Dr. Ian Hancock during a sponsored visit to the U.S. Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia, January 10–14, 2005.

Ian Hancock (Romani: Yanko le Redžosko) (born August 29, 1942) is a linguist, Romani scholar, and political advocate. He was born and raised in England, and is one of the main contributors in the field of Romani studies.

He is director of the Program of Romani Studies and the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at The University of Texas at Austin, where he has been a professor of English, linguistics and Asian studies since 1972. He has represented the Romani people at the United Nations and served as a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council under President Bill Clinton, who Hancock claims has Romani ancestry.^[1] He also represented the Romani people at the 1997 Rafto Prize award.

Early life[link]

Hancock was born in London. His mother, Kitty, is Romnichal; his father, Reginald (Redžo), was part Romungro, the descendant of a Hungarian speaker of North Central Romani named Imre Benczi. He acquired the surname Hancock through Imre's daughter Maria, who married a member of an English West Country showman family of that name.

In the late 1960s, he became a Romani rights activist after reading reports about anti-Romani discrimination in Britain. In particular, he took up the cause of Romani rights after reading about an incident in which Romani children left unattended by their parents, who had been arrested, started a fire by knocking over a paraffin lamp.^[2] 1971, he graduated with a Ph.D. in linguistics.^[3]

Romani studies[link]

Hancock has published more than 300 books and articles concerning the Romani people and language (particularly the Vlax dialect). These works analyze the Romani people not only through Romani linguistics but also through history, anthropology, and genetics. He has also appeared in the documentary American Gypsy. He is currently writing a book called On Romani Origins and Identity.^[4]

Hancock supports some of R.L. Turner's views on Romani history based on the Romani language. In particular, he agrees that the Dom left India much earlier than the Romani people, and that the latter left no earlier than 1000 A.D. In fact, he claims that the Indian musicians mentioned in the Shah-Nameh and the atsingani mentioned in The Life of St. George the Anchorite, both of which were previously believed to be ancestors of the Romani people, may have been the ancestors of the Domari people but not those of the Romani people. It is possible, in his view, that the Lom split off from the Romani people on reaching Armenia.

Contrary to the popular view that the Romani people are descended from low-caste Indians who brought their occupations to Europe, he argues that the Romani people are descended from Indian prisoners of war of Mahmud of Ghazni. As evidence, he points to the presence of Indic words specifically of military origin and to a Banjara oral legend telling of Rajputs who left India through the Himalayas during the Ghaznavid invasions and never returned.^[5]

He also believes that the Romani language originates in a koiné language, which he calls "Rajputic," between the many Indian languages spoken by the prisoners of war. In this regard, he finds it similar to several other Indian languages, especially Hindustani. Some people^[who?] argue against this because ethnically, the most completely Romani people (those most similar to their ancestors), are very dark and Dravidian-looking, and point to the fact that the Aryans who invaded India did not want to mix with the low-caste in any way, so it is likely that the first Romanis back in India were truly natives and at some point got tired of being pushed around by the Aryans thus began their diaspora, not wanting to conform to the rules (a very common Romani trait: not accepting a hierarchical structure imposed on them by others who for whatever reason don't accept the Romani's freedom and independent ways).^{[citation needed]}

Creole language studies[link]

Hancock is as well known in the field of linguistics—particularly in the area of pidgin and creole languages -- as he is in the world of Romani studies and Romani social activism. In addition to his research on the Krio language of Sierra Leone, he has studied the Gullah language of coastal South Carolina and Georgia, and the Afro-Seminole Creole language spoken by a community of Black Seminole descendants in Brackettville, Texas. Hancock was the first scholar to report the existence of Afro-Seminole Creole, and he later identified another variety of that language spoken in a village called Nacimiento in the Mexican state of Coahuila. He maintains that Afro-Seminole Creole and Gullah are closely related languages.

Hancock is recognized as one of the founders of the field of pidgin and creole linguistics. He has also done extensive research on the English-based creole languages spoken in West Africa and the West Indies. He is known especially for his views on the historical development of these languages. He maintains that all the English-based pidgins and creoles spoken in the Atlantic basin region—both in West Africa and in the Caribbean—belong to a single language family he calls the "English-based Atlantic Creoles." He argues that all of these languages can be traced back to what he calls Guinea Coast Creole English which arose along the West African coast in the 17th and 18th centuries as a language of commerce in the Atlantic slave trade. He argues that Guinea Coast Creole English was spoken in coastal slave trading bases like James Island, Bunce Island, and Elmina Castle where the offspring of British slave traders and their African wives used it as their native language.

Hancock maintains that Guinea Coast Creole English ultimately gave rise to the pidgin and creole languages spoken in West Africa today, such as the Aku language in the Gambia, Sierra Leone Krio, Nigerian Pidgin English, Cameroonian Pidgin English, etc. He also maintains that some of the Africans taken as slaves to the New World already spoke Guinea Coast Creole English in Africa, and that their creole speech influenced the development of creole languages spoken today on the American side of the Atlantic such as Gullah, Afro-Seminole Creole, Bahamian Dialect, Jamaican Creole, Belizean Kriol, Guyanese Creole, Sranan Tongo in Suriname, etc.

