From: gwyn@ipied.tu.ac.TH (Gwyn Williams) Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai Subject: Origin of the word "farang" [2] Date: 29 Mar 1994 04:35:24 +1000 Organization: Mail/News gateway Lines: 945 Sender: mailer@munnari.OZ.AU Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: munnari.oz.au ORIGIN OF THE WORD "FARANG" (Other languages) PART 2: "FARANG" - DISCUSSION ON LINGUIST LIST ---------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 21:38:53 -0500 From: The Linguist List To: Multiple recipients of list LINGUIST Subject: 4.459 Sum: Farang ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-4-459. Tue 15 Jun 1993. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines: 380 -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 17:2p3:47 +0700 (GMT+0700) From: Gwyn Williams Subject: Repiles: How widespread is "farang"? Dear fellow linguists, I had a very quick response to my query about 'farang' and related terms. My query on May 26 was: >The last couple of weeks have seen an interesting discussion on >soc.culture.thai USENET newsgroup about the origin of the word "farang" >(Caucasian, Westerner) prompted by an observation by Ahmed F. Hosny on May 17. > On Mon, 17 May 1993, Ahmed F. Hosny wrote: > > > > Just an observation on the similarity of some words in different languages. > > In arabic (in Egypt and in some North African countries) "Afrangui" also > > means a foreigner of obvious western appearance. [...] > > I wonder if "farang" and "afrangui" derive from the same or similar > > source or is it just a coincidence? > > Serge Thion. 1993. "On Some Cambodian Words." Australian National >University Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter. Canberra: Research School of >Pacific Studies. Number 20, March 1993, 18-23. In this paper Thion traces the >word back to the Germanic 'Franks'. The word spread through Muslim trade >routes after the Crusades into Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. [...] > >Another source is Jimmy Harris. 1986. "The Persian connection: Four loanwords >in Siamese." Pasaa Vol.XVI, No.1 (June 1986). Bangkok: Chulalongkorn >University Language Institute, 9-12. This paper traces the probable immediate >source of the word in Thai to Persian traders who were established in Siam by >the 16th century. The Persian word was 'farangg'. > > We would like to know how far widespread this word is in Southeast Asia (eg., >Malaysia, Indonesia, etc; whether it occurs in other Austroasiatic and >Sino-Tibetan languages) and other regions (eg., Arab nations, Africa, the >Pacific?). Also, is the origin of these other words in these languages 'Frank' >or 'franc,ais'? ----------------------------------- The replies follow. I have taken the liberty of commenting here in the hope of eliciting a wider response. On Wed, 26 May 1993 "Donn Bayard, Anthropology, Otago" wrote: > [...] Finally, /fala`ng/: it was very good to read somebody else's view >who has arrived at exactly the same conclusion independently. Yep: as far >as I can tell, /fala`ng/ came from Indic, and I'd guess Persian "feringhi" >(cf. "cabbage" [ka-la`m]: the Farsi word is "galam"; or the common term [at >least as used by Farang back a few centuries ago] "Shahbandar"). It could >have well come in in Ayutthaya times, when there were a lot of Persians >running around. And yes, I'd guess it goes back to European, pre-Crusades >roots; I doubt very much it's Proto-Indo-Iranian!! Just briefly, I'd guess >paalagi/papalangi/vaalagi/papa-'aa ("four layers"--Rarotongan)/ paakehaa are >simply a coincidence, although I do think there is more than a fair bit of >truth to Benedict's Austro-Tai hypothesis. [...] On Tue, 1 Jun 93 Jorge Hankamer wrote: >I have no idea if it's related, but the Samoan word for caucasian foreigner >is "palangi". >Jorge Hankamer >hank@ling.ucsc.edu From my childhood in a mainly Polynesian neighbourhood in Auckland, New Zealand, I was familiar with this word. It had become widespread and was not used only by the Samoan community. The similarity with the Thai word 'farang' immediately caught my attention when I first came to Thailand. Perhaps it is chance that this word in Samoan is so similar in form and meaning to the word in so many different locations. I still have my suspicions: it is too freakish a coincidence to be chance. I would think it was very unusual for such a complex form ( three syllables CVCVC(V)) to coincide by chance. Does anyone know the origin of the form "palangi" in Samoan and/or other Polynesian languages? On Tue, 1 Jun 1993 Stavros Macrakis wrote: >"Frank" was for a long time the standard term for western Europeans in >the Mediterranean. I believe it dates to the Crusades. Greeks used >and use it to mean the Latins (Catholics) as opposed the Orthodox. >The "g" pronunciation of "k" is a standard phenomenon in Greek and >other languages in the context n-g. The "i" of "ifrangi" is a >standard phenomenon in Turkish and Arabic, which don't like such >initial clusters. Cf. my name (Stavros), which comes out as Istavros >in Arabic or Turkish. Note also that some Arabic dialects have "g" >(notably Egyptian) for standard "j". > >I don't know why anyone would trace it to "francais", which is after >all phonetically "franse" and has no "g" sound at all. Or does Thai >have a rule s->g .... :-) It is interesting to get more information on the term in the "Far West". I'm sorry, my transcription was not transparent. The 'ng' in 'farang' is a velar nasal. Interestingly, Thais often perceive French nasal 'a' [a~], as in 'an' "year", as [ang], where 'ng' is a velar nasal. In addition, Thais typically drop the final 's' as it is not a final sound in Thai. Finally, [r] in clusters is typically