence" (comics), two separate story lines published by DC Comics:
**A four-part crossover storyline that ...
rather than
historical relationships. Other scholars argue that
both factors played a role in the formation of the languages.
Derek Bickerton
Derek Bickerton (March 25, 1926 – March 5, 2018) was an English-born linguist and professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Based on his work in creole languages in Guyana and Hawaii, he has proposed that the features of creole languag ...
and some other linguists subscribe to a theory that attributes creole similarities (which extend to Indian Ocean creoles and
Hawaiian Creole) to an innate "
bioprogram" for language that emerges under the conditions common to most creole communities.
References
External links
Romani Archive and Documentation Center*
*
ttp://www.searchingforthe4thnail.com ''Searching for the 4th Nail'', a documentary about American Roma, features Dr. Hancock.
UC San Diego, Holocaust Living History Collection: Porrajmos: The Romani and the Holocaust with Ian Hancock - Holocaust Living History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hancock, Ian
American people of Hungarian-Romani descent
Linguists from the United Kingdom
English emigrants to the United States
English Romani people
Historical linguists
American people of Romani descent
Romanichal people
Romani studies scholars
Romani writers
Romani activists
University of Texas at Austin faculty
Living people
1942 births
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Linguists of pidgins and creoles
20th-century linguists
21st-century linguists