[Mamzelle]

I rather doubt it--but there is certainly no way to disprove it, either. I couldn't disprove that the czardas was Gypsy, just that a lot of Hunkies wouldn't like the idea.

The first thing that happens when a culture comes to America--everybody wants to try the food. No Gypsy food.

Music? From where I sit, and what I've heard, the music people tell me is Gypsy sounds more like what a Western ear might like to think is Gypsy. That is, the vagabond romance of it all, not an authentic sound. I doubt we have anything in our repetoire that is anything but pastiche.

As for poetry--there is none. What we know of Gypsy language is the little that the Gypsies could not prevent our learning.

No art, other than Artful Dodging.

Amazing, is it not? There is no culture like this one--an utter nothing.

[Cronos]

There is no culture like this one--an utter nothing.

WEll, a secretive culture -- you can't call it nothing just 'cause you don't know about it.

I stick by the sitar origins for the guitar (thouh it can't be proved) for the overall design, the similar name. In hungarian, a guitar is a gitár. A lute is an altogether different animal. Plus the spread of the guitar from Eastern Europe to the West is pretty well known.