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Sipahi
''Sipahi'' ( ota, سپاهی, translit=sipâhi, label=Persian, ) were professional cavalrymen deployed by the Seljuks, and later the Ottoman Empire, including the land grant-holding (''timar'') provincial '' timarli sipahi'', which constituted most of the army, and the salaried regular '' kapikulu sipahi'', or palace troops. However, the irregular light cavalry ("raiders") were not considered to be . The ''sipahi'' formed their own distinctive social classes and were rivals to the Janissaries, the elite infantry corps of the Sultan. It was also the title given to several cavalry units serving in the French and Italian colonial armies during the 19th and 20th centuries (see ). Name The word is derived from fa, سپاهی, translit=sepāhī, meaning "soldier". The term is also transliterated as and ; rendered in other languages as: in Albanian and Romanian, ''sepuh'' (սեպուհ) in Armenian, () in Greek, or in Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and Macedonian (Cyrillic: ...
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Timar
A timar was a land grant by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with an annual tax revenue of less than 20,000 akçes. The revenues produced from the land acted as compensation for military service. A holder of a timar was known as a timariot. If the revenues produced from the timar were from 20,000 to 100,000 ''akçes'', the land grant was called a '' zeamet'', and if they were above 100,000 ''akçes'', the grant would be called a '' hass''.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 99 Timar system In the Ottoman Empire, the timar system was one in which the projected revenue of a conquered territory was distributed in the form of temporary land grants among the Sipahis (cavalrymen) and other members of the military class including Janissaries and other kuls (slaves) of the sultan. These prebends were given as compensation for annual military service, for which they received no pay. In rare circumstances women could become timar ...
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Cavalry
Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in the roles of reconnaissance, screening, and skirmishing in many armies, or as heavy cavalry for decisive shock attacks in other armies. An individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations depending on era and tactics, such as cavalryman, horseman, trooper, cataphract, knight, hussar, uhlan, mamluk, cuirassier, lancer, dragoon, or horse archer. The designation of ''cavalry'' was not usually given to any military forces that used other animals for mounts, such as camels or elephants. Infantry who moved on horseback, but dismounted to fight on foot, were known in the early 17th to the early 18th century as ''dragoons'', a class of mounted infantry which in most armies later evolved into standard cavalry while retain ...
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Janissaries
A Janissary ( ota, یڭیچری, yeŋiçeri, , ) was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman Sultan's household troops and the first modern standing army in Europe. The corps was most likely established under sultan Orhan (1324–1362), during the Viziership of Alaeddin. Janissaries began as elite corps made up through the devşirme system of child levy, by which Christian Albanians, Romanians, Armenians, Bulgarians, Croats, Greeks and Serbs were taken, levied, subjected to circumcision and conversion to Islam, and incorporated into the Ottoman army. They became famed for internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order. Unlike typical slaves, they were paid regular salaries. Forbidden to marry before the age of 40 or engage in trade, their complete loyalty to the Sultan was expected. By the seventeenth century, due to a dramatic increase in the size of the Ottoman standing army, the corps' initially strict recruitment policy was relaxed. Civ ...
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Timariots
Timariot (or ''tımar'' holder; ''tımarlı'' in Turkish) was the name given to a Sipahi cavalryman in the Ottoman army. In return for service, each timariot received a parcel of revenue called a timar, a fief, which were usually recently conquered plots of agricultural land in the countryside. Far less commonly, the sultan would grant a civil servant or member of the imperial family a timar. Also non-military timar holders were obliged to supply the imperial army with soldiers and provisions. The timariots provided the backbone of the Ottoman cavalry force and the army as a whole. They were obligated to fight as cavalrymen in the Ottoman military when called upon. The timariots had to assemble with the army when at war, and had to take care of the land entrusted to him in times of peace. When at war, the timariot had to bring his own equipment and in addition a number of armed retainers (''cebelu''). The timariot was granted feudatory with the obligation to go mounted to war an ...
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Timariots
Timariot (or ''tımar'' holder; ''tımarlı'' in Turkish) was the name given to a Sipahi cavalryman in the Ottoman army. In return for service, each timariot received a parcel of revenue called a timar, a fief, which were usually recently conquered plots of agricultural land in the countryside. Far less commonly, the sultan would grant a civil servant or member of the imperial family a timar. Also non-military timar holders were obliged to supply the imperial army with soldiers and provisions. The timariots provided the backbone of the Ottoman cavalry force and the army as a whole. They were obligated to fight as cavalrymen in the Ottoman military when called upon. The timariots had to assemble with the army when at war, and had to take care of the land entrusted to him in times of peace. When at war, the timariot had to bring his own equipment and in addition a number of armed retainers (''cebelu''). The timariot was granted feudatory with the obligation to go mounted to war an ...
