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  3. 1 Hostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europe in the 14th century. The origins of th

1 Hostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europe in the 14th century. The origins of th

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问题 1     Hostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europe in the 14th century. The origins of the Gypsies, with little written history, were shrouded in mystery. What is known now from clues in the various dialects of their language, Romany, is that they came from northern India to the Middle East a thousand years ago, working as minstrels and mercenaries, metalsmiths and servants. Europeans misnamed them Egyptians, soon shortened to Gypsies. A clan system, based mostly on their traditional crafts and geography, has made them a deeply fragmented and fractious people, only really unifying in the face of enmity from non-Gypsies, whom they call gadje. Today many Gypsy activists prefer to be called Roma, which comes from the Romany word for "man". But on my travels among them most still referred to themselves as Gypsies.
2     In Europe their persecution by the gadje began quickly, with the church seeing heresy in their fortune-telling and the state seeing anti-social behaviour in their nomadism. At various times they have been forbidden to wear their distinctive bright clothes, to speak their own language, to travel, to marry one another, or to ply their traditional crafts. In some countries they were reduced to slavery—it wasn’t until the mid-1800s that Gypsy slaves were freed in Romania. In more recent times the Gypsies were caught up in Nazi ethnic hysteria, and perhaps half a million perished in the Holocaust. Their horses have been shot and the wheels removed from their wagons, their names have been changed, their women have been sterilized, and their children have been forcibly given for adoption to non-Gypsy families.
3     But the Gypsies have confounded predictions of their disappearance as a distinct ethnic group, and their numbers have burgeoned. Today there are an estimated 8 to 12 million Gypsies scattered across Europe, making them the continent’s largest minority. The exact number is hard to pin down. Gypsies have regularly been undercounted, both by regimes anxious to downplay their profile and by Gypsies themselves, seeking to avoid bureaucracies. Attempting to remedy past inequities, activist groups may overcount. Hundreds of thousands more have emigrated to the Americas and elsewhere. With very few exceptions Gypsies have expressed no great desire for a country to call their own — unlike the Jews, to whom the Gypsy experience is often compared. "Romanestan,’ said Ronald Lee, the Canadian Gypsy writer. "is where my two feet stand."
选项 A、are engaged in traditional crafts.
B、call themselves Roma.
C、live under a clan system.
D、face external threats.
答案D
解析 <1>Gypsies吉普赛人
<2>shrouded in mystery神秘地掩盖起来，处于神秘之中。shroud表示“遮蔽”、“隐藏”、“把……伪装起来”。
<3>minstrels and mercenaries minstrel指(中世纪的)豪门艺人，专以歌唱、讲故事、滑稽表演等取悦于封建主的歌手、乐师、滑稽演员等，(中世纪的)吟游诗人。mercenary指外国雇佣兵。注意此二词连用时产生的头韵效果。
<4>clan system宗派体系
<5>fragmented and fractious分裂而且难以驾驭的。此处也使用了头韵。
<6>nomadism游牧生活，流浪生活
<7>ethnic hysterical这里指德国纳粹疯狂迫害包括犹太民族、吉普赛人在内的暴虐行为。
<8>confound此处表示“挫败”，“使落空”。
<9>burgeon迅速增长，发展繁荣
<10>downplay their profile贬低他们的形象或影响
此题为细节理解题。据第1段第5句我们知道，吉普赛人根据他们从事的传统手艺以及他们分布的地理区域建立起宗派体系，这种组织方式使他们分裂而且难以驾驭。他们只是在面临来自被他们称作gadje的非吉普赛人的威胁时才会真正团结起来。
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