The ancestors of Gypsies left their home ______

Around the year 1000 A.D, some people from northwest India began to travel westward. Nobody knows why. After leaving their homes, they did not settle down again, but spent their lives moving from one place to another, their later generations are called the Romany people, or Gypsies. There’re Gypsies all over the world, and many of them arc still traveling with no fixed homes. There are about 8,000,000 of them, including 3,000,000 in eastern Europe. Gypsies sometimes have a hard time in the countries where they travel, because they are different. People may be afraid of them, look down on them, or think that they are criminals the Nazies treated the Gypsies cruelly, like the Jews, and nobody knows how many of them died in Hitler’s deathcamps. Gypsies have their own language Romany. They like music and dancing. And they often work in fairs and traveling shows. Traveling is very important to them, and many Gypsies are unhappy if they have to stay in one place. Because of this, it is difficult for Gypsy children to go to school, and Gypsies are often unable to read and write. In some places, the education authorities try to arrange special traveling schools for Gypsy children, so that they can get the same education as other children.