Ian Hancock
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and is one of the main contributors in the field of Romani studies
Romani studies
Romani studies is an emerging interdisciplinary ethnic studies field concerned with the experiences of the Romani people. Romani studies drawn on aspects of sociology, anthropology, linguistics and political science...
.
He is director of the Program of Romani Studies and the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at The University of Texas at Austin, where he has been a professor of English, linguistics and Asian studies since 1972. He has represented the Romani people at the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
and served as a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
under President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, who Hancock claims has Romani ancestry. He also represented the Romani people at the 1997 Rafto Prize award.
Early life
Hancock was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. His mother, Kitty, is Romnichal
Romnichal
The Romanichals are a Romani sub-group in the United Kingdom.Romanichals are thought to have arrived in Britain in the 16th century...
; his father, Reginald (Redžo), was part Romungro, the descendant of a Hungarian speaker of North Central Romani
North Central Romani
North Central Romani is one of a dozen of major dialect groups within Romani, an Indo-Aryan language of Europe. The North Central dialects of Romani are traditionally spoken by some subethnic groups of the Romani people in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia , southeastern Poland, the...
named Imre Benczi. He acquired the surname Hancock through Imre's daughter Maria, who married a member of an English West Country
West Country
The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...
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 Romani children left unattended by their parents, who had been arrested, started a fire by knocking over a paraffin lamp. 1971, he graduated with a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in linguistics. He was the first Romani in Britain to obtain that degree, though he began his postgraduate studies without a university degree.
Romani studies
Hancock has published more than 300 books and articles concerning the Romani people and languageRomani language
Romani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
(particularly the Vlax dialect
Vlax Romani language
Vlax Romani is a dialect group of the Romani language. Vlax Romani varieties are spoken mainly in Southeastern Europe by Romani people. Vlax Romani can also be referred to as an independent language or as one dialect of the Romani language. Vlax Romani is the most widely-spoken dialect subgroup of...
). These works analyze the Romani people not only through Romani linguistics but also through 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 R.L. Turner
Ralph Lilley Turner
Sir Ralph Lilley Turner MC was an English Indian languages philologist and university administrator. He is also the author of some publications concerning the Romani language....
's views on Romani history based on the Romani language. In particular, he agrees that the Dom
Dom people
The Dom of the Middle East are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group. Some authors relate them to the Domba people of India.- Culture :...
left India much earlier than the Romani people, and that the latter left no earlier than 1000 A.D. 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 those of the Romani people. It is possible, in his view, that the Lom split off from the Romani people on reaching Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
.
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
Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni , actually ', was the most prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty who ruled from 997 until his death in 1030 in the eastern Iranian lands. Mahmud turned the former provincial city of Ghazni into the wealthy capital of an extensive empire which covered most of today's Iran,...
. As evidence, he points to the presence of Indic words specifically of military origin and to a Banjara
Banjara
The Banjara are a class of usually described as nomadic people from the Indian state of Rajasthan, North-West Gujarat, and Western Madhya Pradesh and Eastern Sindh province of pre-independence Pakistan...
oral legend telling of Rajputs who left India through the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
during the Ghaznavid invasions and never returned.
He also believes that the Romani language originates in a koiné language
Koine language
In linguistics, a koiné language is a standard language or dialect that has arisen as a result of contact between two mutually intelligible varieties of the same language. Since the speakers have understood one another from before the advent of the koiné, the koineization process is not as rapid...
, which he calls "Rajputic," between the many Indian languages spoken by the prisoners of war. In this regard, he finds it similar to several other Indian languages, especially Hindustani
Hindustani language
Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
.
Creole language studies
Hancock is as well known in the field of linguistics—particularly in the area of pidginPidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
and creole language
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
s -- as he is in the world of Romani studies and Romani social activism. In addition to his research on the Krio
Krio language
Sierra Leone Krio is the lingua franca and the de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 97% of Sierra Leone's population and unites the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each...
language of Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
, he has studied the Gullah language
Gullah language
Gullah is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people , an African American population living on the Sea Islands and the coastal region of the U.S...
of coastal South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
and Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, and the Afro-Seminole Creole
Afro-Seminole Creole
Afro-Seminole Creole is an English-based creole spoken by Black Seminoles in scattered communities in Oklahoma, Texas, and Northern Mexico.It was first identified as a language by Ian Hancock, a linguist at the University of Texas....
language spoken by a community of Black Seminole descendants in Brackettville, Texas
Brackettville, Texas
Brackettville is a city in Kinney County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,876 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Kinney County...
