Several groups, generally known to outsiders as "Gypsies," live today in North America. In their native languages, each of the groups refers to itself by a specific name, but most translate that name as "Gypsy" when speaking English. The distinct groups of Irish Travelers and Scottish Travelers do not refer to themselves as Gypsies, however. Each of these groups had its own cultural, linguistic, and historical tradition before coming to this country, and each maintains social distance from the others. They differ from one another in social organization: form of marriage, internal politics and social control. With the exception of the Hungarian-Slovak musicians, Gypsy and Traveler groups share elements of economic organization. The Rom and Romnichels share elements of an ideology which stresses the separation of pure from impure and Gypsy from non-Gypsy. The Rom, Romnichels, and Hungarian-Slovak musicians share a linguistic prehistory, but their ethnic languages are not, for practical purposes, mutually intelligible. (Roma History)
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