dropped. Hence, 'France' may be pronounced as [fOOng]. It was these phonological processes of borrowing in Thai that initially made me curious about the origin of 'farang' in Thai. The belief in Thailand that 'farang' comes from 'franc,ais' is pure folk etymology. On Tue, 1 Jun 1993 Harold Schiffman wrote: >I'm glad you're asking this question, because I became interested in it >when I was in Thailand and other SEAsian places last January. As a >Dravidianist familiar with the word Farengi, farangi, pirangi (Tamil >version) etc. in India, I have always been told it derived from Frank by >way of Arabic and/or other middleastern languages; the source of Francais >or French or whatever would be too recent. As I moved around the region I >found the various things you've mentioned in VN, Cambodian,e tc. In >Indonesian etc. they have orang asin, and don't seem to know >farang/firangi etc. which I find strange; I wonder myself if any other >Indonesian languages have it instead of orang asin or equivalent. I'd like >to hear what kind of answers you get. >H. Schiffman Good, authoritative confirmation in Dravidian. Well, Austronesianists? Is there a term something like 'farang' in Indonesia, oe elsewhere? If 'palangi' in Samoan is not chance resemblance, then there should be a bridge from Asia to Polynesia. What were the trade connections? On Tue, 1 Jun 1993 Jim Jewett wrote: >Isn't francais from frank? Or are you trying to find the path it took? 'Yes' to both questions. Any further info on the path it took? On Wed, 02 Jun "John E. Koontz" wrote: >I have no formal knowledge of the extent of ferenghi and related terms (i.e., >none based on the literature), but I had been told by Scott DeLancey that it >was found in Thailand, and I knew it was also in India and the Middle East. >I have assumed that it derives from Frank, rendered into Arabic and spread >then through Muslim networks. It plainly isn't a very good phonetic match >for franc,ais, but, on the other hand, franc,ais is just Frank run through >the process of developing modern French out of Pre-French. The French are >(terminologically, at least) the modern Franks. IMO the path of the term from Europe to Asia through Muslim networks is now pretty clear, if not the exact details and time frame. If anyone wishes to see the two sources that I mentioned in my original query, they are available from me. On Wed, 2 Jun 1993 Hartmut Haberland wrote: >I don't know if this is relevant, but in Greek, there is still the concept auf >'Frank' (frangos) used for Westerners in general (no particular reference to >Frenchman). I have heard that this goes back to the crusaders. The prefix >frango- can refer to various 'Western' things; Frangosirianos is the term for >a Catholic inhabitant of Syros (Sira), the main island of the Cyclades, and >frangovlakhika is a (certainly) new term for using Latin letters for Greek in >e-mail (vlakhika is actually the name of a minority language in Greece, also >known as Aromounian, but it also can mean 'boorish', 'uneducated', and here >probably 'gibberish, goobledegook'). >In older slang the Greeks used to refer to the drakhma (coin) as 'ena frango', >which some people think is related to this use of 'frangos', wheras I think it >because Greece used to be in a monetary union with Switzerland, France and >Bellgiumn which (at that time) meant that one drakhma was exactly the same >value as one (French, Swiss, Belgian) Franc. >Hartmut Haberland The term in Thai is also used productively in compounds to denote "western" things, eg., "man farang" is "potato". On Wed, 2 Jun 93 cwiltshire@rosedale.org wrote: >I was interested in your posting on "farang" and similar words for foreigner. >I've heard the word "farangi" in Malayalam, with the explanation that it was >borrowed from the Portuguese who visited in the 16th century. > >They also have ferengi on Star Trek! >Caroline Wiltshire I'm afraid I don't know anything about Malayalam. Where is it spoken? I have yet to find a corresponding term in Malaysia, etc. And could you provide more details on the meaning of "farangi" in Malayalam? On Wed, 2 Jun 1993 Paganuzzi Vivian wrote: >I hurriedly read your request for info in one of my messages yesterday and >thought it was an interesting conjecture, then in the evening I read a review >of a book on the middle ages -- The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonisation >and CulturalChange 950-1350, by Robert Bartlett -- in the Guardian, and came >across this > >"By the later Middle Ages, 80% of Europe's kings and queens were French >and the term "Frank" had become synonymous with "aggressive westerner". > >This had never occurred to me before. Just shows one can learn from these >lists! >cofion "Aggressive westerner"? I think when I post this off to soc.culture.thai USENET newsgroup there are going to be a lot of grins, because that is not far from the current perception in Thailand. :-) Wed, 2 Jun 93 Mohammed Sawaie wrote: >While I don't know the extent of the spread of the word farang in >SA languages (of which I know none), I can speak of the arabic >word ifranji or franji in the dialcts. Most authorities >attribute this word to the crusaders' times-- the franks, >presumably, all crusaders came from the frankish areas in souther >n parts of Europe. thus, frank bcame frang which was arabicized >as ifranj and the adj ifranji connating Western, alien, always >western-- if that is what you mean by caucasian. The peoples aer >al-ifranj and so on. The usage is widespread in the middle east >and north africa. presumably, th e persian language borrowed >this word from arabic as the latter came in contact with the >crusaders directly and they had to name this intruders, or