Hancock's views on the connections among the Atlantic creole languages is controversial. The strong similarities among these languages is undeniable, but many linguists prefer to explain those similarities through convergence rather than historical relationships. Other scholars argue that both factors played a role in the formation of these languages. Another group of linguists subscribes to a theory that attributes creole similarities (which extend to Indian Ocean creoles and Hawaiian creole) to an innate "bioprogram" for language that emerges under the conditions common to most creole communities.

References[link]

1. ^ Ian Hancock: We Are the Romani People (Ame Sam E Rromane Džene), Hertfordshire, Great Britain. University of Hertfordshire Press 2002. Page 130.
2. ^ http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/linguistics/faculty/ianh
3. ^ "UT report on Dr. Hancock". What's in a Name?: Professor takes on roles of Romani activist and spokesperson to improve plight of his ethnic group. University of Texas at Austin. http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/romani.html. 
4. ^ Ian Hancock. On Romani Origins and Identity. To appear.
5. ^ Ian Hancock. "The Emergence of Romani as a Koïné Outside of India." Scholarship and the Gypsy Struggle: Commitment in Romani Studies, Hertfordshire, Great Britain. University of Hertfordshire Press 2000.

External links[link]

• Works by or about Ian Hancock in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Romani Archive and Documentation Center
• The Pariah Syndrome by Prof. Hancock
• Downplaying the Porrajmos: The Trend to Minimize the Romani Holocaust by Ian Hancock

Sheila Cameron Hancock, CBE (born 22 February 1933) is an English actress and author.

Early life[link]

Sheila Hancock was born in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight, the daughter of Ivy Louise (née Woodward) and Enrico Cameron Hancock,^[1] who was a publican.^[2] Her sister Billie is nine years older (and worked as a variety artist until retiring to Antibes in 2003 at the age of 79).^[3] After wartime evacuation, Hancock attended Dartford County Grammar School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Theatre[link]

She worked in repertory during the 1950s and made her West End debut in 1958, replacing Joan Sims in the play Breath of Spring. She then appeared in Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop production of Make Me An Offer in 1959, and her other early West End appearances included the revue One Over the Eight with Kenneth Williams in 1961, and starring in Rattle of a Simple Man in 1962. In 1965, she made her Broadway debut in Entertaining Mr Sloane. In 1978, she played Miss Hannigan in the original London cast of the musical Annie and two years later, she played Mrs Lovett in the original London production of the musical Sweeney Todd.

She appeared in The Winter's Tale, Titus Andronicus and A Delicate Balance for the Royal Shakespeare Company. At the National Theatre she appeared in The Cherry Orchard and The Duchess of Malfi. She also directed A Midsummer Night's Dream for the RSC on tour and was the first female director at the National, with The Critic.

In 2006, she played the role of Fraulein Schneider in the West End revival of the musical Cabaret at the Lyric Theatre. She won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role In A Musical. In 2009, she spent over a year playing Mother Superior in Sister Act the Musical at the London Palladium.

Television[link]

Her first big television role was as Carol in the BBC sitcom The Rag Trade in the early 1960s. She also played the lead roles in the sitcoms The Bed-Sit Girl, The Secretary Bird, Mr Digby Darling and Now Take My Wife. Her other television credits include Doctor Who, Kavanagh QC (opposite her husband, John Thaw), EastEnders, Gone to the Dogs (TV series) The Russian Bride, Brighton Belles, Bedtime, Fortysomething, Bleak House, New Tricks and The Catherine Tate Show. In 2008, she played the part of a terminally ill patient who's travelled to Switzerland to have an assisted suicide in one of The Last Word monologues for the BBC. In 2009, she played Liz in The Rain Has Stopped, part of the BBC daytime mini-series Moving On.

Hancock has also presented several documentaries. In 2010, she presented Suffragette City (a part of A History of the World series), telling the story of suffragette movement through objects from the Museum of London's collection.^[4] In 2011, she presented Sheila Hancock Brushes Up: The Art of Watercolours, exploring the history of watercolor via beautiful yet little-known works of professional and amateur artists.^[5]

Film[link]

She has appeared in numerous films, including The Girl on the Boat (1961), Carry On Cleo (1964), The Anniversary (1968), Take a Girl Like You (1970), The Wildcats of St Trinian's (1980), Buster (1988), Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), Love and Death on Long Island (1997) and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008).

Other work[link]

She made guest appearances on television shows like Grumpy Old Women, Room 101 and Have I Got News For You. On radio, she has been a semi-regular contestant on the BBC Radio 4 panel game Just a Minute since 1967. Since May 2007, Sheila Hancock has been Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, but is now in her last year.^[6] From March to May 2010, she appeared as a judge on the BBC show Over the Rainbow, along with Charlotte Church, Andrew Lloyd Webber and John Partridge.