. Hancock was the first scholar to report the existence of Afro-Seminole Creole, and he later identified another variety of that language spoken in a village called Nacimiento in the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
state of Coahuila
Coahuila
Coahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico...
. He maintains that Afro-Seminole Creole and Gullah are closely related languages.
Hancock is recognized 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 he calls the "English-based Atlantic Creoles." He argues that all of these languages can be traced back to what he calls Guinea Coast Creole English
West African Pidgin English
West African Pidgin English, also called Guinea Coast Creole English, was the lingua franca, or language of commerce, spoken along the West African coast during the period of the Atlantic slave trade...
which arose along the West African coast in the 17th and 18th centuries as a language of commerce in the Atlantic slave trade
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
. He argues that Guinea Coast Creole English was spoken in coastal slave trading bases like James Island
James Island (The Gambia)
James Island is an island in the Gambia River, 30 km from the river mouth and near Juffureh in the country of The Gambia. On 6 February 2011 it was renamed Kunta Kinteh Island to give the Island a Gambian name. Fort James is located on the island...
, Bunce Island
Bunce Island
Bunce Island is the site of an 18th century British slave castle in the Republic of Sierra Leone in West Africa....
, and Elmina Castle
Elmina Castle
Elmina Castle was erected by Portugal in 1482 as São Jorge da Mina Castle, also known simply as Mina or Feitoria da Mina) in present-day Elmina, Ghana . It was the first trading post built on the Gulf of Guinea, so is the oldest European building in existence below the Sahara...
where the offspring of British slave traders and their African wives used it as their native language.
Hancock maintains that Guinea Coast Creole English ultimately gave rise to the pidgin and creole languages spoken in West Africa today, such as the Aku language
Aku language
Aku is a variety of Sierra Leone Krio, an English-based Creole language of Western Africa. Aku is spoken primarily in Gambia, mainly by the Aku people, who are descendants of the Sierra Leone Creole people. In many ways the Akus are an extension of the Sierra Leone Creole community....
in the Gambia, Sierra Leone Krio, Nigerian Pidgin English, Cameroonian Pidgin English
Cameroonian Pidgin English
Cameroonian Pidgin English, or Cameroonian Creole, is a language variety of Cameroon. It is also known as Kamtok . Five varieties are currently recognised:...
, etc. He also maintains that some of the Africans taken as slaves to the New World already spoke Guinea Coast Creole English in Africa, and that their creole speech influenced the development of creole languages spoken today on the American side of the Atlantic such as Gullah
Gullah language
Gullah is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people , an African American population living on the Sea Islands and the coastal region of the U.S...
, Afro-Seminole Creole
Afro-Seminole Creole
Afro-Seminole Creole is an English-based creole spoken by Black Seminoles in scattered communities in Oklahoma, Texas, and Northern Mexico.It was first identified as a language by Ian Hancock, a linguist at the University of Texas....
, Bahamian Dialect, Jamaican Creole
Jamaican Creole
Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patois or Jamaican, and called Jamaican Creole by linguists, is an English-lexified creole language with West African influences spoken primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora. It is not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of...
, Belizean Kriol
Belizean Kriol language
Belizean Creole English, known as Kriol by its speakers, is an English-based creole language most closely related to Miskito Coastal Creole, Limón Coastal Creole, Colón Creole, San Andrés and Providencia Creole, Guyanese Creole, Jamaican Patois and English creoles of the Caribbean show similarity...
, Guyanese Creole, Sranan Tongo
Sranan Tongo
Sranan is a creole language spoken as a lingua franca by approximately 300,000 people in Suriname...
in Suriname
Suriname
Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname , is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean. Suriname was a former colony of the British and of the Dutch, and was previously known as...
, etc.
Hancock's views on the connections among the Atlantic creole languages is controversial. The strong similarities among these languages is undeniable, but many linguists prefer to explain those similarities through convergence rather than historical relationships. Other scholars argue that both factors played a role in the formation of these languages.