their >languages and countries, etc. How about traders from Oman and >Yemen perhaps carrying this designation with them as they >seafared in the SA seas? >I hope this helps Wed, 2 Jun 93 zbarlev@sciences.sdsu.edu wrote: >my belief is that /farang/ in most or all of the cases cited comes from Arabic >/faranji/, Egyptian pron. /farangi/, meaning "European" (in a sort of racial >sense). > >the word probably goes back to "Frank" Q which is the original for "French, >franc,ais," etc. anyway. > >but the spread from Arabic to Persian, Hindi/Urdu, and even further, along >with Islam (but also beyond) Islam), is not surprising. E.g. /ketaab/ "book" >from Arabic is used in Hindi as well as Urdu. Indonesian and Malaysia are no >surprise: many words from Arabic can be found there. > >Thai surprises me a little more, but only a little, esp. given the Persian >traders. Persian is a major borrower of Arabic. On Wed, 02 Jun 93 Adel EL ZAIM wrote: >Salut, >A propos du mot FRANJI, j'aurai un avis mais en francais. >Etant arabophone, je sais que le mot IFRANJI (nom masculin singulier, IFRANJ ou > IFRANJIYINE au pluriel) est tres repandu en arabe. Il est probablement entre >en langue araben langue arabe d'apres le mot FRANvalents en langues europeennes >apres les Croisades, puisque dans les ecrits de l'epoque et apres cela le mot >designait surtout les croises. Dans les ecrits de commentaire religieux et dans >certains livres d'histoire le mot revient souvent. >D'autre part, on peut penser que le mot IFRANJI est entre dans les langues d' >Indonesie et de la Malaysie avec l'Islam et la langue arabe, ces pays etant >en partie islamiques et ayant surement connu des livres arabes sur l'histoire >islamique. >En arabe libanais contemporain, le mot est courament utilise pour designer les >langues et personnes occidentales (!!). Merci beaucoup. C'est tres interessant que de nos jours ce mot est utilise en plusieurs pays de pays arabens a pays asiens. Qui peut dire que ce mot se passe en Malaysie et en Indonesie? (apologies for my rusty French!) Wed, 02 Jun 1993 Robert D Hoberman wrote: >Modern Standard Arabic has the word ifranji (pl., more precisely collective) >ifranj 'European', and firanja 'Land of the Franks, Europe', so the word is >available to all modern Arabs, even if perhaps not current in the colloquial of >some areas. It also exists in medieval Classical Arabic in the same forms, so >it was available to all Muslims. It is said, in Arabic dictionaries, to have >come from a Persian meaning "The French; all Europeans". I don't know Persian, >but in a dictionary of modern Persian the forms afrang, faranj, ferang, ferangi >are listed, with the meaning 'a Frank, European', and farangestAn 'Europe' >(A=back, slightly rounded [a]; lower case "a" is fronted, as in English "cat"). >A dictionary of Syriac, the classical Aramaic (Semitic) language used in some >Middle Eastern Christian churches, lists frang 'a European' and frangiya 'The >Country of the Franks; Western Europe; Latin language or church". > >As for the precise form of the Arabic word: Classical Arabic has no [g] sound. >The closest equivalent was probably a voiced palatal stop, which I represented >above as "j" and which is nowadays a voiced alveopalatal affricate in the most >widespread (and the normative) pronunciation. Medieval borrowings into Arabic >from languages with [g] often show up as Arabic "j". Moreoever Arabic has no >initial consonant clusters, hence the variation ifranj/firanj. > >Since Classical Arabic and Syriac date from the Middle Ages--their most >productive periods were about 600-1200 AD for Arabic and second to seventh >centuries for Syriac, I think it's safe to say that the word is not from any >such modern form as franc,ais but something much more like frank. > >The immediate source of the Arabic could have been Persian, as the dictionaries >suggest, but the Persians weren't in any closer contact with Western Europeans >than the Arabs were--less. On the other hand, the Syriac Christians, located >in and near the Byzantine Empire, were. So I would guess the Arabs got it from >Syriac. Why Syriac has [g] rather than [k] in this word I have no idea. On Thu, 03 Jun 93 ca2 wrote: >I have very limited knowledge of Bahasa Indonesia. However, I noted your >discussion of terms for _foreigner_ and am struck by the fact that _barang_, >especially when reduplicated, means _goods_, _stuff_, _things_ such as might >be brought by traders. > >Carolyn Now that's an interesting shift of meaning. Again, does anyone have more from Indonesian or further south/east? On Tue, 1 Jun 93 Paul T Kershaw wrote: >Mebbe these are my stupid American ears doing the listening, but all of these >sound more like "foreign" than "franc,ais". Has this been batted about? I >might offer as argument the striking similarity between all these words and the >Ferenghi critters in Star Trek: The Next Generation (In case you don't get >ST:TNG out there, the Ferenghi are four feet tall with basically hominid bodies >but severely distorted faces: about as foreign as you get). I mention the >Ferenghi because the phonological similarity is there, but I doubt Gene >Roddenberry had had much exposure to Asian terms for outsiders. On Wed, 02 Jun 93 Stephen P Spackman wrote: >I suspect that in reality this word derives from "ferengi" (sp?), a word >used on the newer Star Trek shows for certain extraterrestrials with big >ears. It probably first reached our planet in central america - rather >than going and doing the research necessary to establish this, however, >I'd just like to point to the statistically significant number of >american languages (and, indeed, others) which use words with f, v, p, >s, t or n followed (or