Ian Hancock
Ian Hancock ( Romani: Yanko le Redžosko, born August 29, 1942 in London) is a linguist, Romani scholar and human rights lawyer.
He leads the Romani Studies program and the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has worked since 1972 as a professor of English, Linguistics and Asian Studies. He has represented the Roma people in the United Nations and was under President Bill Clinton a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. He also in 1997 at the award ceremony of the Raftopreises the Roma people.
Childhood and youth
Ian Hancock grew up in England. His mother Kitty is Romnichal ( British Roma). His father, Reginald ( Redžo ) has roots among the Romungri ( Hungarian Roma) and British Travellers.
Hancock lived nearly six years in Canada in 1961 and returned back to England. Few of his relatives could read and write. He attended school until the 9th grade. Then he took various jobs, including as a painter. He lived with students from Sierra Leone and learned from them their Language: Krio. Because of his language skills and linguistic ability, he was able to attend the University of London on a program that members of disadvantaged minorities allowed an academic education. In the late 60s he was an activist for the rights of Roma, after British police had caused a fire that killed two Roma children. In 1971 he made the first Rome in Britain his doctorate ( Ph.D.), although he had no diploma from high school.
Romani studies
Ian Hancock has more than 400 books, articles and lectures about the people and the language of the Roma written (especially on the Vlax dialect). In these works he examines not only linguistic but also historical, anthropological and genetic aspects. It represents, among others, the thesis that the Roma are not descended from lower castes, but of Rajput warriors.
Creole languages
Apart from his basic studies in the field of Anglo - Romani Hancock is an internationally recognized expert on Creole languages , besides Krio for the Gullah of South Carolina and Georgia and the Afro - Seminole, which is spoken in the southwest from Texas.