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Comment on It's amazing so many people are able to use English as a second language.

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.’

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farang

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dojan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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 the name!

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lars@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Frankly frankly reminds me of those folks from the north of Gaul

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