Another name of a wandering people has also come to have a special meaning in English. The French word for gipsy is _bohemien_, and from this we have the English word _Bohemian_. When we say a person is "a Bohemian," we mean that he lives in the way he really likes, and does not care whether other people think he is quite respectable or not. It was the novelist Thackeray who first used the word _Bohemian_ in this sense.
_Bohemia_ is, of course, the name of a country in Germany, but it is also used figuratively to describe the region or community in which "Bohemian" or unconventional people live.
The word _gipsy_ itself is used to describe a very dark person, or almost any kind of people travelling round the country in caravans. But _gipsy_ really means "Egyptian." When the real gipsies first appeared in England, in the sixteenth century, people thought they came from Egypt, and so gave them this name.
Another name often given to very dark people is _blackamoor_, a name by which negroes are sometimes described. This really means "Black Moor," and shows us how confused the people who first used the word were about different races of people. The Moors were a quite different people from the negroes, being related to the Arabs. But to some people every one who is not white is a "nigger." _Nigger_ comes, of course, from _negro_.
The Moors inhabited a part of North-west Africa. It was also a North African people, the Algerians, who gave us the word _Zouave_. Every one has seen since the Great War began pictures of the handsome and quaintly-dressed French soldiers called "Zouaves." Perhaps some children wondered why they wore such a strange Eastern dress. It is because the Zouave regiments, which are now chiefly composed of Frenchmen, were originally formed from an Algerian mountain tribe called the Zouaves--Algeria being a French possession. The name is almost forgotten as that of a foreign tribe, but has become instead the name of these light infantry French regiments.
The name of the most famous of Eastern nations now spread all over the world, the Jews, has become a term of reproach. For hundreds of years after the spread of Christianity over Europe the Jews were looked upon as a wicked and hateful people. In many countries they were not allowed to live at all; in others a portion of the towns was set apart for them, and they were allowed to live there because they were useful as money-lenders.