The Lom people (), also known by non-Loms as Bosha or Posha (; ; ka, ბოშა, tr; ) or as Armenian Romani (; ) or Caucasian Romani (), are an ethnic group originating from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

. Their Lomavren language is a mixed language, combining an Indo-Aryan substrate with Armenian.

Number

It is difficult to determine the exact number of Bosha people, due to the dispersed and often mostly-assimilated nature of the group. Estimates suggest only a few thousand of the people can be found across

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 ...

and Georgia, while the Armenian Government's census reports only 50 living in the former.

Distribution

Concentrations of Bosha can be found in

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , ; ; sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia, as well as one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerev ...

and Gyumri in Armenia. Some of the Bosha in Armenia have adopted the

Armenian language Armenian (endonym: , , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language and the sole member of the independent branch of the Armenian language family. It is the native language of the Armenians, Armenian people and the official language of ...

and partially assimilated with the larger Armenian population. In Georgia they live in such cities as Tbilisi,

Kutaisi Kutaisi ( ; ka, ქუთაისი ) is a city in the Imereti region of the Georgia (country), Republic of Georgia. One of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, it is the List o ...

, Akhalkalaki and Akhaltsikhe. They are noted for such occupations as sievemakers. In Turkey the Lomlar or Poshalar adopted

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

at the 19th century and assimilated into Turkish culture. They mostly live in Artvin, Rize, Ardahan and Kars and identify themselves as Meskhetian Turks, hiding their Lom origins, while taking Armenian words from their contact with the Hemshin.

References

External links

*
Marushiakova, Elena and Vesselin Popov. 2016. Gypsies of Central Asia and Caucasus. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lom People Ethnic groups in Armenia Ethnic groups in Georgia (country) Ethnic groups in Turkey

Number

Distribution

References

Further reading

External links