The origin of Roma community is now neither a myth nor a secret. The mystery of origin and the distant history of Roma have been penetrated linguistically, historically and culturally.
The findings of linguistic and cultural anthropology as well as ethnological study of Roma community substantiated Indian lineage of Roma and broke off the archaic stereotypes attached to the origin and migration of Romani people who have still been the most disadvantaged and marginalized where ever their abodes are.
The first attempt was made to trace the roots of Roma by virtue of linguistic comparison by a Hungarian pastor Valyi Stefan, who was traditionally attributed to the "discovery" of the Indian origins of Roma.
In the early 1760s, he at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands came across three fellow students from Malabar Coast in India, whose language and appearance reminded him of Roma living near Komárno (in present day southern Slovakia).
Valyi Stefan was from a landowning family that employed Roma on its estate, therefore he noticed similarities in the language spoken by Malabari students and Roma. He jotted down a list of over 1,000 words used by students and compared the list of words with those of Romani Chib after his return from the university in order to dispel his suspicion.
