Sepoy
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A sepoy (IPA: /ˈsipɔɪ/) (from Persian سپاهی Sipâhi meaning "soldier") was a native of India, a soldier allied to a European power, usually the United Kingdom. Specifically, it was the term used in the British Indian Army, and earlier in the Honourable East India Company, for an infantry private (a cavalry trooper was a Sowar), and is still so used in the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army. The Sepoys played a prominent role in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 after it was alleged that the new rifles being issued to them used animal fat to grease the casing.
The same Persian word has reached English via another route in the form of Spahi. Also the Sepoy Mutiny got its name from this.
Its Basque version zipaio is used by leftist Basque nationalists as an insult for members of the Basque Police[1], implying that they are nor a national police but servers of a foreign occupant.
[edit] See also
- Sepoy Mutiny (also Indian Mutiny or First Indian War of Independence)
- Jawan, the word used today to describe a soldier of the Armies of India and Pakistan.
[edit] References
- ^ La AN condena a dos años de cárcel al autor de los destrozos en el "bosque de Oma", Deia, 12 January 2005. Quoting a sentence from the Audiencia Nacional: «siendo público y notorio que el término "zipaio" es el que se da a los miembros de la Policía» vasca.
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