• Flying SquidOPM
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    141 month ago

    That reminds me of the word ‘Frank,’ which was used by the Byzantines to essentially mean ‘all those non-Roman barbarians to the west of us’ and which, after the Crusades, spread as a word across Asia meaning ‘Europeans.’

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farang

    • Dojan
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      1 month ago

      Thank you for sharing! I had not heard of this before. I particularly enjoyed this bit

      Farang khi nok (Thai: ฝรั่งขี้นก, lit. ‘bird-droppings Farang’), also used in Lao, is slang commonly used as an insult to a person of white race, equivalent to white trash, as khi means feces and nok means bird, referring to the white color of bird-droppings

      That’s so colourful. I love it.

      It also made me think of the fictional race in Star Trek, the Ferengi. At least according to Wikipedia that is precisely the origin of their name!