preceded) by an r, l, n, m or ng, sometimes even >with an a, e or i in the word - to refer to such closely related >concepts as "person", "foreigner", "animal", "object", "face", "hand", >"laser pistol", "trade goods", "deity", "strange occurrence", or "means >of transportation" - or supersets or subsets of these notions. Including >inflections and transcription errors, over 90% of languages appear to >fall in this grouping! Surely it can't be a coincidence! > >Now *that's* widespread! > >(-: Sorry. Hope you get some *useful* responses as well ;-). Actually, maybe useful! These two have had me thinking. Are not the languages in Star Trek based, at least in part, on real languages? (mainly European? or was that Star Wars?). While the term 'Ferenghi' in Star Trek would not have come from Asia, it may have its source in a real language(s) in Europe. Would the Ferenghi happen to be traders? There is a linguistic consultant for Star Trek, right? What is the immediate source for the term in Star Trek? Can someone follow this up, maybe with the Star Trek newsgroup? Many thanks to all those who have replied so far in this international word hunt. I would welcome any further comments, especially from Asian linguists. Gwyn Williams Linguistics Department Thammasat University Bangkok ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-4-459. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 10:30:17 -0500 From: The Linguist List To: Multiple recipients of list LINGUIST Subject: 4.492 Sum: Farang ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-4-492. Mon 21 Jun 1993. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines: 268 -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 1) Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 17:18:33 +0700 (GMT+0700) From: Gwyn Williams Subject: Re: More replies on "FARANG" ("Westerner") and related terms There has been considerable continuing interest in this term which originated from Germanic 'Frank' and spread through Muslim trade routes after the Crusades into Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. In my last posting (LINGUIST List: Vol-4-459. Tue 15 Jun 1993) various people had given these varying forms: In a general "West" to "East" progression: "frangos" ("Westerner") - Greek "ifrangi" - Greek ("Latins (Catholics)", Turkish, Arabic "frang" "a European" and "frangiya" "The Country of the Franks; Western Europe; Latin language or church" - Syriac, the classical Aramaic (Semitic) language used in some Middle Eastern Christian churches, "afrangui" - In Arabic (in Egypt and in some North African countries) "ifranji" or "franji" - Arabic dialects "faranji" - Arabic, "farangi" - Egyptian "ifranji" (nom masculin singulier, "ifranj" or "ifranjiyine" au pluriel - Arabic "ifranji (pl., more precisely collective) "ifranj" 'European', "firanja" "Land of the Franks, Europe" - Modern Standard Arabic "afrang,faranj, ferang, ferangi" - Modern Persian "feringhi" - Persian "farengi, farangi, pirangi" (Tamil version) etc.- Dravidian in India "farangi" - Malayalam (borrowed from Portuguese in 16th century) "farang" ("Westerner") in Thai "barang" - Cambodian "farang" - Thai from Persian "farangg" in 16th century(?) "pha-rang", "pha-lang-xa" - formerly Vietnamese "barang" - Bahasa Indonesia (reduplicated) "goods", "stuff" things such as might be brought by traders "paalagi/papalangi/vaalagi/papa-'aa" - Samoan ("four layers"--Rarotongan)/Maori "paakehaa" (likely a coincidence) "Ferenghi" on Star Trek. -------------------------------------- GW: Following are new messages I have received since the above replies: On Wed, 16 Jun 1993 John Cowan wrote: >On Linguist List, Gwyn Williams quotes Hartmut Haberland thus: > >>frangovlakhika is a (certainly) new term for using Latin letters for Greek in >>e-mail (vlakhika is actually the name of a minority language in Greece, also >>known as Aromounian, but it also can mean 'boorish', 'uneducated', and here >>probably 'gibberish, goobledegook'). >I find this word fascinating! Am I right in supposing that "Aromounian" is >some variety of Romanian? The word "Vlach" has been historically applied >to the Romanians (as in the English form "Wallachia"), and is supposed to >be a variant (via Old Slavonic) of the Germanic word "walas", "valas" which >was applied by Germanic-speakers to those of Romance or Celtic speech. >In the sagas, and also in Danish-influenced OE, "Rumvala/Rumwala" is a word >for "Roman". > >The reflex of "walas" in Modern English is, of course, "Welsh". So we >return from the original query back to its author by a route unsurpassed for >deviousness: Welsh to Thai to Arabic to Persian to Greek to Romanian to >Slavic to Germanic to Welsh. On Wed, 16 Jun 1993 Harold Schiffman wrote: >Very much enjoyed the responses on Farang; your question about Malayalam: >it is a sister language of Tamil, spoken on west coast of S. India, so it >would be no exception to the borrowing from Arabic. Tamil has pirangi >instead of firangi etc. because it doesn't have an /f/; the vowel /i/ is >intrusive because original Tamil words can't have the cluster /pr-/ and >/i/ is the vowel of choice; but it may have come in as firangi anyway, not >farangi. It is usually fi- all over India. The person who quoted farangi >for Malayalam may have gotten it wrong. On 16 Jun 93 Paul Chapin, NSF wrote: >I saw your 'farang' summary on LINGUIST. I've given away all my >Polynesian reference books, so this is out of my head, but Sam. >paalagi (properly written with a single /a/ with a macron, which my >computer won't do) 'foreigner' is a regular bimorphemic word, >combining paa 'break' and lagi 'sky' (both Pan-Polynesian forms -- "g" >is Samoan orthography for /ng/). The origin