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Spahi
Spahis () were light-cavalry regiments of the French army recruited primarily from the indigenous populations of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The modern French Army retains one regiment of Spahis as an armoured unit, with personnel now recruited in mainland France. Senegal also maintains a mounted unit with spahi origins as a presidential escort: the Red Guard. Etymology The name is the French form of the Ottoman Turkish word , a word derived from New Persian , meaning "army", or "horsemen"; or from , meaning "warriors". Early history Following the French occupation of Algiers in 1830, detachments of locally recruited irregular horsemen were attached to the regiments of light cavalry assigned to North African service. These auxiliaries were designated as '' chasseurs spahis''. Between 1834 and 1836 they were organised into four squadrons of regular spahis. In 1841 the 14 squadrons by then in existence were brought together in a single corps of spahis. Finally, in ...
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Akinji
Akinji or akindji ( ota, آقنجى, aḳıncı, lit=raider, ; plural: ''akıncılar'') were Irregular military, irregular light cavalry, scout divisions (deli) and advance troops of the Ottoman Empire's Military of the Ottoman Empire, military. When the pre-existing Turkish Ghazi (warrior), ghazis were incorporated into the Ottoman Empire's military they became known as "akıncı." Unpaid, they lived and operated as wikt:raider, raiders on the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, subsisting on plunder. There is a distinction made between "akıncı" and "deli (cavalry), deli" cavalry. History In war their main role was to act as advance troops on the front lines and demoralise the marching opposing army by using guerrilla tactics, and to put them in a state of confusion and shock. They could be likened to a scythe in a wheat field. They would basically Turkish archery, hit the enemy with arrows. When attacked in melee, they would retreat while still shooting backwards. They could ea ...
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Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) // CITED: p. 36 (PDF p. 38/338) also known as the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt (modern-day Bilecik Province) by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror. Under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire marked the peak of its power and prosperity, as well a ...
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Sepoy
''Sepoy'' () was the Persian-derived designation originally given to a professional Indian infantryman, traditionally armed with a musket, in the armies of the Mughal Empire. In the 18th century, the French East India Company and its other European counterparts employed locally recruited soldiers within India, mainly consisting of infantry designated as "sepoys". The largest sepoy force, trained along European lines, served the British East India Company The term "sepoy" continues in use in the modern Indian, Pakistan and Nepalese armies, where it denotes the rank of private. Etymology In Persian (Aspa) means horse and Ispahai is also the word for cavalrymen. The term ''sepoy'' is derived from the Persian word () meaning the traditional "infantry soldier" in the Mughal Empire. In the Ottoman Empire the term was used to refer to cavalrymen. History The sepoys of the Mughal Empire were infantrymen usually armed with a musket and a talwar, although they s ...
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Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually intelligible standard varieties, namely Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. South Slavic languages historically formed a continuum. The turbulent history of the area, particularly due to expansion of the Ottoman Empire, resulted in a patchwork of dialectal and religious differences. Due to population migrations, Shtokavian became the most widespread dialect in the western Balkans, intruding westwards into the area previously occupied by Chakavian and Kajkavian (which further blend into Slovenian in the northwest). Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs differ in religion and were historically often part of different cultural circles, although a large par ...
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Bulgarian Language
Bulgarian (, ; bg, label=none, български, bălgarski, ) is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of the Bulgarians. Along with the closely related Macedonian language (collectively forming the East South Slavic languages), it is a member of the Balkan sprachbund and South Slavic dialect continuum of the Indo-European language family. The two languages have several characteristics that set them apart from all other Slavic languages, including the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article, and the lack of a verb infinitive. They retain and have further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system (albeit analytically). One such major development is the innovation of evidential verb forms to encode for the source of information: witnessed, inferred, or reported. It is the official language of Bulgaria, and since 2007 has been among the official languages of th ...
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Maldivian Language
Maldivian, also known by its endonym Dhivehi or Divehi ( ; '' dv, links=no, ދިވެހި'', ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the South Asian island country of Maldives and on Minicoy Island, Lakshadweep, union territory of India. The Maldivian language has notable dialects. The standard dialect is that of the capital city, Malé. The greatest dialectal variation is from the southern atolls Huvadu, Addu and Fuvahmulah of Maldives. Each of those atolls has its own dialect closely related to each other but very different from the northern atolls. The southern atoll dialects are so distinct that those only speaking northern dialects cannot understand them. The ethnic endonym for the language, ''Divehi'', is occasionally found in English as ''Dhivehi'' (spelled according to the locally used Malé Latin for romanisation of the Maldivian language), which is the official spelling as well as the common usage in the Maldives. Dhivehi is written in Thaana script. Dhivehi i ...
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