Sinti or Sinte (Singular masc.=Sinto; sing. fem.=Sintisa) is the name some communities of the nomadic people usually called "Gypsies" in English prefer for themselves. This includes communities known in German and Dutch as Zigeuner and in Italian as Zingari. They are closely related to, and are usually considered to be a subgroup of, the Roma people. The origin of the name "Sinti/Sinte" is unclear, although it bears a similarity to the toponym Sindh (and inhabitants' name, the Sindhis), the area which linguistic and cultural evidence indicates was the likely geographic origin of the Roma, in the Southeast of what is today Pakistan. Communities of nomadic people move from place to place, rather than settling down in one location. ... The Rroma people (pronounced rahma, singular Rrom) along with the closely related Sinti people are commonly known as Gypsies. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... This article is becoming very long. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Sindh (Sindhī: سنڌ, Urdū: سندھ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and is home to the Sindhis, and Muhajirs and various other groups. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages. ... Ethnography (from the Greek ethnos = nation and graphein = writing) refers to the genre of writing that presents qualitative description of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. ...

While the Sinti were, until quite recently, chiefly nomadic, today only a small percentage of the group remains unsettled. In earlier times, they frequently lived on the outskirts of communities, generally in squalor.

The Sinti arrived in Germany and Austria in the Middle Ages, eventually splitting into two groups: Eftavagarja ("the Seven Caravans") and Estraxarja ("from Austria"). These two groups then expanded, the Eftavagarja into France, where they assimilated into the local Romani groups (Manouches), and the Estraxarja into Italy and Eastern Europe, mainly Croatia, Hungary, Transylvania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, eventually adopting various regional names. The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Regions of Europe as delineated by the United Nations (UN definition of Eastern Europe marked salmon):  Northern Europe  Western Europe  Eastern Europe  Southern Europe Pre-1989 division between the West (grey) and Eastern Bloc (orange) superimposed on current national boundaries: Russia (dark orange), other countries of the former USSR (medium... Map of Romania with Transylvania in yellow Transylvania (Romanian: or Transilvania; Hungarian: ; German: ; Serbian: or Erdelj / Ердељ) is a historical region in the center of Romania. ...

The Sinti have produced a great number of renowned musicians, such as jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. The Sinto Häns'che Weiss produced a record in Germany in the 1970s in which he sang about the Poraimos (Romani Holocaust) in his own language. This caused a furor among his people who did not want the language to be made known to the "Gadje". Many younger Germans first learned about this part of Holocaust history as a result of this recording. Titi Winterstein and several members of Reinhardt's clan still play traditional and modern "Gypsy jazz" all over Europe. The jazz keyboardist Joe Zawinul is also of Sinte (sintenghero) descent. Jazz is an original American musical art form that originated around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in African American musical styles blended with Western music technique and theory. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Jean Baptiste Django Reinhardt (January 23, 1910 – May 16, 1953) was a Belgian Roma jazz guitarist. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... Gypsy arrivals in the Belzec death camp await instructions The Porajmos (also Porrajmos) literally Devouring, is a term coined by the Roma (Gypsy) people to describe attempts by the Nazi regime to exterminate most of the Roma peoples of Europe during the Holocaust. ... This article is becoming very long. ... A clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by perceived descent from a common ancestor. ... Gypsy jazz is an idiom that was pioneered in the 1930s by guitar legend Django Reinhardt. ... Josef Erich Zawinul (born July 7, 1932 in Vienna, Austria) is a jazz keyboardist and composer. ...

The Sinti speak a dialect of the Romani language called "Romanes, Sintenghero Tschib(en)", which is fully Romani by vocabulary, with primarily only grammatical differences, and exhibits strong German influence. Romani (or Romany) is the language of the Roma and Sinti, peoples often referred to in English as Gypsies. The Indo-Aryan Romani language should not be confused with either Romanian (spoken by Romanians), or Romansh (spoken in parts of southeastern Switzerland), both of which are Romance languages. ... A vocabulary is a set of words known to a person or other entity, or that are part of a specific language. ... Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. ...

Further reading

• Walter Winter, Struan Robertson (Translator) Winter Time: Memoirs of a German who Survived Auschwitz Hertfordshire Publications, (2004), ISBN 1-902806-38-7
  • Reviewed by Emma Brockes "We had the same pain" in The Guardian November 29, 2004