is supposed to be that >foreigners came originally out of a hole in the sky. The Rarotongan >form is borrowed from Samoan, I believe. > >I suppose it could be a derivative of 'farang' or some form thereof >which has been re-analyzed with a folk etymology, but if that were the >case it would have had to be directly into Samoan, because the other >Polynesian languages use other words for 'foreigner': Maori "pakeha", >Hawaiian "haole", etc. I'm not aware of Polynesian cognates to >paalagi in the other languages. My best guess is that it's an >accidental resemblance. GW: Oh, well. I had thought the Samoan term "paalagi" was too freakish to be true. I suppose this is comparable to "kumara" ("sweet potato) found in both South America and Polynesia that set Thor H. on his boat expedition across the Pacific some years ago. ;-) But (here I indulge in flights of fantasy again): could early traders/explorers have introduced the term into Samoa in the very early days? Perhaps through trade routes by way of Asia? Or were there Samoan sailors on trading ships who picked up the term? Is there a similar term in any pidgins in the region? What about early Chinese pidgin which was essentially a trade pidgin? etc. Perhaps if I continue to speculate such things I can provoke some Austronesianists/Polynesianists into a response. :-) On Wed Jun 16 Kevin Donnelly wrote: GW>> The term in Thai is also used productively in compounds to denote GW>> "western" things, eg., "man farang" is "potato" >This also happens in Gaelic with the word "Francach" (Irish Gaelic >spelling) or "Frangach" (Scottish Gaelic spelling". "Cearc fhrancach" >(lit. "French hen") is the word for "turkey". "Luch francach" (lit. >"French mouse") means "rat". Often the term used is simply "francach", >and you have to tell from the context whether it refers to a turkey or rat >or Frenchman. > >I checked with the dictionary and it quotes "Foreign, exotic; large" as >a subsidiary meaning for "francach", and gives further examples of >"francach" and "gallda" (foreign) being used interchangeably in plant names. GW: So we have managed to extend the western borders of the spread of the term to Britain. Is there an Indo-European root? or is it borrowed from Germanic? I might add that the guava, possibly introduced to Thailand from South America by Portuguese traders is also called "farang". /ton farang/ is literally "the farang's tree" (Harris 1986). Most Thais (mistakenly) believe that this is a native Thai word and one of the possible sources of the term for "Westerner" because both have white flesh. Also, the archetypal Westerner in Thailand is blond. On Thu, 17 Jun 93 Sharon Rose wrote: >I must have missed the original query about farang/farangi/faranj >etc. I am very familiar with this word in its Ethiopian form, >having had it yelled at me practically every day throughout my >stay in Ethiopia. It designates white person, not just foreigner >or Westerner, and is pronounced f@r@nj or f@r@nji (with schwas). >I was told it has the same origin as that of the neighbouring North >African countries, namely Frank, and we might speculate that it >was borrowed from Arabic. >I was intrigued to find it was so widespread, and that there were >so many opinions as to its origin. I can't shed any light on that, >but would have to agree that Robert Hoberman's hypothesis sounds >the most likely. GW: Sharon's comment is most interesting. This topic originally arose on soc-culture-thai because some "farang" commented about similar experiences in Thailand. Note that in Thailand at least, while the term does designate a race (white Westerner), it is not at all a racist term. I wonder how far spread the term is in Africa? There were several replies dealing with a similar term on Star Trek. I had asked whether these being were traders and what was its immediate source: On 16 Jun 1993 Brian White wrote: >I suspect that the name "Ferenghi" in Star Trek was a deliberate >borrowing of "farang." The Ferenghi are a caricature of aggressive >Westerners -- obsessively greedy, short-sighted and dishonest traders. >They were introduced, apparently, to represent the values of the West >in the 20th century, in contrast with the values of the utopian >Federation, which exists at a time when people are supposed to have >grown up a little. Just so no one could miss the point, in the >episode where they're introduced, the Ferenghi lose out when a >Federation commander who quotes Sun-Tzu is judged morally superior to >them by a being from an advanced civilization. The being offers to >destroy the entire Ferenghi species, but the Federation officer >declines, noting that "we used to be like that, once." If this sounds >a little smug and heavy-handed, it was, unfortunately. The show did >better later on. On Wed, 16 Jun 1993 John Cowan wrote: >As you have probably heard from other quarters by now, the Ferengi >(the 'g' is a stop, but this spelling seems to be normative) are indeed >traders, and of a particularly unscrupulous sort, more or less corresponding >to the Western (Frankish) stereotype of Arabs -- "come with me to the Kasbah", >etc. > >The only really well-developed language on Star Trek is Klingon, which has >its own mailing list; it was invented by Marc Okrand. The phonology is >appropriate, with lots of velars and other "messy" consonants; the >morphology has been called "an exuberant Amerind-style template machine"; >and the basic word order is rigidly OVS! There is a book, The Klingon >Dictionary, which includes a brief grammar summary as well, >and an Internet mailing list at . On Wed, 16 Jun 93 sharon sabsay wrote: >I'm sure you will hear from far better informed sources than me, but the >Ferenghi on Star Trek