The Roma, Gypsies and the Romany

The Roma have been made up of many different groups of people, and have absorbed outsiders throughout their history. Because they arrived in Europe from the East, they were thought by the first Europeans to be from Turkey, Nubia or Egypt, or any number of vaguely acknowledged non-European places, and they were called, among other things, Egyptians or 'Gyptians, which is where the word "Gypsy" comes from. In some places, this Egyptian identity was taken entirely seriously, and was no doubt borrowed by the early Roma themselves.
The Roma are a nomadic culture whose many groups travel from c…