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GYPSY groups united on International Roma Day yesterday to launch a campaign to remove a reference to them as swindlers from the world’s benchmark Spanish dictionary.
Spain’s Gypsy Secretariat Foundation delivered protest letters to members of the Royal Language Academy, which produces the definitive Spanish dictionary.
Foundation spokeswoman Pilar Calon said that the campaign attempts to raise awareness of anti-Roma discrimination.
The dictionary’s most recent 2014 print edition lists “swindler,” or “trapacero” as a definition for “Gypsy” — “gitano.”
The academy claims that dictionary definitions reflect actual use and are not meant to be derogatory.
But it has offered the possibility of changing the forthcoming online edition to clarify that such references are pejorative.
“It’s not fair because we are a people marked by prejudices, stereotypes and these type of contributions by the Royal
Language Academy encourage rejection and stigmatisation and do not correspond to Gypsies in Spanish society,” said Roma lawyer Sara Jimenez.