are indeed traders! On Wed, 16 Jun 93 Gerald Reno wrote: >[...] >The "Ferengi" on Star Trek are, in fact, traders, but I couldn't tell you >where they got the name from. Star Trek does, however, have at least one >linguist on staff; he wrote a Klingon/English dictionary which is available >in most bookstores (in this country, at least). But that's another story. On Wed, 16 Jun 93 Paul T Kershaw wrote: >Sorry... ferenghi. My e-mail won't let me correct errors in the subject >line.... >Now that you mention it, the Ferenghi are traders. In fact, that is their >be-all-end-all raison d'etre purpose of existence (the redundancy is >intensional hyperbole, not my stupid American "soupe de jour of the day" >genes). The major way in which a Ferenghi on ST:TNG judge each other is how >well they stab each other in the back capitalistically. One episode on TNG's >sister show, Deep Space Nine, revolves around how the Ferenghi can be the first >settlers in a new, unknown sector of the universe, where their reputation is >unknown, so that they can make a fresh start (translation: niave suckers for >the capitalism thresher). An episode of ST:TNG revolves around how a Ferenghi >boy becomes respected by his uncle by parlaying some worthless junk (which the >boy's father had purchased) into a valuable piece of property by cheating and >conniving. (I think I watch too much television...) > >Star Trek has had linguists working for it, but to my knowledge, this was >limited to the films, and to the Klingon language, which appears to be growing >a life of its own via Internet. As for whether Ferenghi was thus derived: ya >ne znayu / je ne sais pas / ich weiss nicht... GW: The term in Star Trek does have some very tantalizing similarities to the term in various languages. We have still to establish the immediate source of this term in Star Trek. Nik, a friend teaching at Silpakorn University, Bangkok, has turned up some interesting terms in Malay. The Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit on Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei by Tony Wheeler, et al (1991) has "Batu Ferringhi" (translated as "Foreigner's Rock"), which is a tourist beach on Penang Island. Also the Collin's Gem Malay-English, English-Malay Dictionary (1975) lists "Feringgi" meaning "Portuguese"; "barang" meaning "commodity, thing, luggage, anything, any" (compare the Indonesian term); "barat" meaning "west". Many thanks to all who responded. I look forward to more! PS: If anyone is interested in the papers by Harris (1986) and Thion (1993) I have mentioned, I can e-mail them privately. Gwyn Williams Linguistics Department Thammasat University Bangkok ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LINGUIST List: Vol-4-492. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 09:42:04 -0500 From: The Linguist List To: Multiple recipients of list LINGUIST Subject: 4.573 Epicene Pronouns, Farang ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-4-573. Mon 26 Jul 1993. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines: 182 -------------------------Messages-------------------------------------- 2) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 15:47:42 +0700 (GMT+0700) From: Gwyn Williams Subject: More Replies on "FARANG" and related terms Subsequent to my earlier postings to Linguist List (4.424, 4.459, and 4.492), the interest has continued and several more replies have come in. Many thanks to all for their contributions. Gwyn Williams On Mon, 21 Jun 1993 From: Stavros Macrakis wrote: "Vlach" or "aroumanian" is indeed a Romance language spoken in Greece. Most linguists consider it a dialect of Romanian, although some would like to consider it a distinct language (especially in Greece...). "Aroumanian" is the "polite" or "scholarly" term, "vlach" having become denigratory in many people's speech (= "rube, bumpkin", more or less), although it has a perfectly respectable origin, as you point out. It would be interesting to delineate what exactly "Frank" means in various places. For instance, where exactly was it used as a term for one's own group? ("I am a Frank") Where does one get far enough away from the Near Eastern definition (= Crusader, more or less) so that (for instance) Orthodox Christians and Jews could be considered Franks? etc. On Tue, 22 Jun 93 CLEMENTS@ucs.indiana.edu wrote: In Marathi the word "phiringi" means outsider or foreigner and could be related to "farang". The same word might exist in Hindi too, but I'm not sure about that. On Fri, 25 Jun 93 Jacqueline Lecarme wrote: The term is widespread in the Horn of Africa. In Somali, a hamito-semitic (or afro-asiatic) language, it is spelled out *ferenji* in the national orthography, and is to be translated simply as *foreigner*. To especially refer to a white person, there is another term (*gaal*, literally meaning *infidel*, without any racist connotation). The feminine form *ferenjiyad* indicates quite clearly that the word is borrowed from Arabic. According to the somali tradition, *ferenji* goes back to the crusaders and contains the concept of *Frank*. On Wed, 14 Jul 93 David Gil wrote: For the last two months I was away from email (being a farang in various southeast Asian countries), so I only recently came across the interesting discussion of the etymology of "farang" on the linguist list. Most of what I had to offer has already been said, but here are a few minor contributions to the discussion, ordered from west to east: (In the phonetic transcriptions, [E] denotes a schewa; [N] a retroflex nasal; [n>] a velar nasal.) HEBREW: In (rather old-fashioned) Hebrew slang, [fren>k] is a derogatory term for a Jew of Sephardi (ie. North African or Middle Eastern, as opposed