Few Spaniards are aware, for example, that Andalusian singer and gitano popular icon Lola Flores was, in fact, not of gitano ethnicity and did not consider herself as such. Indeed, the boundaries among gitano and non- gitano ethnicities are so blurred by intermarriage and common cultural traits in the south of the country, that self-identification is on occasion the only real marker for ethnicity.
The fact that the largest population of gitanos is concentrated in Southern Spain has even led to a confusion between gitano accents and those typical of Southern Spain even though many Kale populations in the northern half of Spain (such as Galicia) do not speak Andalusian Spanish.
The clearest example of this is flamenco music and Sevillanas, art forms that are Andalusian rather than gitano in origin but, having been strongly marked by gitanos in interpretative style, is now commonly associated to this ethnicity by many Spaniards. This has occurred to the point where Spaniards from other regions of Spain can commonly mistake elements of one for the other. A confusing element is the thorough hybridization of Andalusian and Roma culture (and some would say identity) at a popular level.
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Nevertheless, it can be safely said that both from the perspective of gitano and non- gitano ( payo) Spaniards, individuals generally considered to belong to this ethnicity are those of full or near-full gitano descent and who also self-identify as such. The group's identity is particularly complex in Spain for a variety of reasons which are examined below. This group of Romanis in Albania are likewise of northwestern Hindustani origin, and are not related to the people of Egypt. It is for this same reason that in the Albanian language variations of the Albanian term for "Egyptian" are still used to refer to a Romani people of Albania, which in English are also still ambiguously referred to as Balkan Egyptians. While it is now widely known that Romanis are ultimately of northwestern Hindustani origin (an area today shared between North-Western India and the Eastern portion of Pakistan), and are unrelated to the Egyptian people proper, many Romanis did enter Europe via a generations-long migration which included Egypt as one of their last stops before their arrival into Europe. Some Romanis, a people originating in the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent, upon their first arrivals to Europe, either claimed to be Egyptians for a more favourable treatment by local Europeans, or were mistaken as Egyptians by local Europeans.
Though etymologically the term gitano originally meant "Egyptian", the use itself of the Old Spanish word meaning "Egyptian" (egiptano) to refer to Romanis in Spain developed in the same way that the English word " Gypsy" also evolved from the English adjective "Egyptian" to refer to Romanis in Britain. The two peoples are now unambiguously differentiated in modern Spanish, "egipcios" for Egyptians and "gitanos" for Roma in Spain, with "egiptano" being obsolete for either.
Meanwhile, the term egiptano evolved through elision into egitano and finally into gitano, losing the meaning of Egyptian and carrying with it a specific meaning of Romanis in Spain. "Egiptano" was the regular adjective in Old Spanish for someone from Egypt, however, in Middle and Modern Spanish the irregular adjective egipcio supplanted egiptano to mean Egyptian, probably to differentiate Egyptians proper from Gypsys. The term gitano evolved from the word egiptano ("Egyptian"), which was the Old Spanish demonym for someone from Egipto (Egypt).
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