Shelta /ˈʃɛltə/ is a language spoken by Irish Travellers, particularly in Ireland and the United Kingdom. It is widely known as the Cant, to its native speakers in Ireland as De Gammon, and to the linguistic community as Shelta. It was often used as a cryptolect to exclude outsiders from comprehending conversations between Travellers, although this aspect is frequently over-emphasised. The exact number of native speakers is hard to determine due to sociolinguistic issues but Ethnologue puts the number of speakers at 30,000 in the Republic of Ireland, 500,000 in the UK (including Northern Ireland), and 50,000 in the US. The figure for at least the UK is dated to 1990; it is not clear if the other figures are from the same source.