to European) provenance. So in Hebrew, the term has undergone a semantic switcheroo, referring to someone of oriental origin; though it has preserved its derogatory quality present in Thai and elsewhere. A couple of further queries for any Hebrew-speaking readers: (a) What is the immediate origin of the term? (It doesn't seem to be Arabic. Rachel Giora, my only Singaporean informant for Hebrew, suggested that it might be from some version of "French", given that many oriental Jews are francophones.) (b) Since I don't have this word in my (practically native) active competence, I'm not sure about this, but I seem to recall that the term is/was used specifically for oriental Jews who adopted various occidental mannerisms, such as clothing: is this the case, or just a figment of my imagination? (If true, this would bring the term in line with its many cognates elsewhere.) MALAYALAM: Contra Caroline Wiltshire and Harold Schiffman, my two Malayalam informants here in Singapore, Tara and K.P. Mohanan, are familiar with neither [farangi] nor [firangi] but rather [paran>ki], with the more specific gloss "Portuguese". The word also appears in the compounds [paran>kimaan>n>a] "Portuguese mango" meaning "cashew fruit", and (I bet some readers will like this) [paran>kippuNNE] "Portuguese ulcer" meaning "syphilis". LAO: Not surprisingly, during a recent visit to Vientiane, I heard the term [faran>] being used (sorry, but I wouldn't be able to provide an accurate phonetic transcription). AUSTRONESIAN: Only negative evidence here. No cognate in Tagalog (the local term is "Americano", often shortened to "Cano"). No cognate in Peranakan Malay, the dialect spoken by the long-term Chinese residents of the Malacca straits, who, given their propensity for commerce, might have perhaps been expected to borrow the word from the Persian traders. Finally, my Minangkabau informant was unable to offer any cognates; again, since this language is spoken by Moslems in Western Sumatra, they would presumably have be among the first Austronesians to borrow such a word. So it looks as though the word has failed to penetrate the Austronesian phylum. (With the doubtful exception of Samoan.) As for Standard Malay/Indonesian "barang", meaning "goods", I'm no Austronesianist, but this strikes me as being a rather weak etymology. Can any comparative Austronesianists out there shed any light? CHINESE: Again, for the record, only negative evidence: no cognates in the Singaporean dialects of Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew. Gwyn Williams Bangkok ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LINGUIST List: Vol-4-573. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 13:35:11 -0400 From: Stavros Macrakis To: ELLGILD%NUSVM.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Cc: gwyn@ipied.tu.ac.th Subject: Farang etc. In (rather old-fashioned) Hebrew slang, [fren>k] is a derogatory term for a Jew of Sephardi (ie. North African or Middle Eastern, as opposed to European) provenance. So in Hebrew, the term has undergone a semantic switcheroo, referring to someone of oriental origin; though it has preserved its derogatory quality present in Thai and elsewhere. Not clear that it is a "switcheroo". Perhaps a confusion. In the eastern Mediterranean basin (the "Levant"), there was a trader class of people called in Greek "Frankolevantino" i.e. franco-levantines. I don't know exactly who this refers to, but perhaps it referred either originally or later (as an extension to all trading peoples) to the Jews as well as the (say) Genoese traders. -s PS Please don't post this publically, as it's all pretty vague! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 23:33:28 BST From: "Caoimhin P. ODonnaile" To: gwyn@ipied.tu.ac.th Subject: Re: More Replies on "FARANG" and related terms Another thought which occured to me. I wonder if the term "French hens" as featured in the very well know song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" refers to Turkeys, as does the Gaelic term "Cearc Frangach". Kevin Donnelly ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From RHOBERMAN@ccmail.sunysb.edu Fri Jul 30 13:57:11 1993 Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 11:25:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert D Hoberman To: gwyn@ipied.tu.ac.th Subject: Frenk in Hebrew I'm sending this message to both David Gil and Gwyn Williams. David's report of the meaning of /frenk/ in modern Hebrew is confirmed by a slang dictionary (one of my favorite books), by Dan Ben-Amots (Dahn Ben-Amotz) and Netiva Ben-Yehuda, vol. 1 Milon Olami le-Ivrit meduberet (the English title page has it as "The World Dictionary of Hebrew Slang"), 1973, and vol. 2 Milon Ahul-Manyuki le-ivrit meduberet, 1982. Vol 1 defines /frenk/ as (my translation from Hebrew): "Derogatory, insulting term for any person who does not belong to the Ashkenazic [central and eastern European Jewish] community: non-Ashkenazic, Levantine, hot blooded. [example:] He's a frenk in his blood even if he was born in Poland." Vol. 2 defines /frenkiut/ 'frenk-ness' as "the character traits attributed disparagingly to a Jew of Middle-Eastern origin, especially to a speaker of Ladino [Judeo-Spanish]". Here's a guess as to the history of this, which would explain David's feeling that it applies especially to "oriental [in Israeli usage "oriental" means "middle Eastern", shades of Said's "Orientalism"] Jews who adopted various occidental mannerisms." I figure it is indeed from Arabic, and was first applied by Arabic-speaking Jews to Ladino-speaking Jews, who, to them, seemed European indeed, and had what from their point of view were many European cultural features, though since the