Itinerant groups in Europe

There are a number of traditionally itinerant or travelling groups in Europe.

The origins of the indigenous itinerant groups are not always clear. The largest of these groups is the Romani people (also known as Roma or Gypsies, with the latter being increasingly taken as derogatory). They left India around 1,500 years ago, entering Europe around 1,000 years ago via the Balkans. They include the Sinti people, the second largest group. Travellers, assumed to have begun travelling from necessity during the early modern period, are unrelated to the Romani, and are assumed not to be ethnically distinct from their source population. However, recent DNA testing has shown that the Irish Travellers are of Irish origin but are genetically distinct from their settled counterparts due to social isolation, and more groups are being studied. The third largest group in Europe is the Yenish, an indigenous Germanic group.

Many itinerant groups speak their own language or dialect, though with outsiders they will use the language of the surrounding settled population. Such insider languages are often a blend of the regional settled language and Romani language, but sometimes a cant based on a regional language without Romani influence. As opposed to nomads, who travel with and subsist on herds of livestock, itinerant groups traditionally travel for trade or other work for the sedentary populations amongst which they live.