Hancock regularly works in radio and appeared in the BBC Radio Four series North by Northamptonshire in 2011, alongside Geoffrey Palmer.^[7]

Personal life[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (October 2011)

Hancock was married to actor Alec Ross from 1954 until his death from oesophageal cancer in 1971. They had one daughter, Melanie, born in 1964. In 1973, Hancock married actor John Thaw. He adopted Melanie and they had another daughter, Joanna. Thaw's daughter Abigail, from his first marriage, also joined their family. All three of their children have become actresses.

She was married to Thaw until his death from oesophageal cancer on 21 February 2002. Hancock herself was diagnosed with breast cancer during the late 1980s, but made a full recovery. Her 2004 book, The Two of Us is a dual biography, which gives accounts of both their lives, as well as focusing on their 28-year marriage. This was followed by the 2008 book, Just Me, an account of coming to terms with widowhood. She has seven grandchildren.

Hancock is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). She is a patron of the London HIV charity, The Food Chain and works with the London children's charity Kids Company.^[8]

She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1974 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours.^[9]

Honours and awards[link]

• 1974 Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama
• 2002 BAFTA nomination, Best Actress for The Russian Bride
• 2003 BAFTA nomination, Best Actress for Bedtime
• 2007 Appointment as Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth^[8]
• 2007 Laurence Olivier Award, Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical for her role as Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret
• 2010 Laurence Olivier Award nomination, Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical for her role as Mother Superior in Sister Act the Musical.
• 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Women in Film and Television Awards^[10]
• 2011 Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to drama

References[link]

External links[link]

• Guardian Profile of Hancock 4 October 2008 accessed 2010-03-09
• Sheila Hancock at the Internet Movie Database
• Sheila Hancock on Who Do You Think You Are?

Ian Waite (born January 29, 1971) is a professional Latin-American dancer, teacher and choreographer.

Biography[link]

Waite was born in Reading, UK.^[1] He started dancing at the age of 10. Mary Richardson, a former Latin American champion (and now his stepmother) put him through a rigorous medallist regime. By the age of 14, he had completed all his grades and won almost every competition that he had entered. He went on to the open circuit where he achieved international success by becoming the European Youth Latin American Champion. This started a ten year partnership with Melanie Walker (now Melanie Lane), with whom he competed all over the world, representing England in many world and European championships.

He turned professional in 1997 and formed a partnership with the former Latin American world champion, Inga Haas. After nine months, they came third in the British Professional Rising Stars.^[2]

He decided to further his dance career by moving to Holland to train with the choreographer and dance coach, Ruud Vermay. There, he formed a four-year partnership with Natalia Panina, with whom he won the Dutch Championship. They also made the final of both the World Showdance Championship and the European Professional Latin American Championship.^[3] He went on to dance with Daisy Croes, from Belgium, who now appears on the Belgian version of Strictly Come Dancing.

After five years in Holland he returned to home. By the summer of 2004, he had started to dance with Camilla Dallerup. Their first competition was the International Championships at the Royal Albert Hall, where they made the semi final and in November of that year, they made the final of the British National Dance Championships.

Waite lives in Woodley in Berkshire, and has expanded his career involving lecturing, demonstration dancing and big spectaculars. He has also made a dance video with Angela Rippon and presented a documentary called 'Inside Out' for BBC South following the progress of a young couple from Bournemouth. With Camilla Dallerup he performs a series of ballroom and Latin dances on the DVD The Magic of Dance.

[edit] Strictly Come Dancing

Waite has taken part in 7 out of 8 series of Strictly Come Dancing, a popular televised celebrity ballroom competition, appearing as a professional dancer. His partners on the programme have been:

• Athlete Denise Lewis with whom he finished runners-up in 2004.
• Presenter Zoe Ball, with whom he made the final in 2005, finishing in 3rd place.
• Singer Mica Paris, with whom he was eliminated in the second week in 2006.
• Model Penny Lancaster-Stewart with whom he made the sixth week of the competition in 2007.
• Model Jodie Kidd, with whom he made the tenth week of the competition, finishing in sixth place in 2008.
• Athlete Jade Johnson, with whom he reached Week 9 of the competition before having to pull out due to an injury sustained by Johnson in rehearsals in 2009. Ian danced with Natalie Lowe in Series 7, as his professional partner, Camilla Dallerup, no longer appears on Strictly Come Dancing.^[4]
• In series 8 Ian Waite did not have a celebrity partner to teach but appeared in the newly formed dance troupe, the Strictly Showdancers,^[5] and choreographed several of their routines. He returned to the Saturday night show on the 23rd October 2010 when he partnered Michelle Williams whilst Brendan Cole was unable to do so, and appeared regularly on Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two using a telestrator to illustrate his critiques of contestants' rehearsals.

Waite has also appeared in three Strictly Come Dancing tours, reprising his partnerships with Zoe Ball in 2008, and with Jodie Kidd in 2009. In the 2010 tour Ian Waite appeared with Natalie Lowe in a showdance. In the 2011 tour he took on the role of the choreographer for all the Pro and Pro/Celeb group dances. He has also appeared in Strictly Come Dancing Christmas specials, with his best performance being runner-up with Zoe Ball in 2006. In 2011, he returns to Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two using a telestrator to illustrate his critiques of contestants' rehearsals.^[6]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ian Waite's website