Ladino-speaking Jews lived mainly in Turkey, North Africa, and Greece they were not very European compared to people from western Europe. The origin of the term, then, could be anywhere from the 15th century, when Jews left Spain for various parts of the Mediterranean Middle East (in many of which Arabic-speaking Jewish communities already existed), to the 20th century when the boundaries between the Arabic-speaking and the Ladino-speaking Jews were pretty much obliterated in Israel. I guess the term was borrowed from the Arabic-speaking Jews by the Ashkenazic Jews sometime within the last several centuries (Yiddish spoken in Palestine had many Arabic elements), and the present usage of the term in Hebrew is a marker of the fact that the main node within the branching tree diagram of Jewish ethnic diversity in Israel is the simple feature of plus or minus Ashkenazic, all other divisions being subcategories of one (Ashkenazic) or The Other. This whole topic is very interesting. Thanks for keeping it going in LINGUIST. Bob ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From cwiltshire@rosedale.org Fri Jul 30 13:57:48 1993 Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 12:44:38 EDT From: cwiltshire@rosedale.org To: gwyn@ipied.tu.ac.th Subject: more on farang I'm afraid I missed your earlier postings on FARANG, after the initial question. If you kept copies, could you e-mail them to me? From my current location, I can't FTP to linguist for back issues. I did see your posting in 4.573, that the Mohanan's haven't seen "farangi" used for generic foreigner or white person. That may just mean it has different uses in different places. I recently found an occurence of it on the World Electronic Telugu Digest, when a Telugu speaker was writing a story in which the brahmins are upset at foreigners for defiling the Ganges, and he describes their response as follows: (and I quote) " 'OH! BLASPHEMY! YOU WHITE SWINE' was the response of the brahmins and the other upper cates. 'How could you phirangi mlechcha, even consider defiling our holy gangaa?! Scoot you rotten mongrel' was everyone's response." So Telugu seems to have a version too, for white person or foreigner. Ph can be used for transcribing "f"s or aspirated "ph"s from Telugu, according to other postings on the list. Caroline ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 31 Jul 93 06:32:40 JST From: TSUCHIDA Shigeru To: gwyn@ipied.tu.ac.th Subject: About farang. Dear Dr. Gwyn Williams, I have been reading the discussions on "farang" with much interest. I'm an Austronesianist, and thus working in the most desperate area on this matter. In Paiwan, an Austronesian native language in Formosa, _balyaka_ means "Earopeans, Americans" (Raleigh Ferrell, Paiwan Dictionary, Pacific Linguistics Series C, No. 73, 1982, Canberra: The Australian National University), which seems to be the most prospective candidate for farang, but Ferrell puts a comment in parentheses with two question marks: (? from Malacca, major Dutch trading center enroute Formosa in 17th century ?) As far as I know, this is the only possible word in Formosa that could be related to farang, although Malacca seems more likely for me than farang. According to most of big Japanese dictionaries and big Chinese- Japanese dictionaries, fo2-lang2-ji1 (buddha-man/wolf-machine) meant the Portuguese and Spaniards during the era of Ming dynasty (1368-1662). But you should confirm it with some Chinese specialists. It is rather surprising for me that nobody has so far mentioned Hobson-Jobson, A Glossary of Anglo-Indian Colloquial Words and Phrases, by Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell (First published in 1886, but the one I have is a reprinted edition of 1968, New York: Humanities Press Inc.) This is a nice dictionary to consult with about this type of funny words in English. Under `firinghee' (pp.352-354) it is described as follows: FIRINGHEE, Pers. _Farangi~_ , _Firingi~_; Ar. Al-Faranj, Ifranji~, Firangji~_, i.e. a Frank. This term for a European is very old in Asia, but when now employed by natives in India is either applied (especially in the South) specifically to the Indian-born Portuguese, or, when used more generally, for `European,' implies something of hostility or disparagement. (...) In South India the Tamil _P'arangi_, the Singhalese _Parangi_, mean only `Portuguese,' [or natives converted by the Portuguese, or by Mahommedans, any European ...] _Piringi_ is in Tel.=`cannon,' (C.B.P.), just as in the medieval Mahommedan historians we find certain mangonels for sieges called _maghribi~_ or 'Westerns.' ... ... The Tibetans are said to have corrupted _Firinghee_ into _Pelong_ (or _Philin_). But Jaeschke disputes this origin of _Pelong_. Oh, it is a little too long to cite all the article. Please look at the original book yourself if you are interested in it. There is another important book in this area: SINO-IRANICA, Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran, With Special Reference to the History of Cultivated Plants and Products, by Berthold Laufer (Chicago: The Field Museum of Natural History, 1919). The word farang is not directly treated in the book, but in relation to spinach the Chinese name po-ling (< *pwa-ling), the name of a country, is dealt with (pp. 392- 398). By the way spinach is called ho~renso~ in Japanese, which is a Sino-Japanese version of po-ling-tsao. If po-ling is somehow related to farang at all, then we could say that the word came even into Japan. A good luck for your further research on farang! TSUCHIDA Shigeru tsuchida@tansei.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp -------------------------------------------------------------------------