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Adam Walker scripsit:
> Egad! Don't start giving me Farsi! Though it is
> interesting that Farsi and Turkish share the word.
Hardly surprising, as Turkish used to be shot through with Persian
loans, and is still shot through with Arabic loans, many of which were
shared with Persian. For comparative purposes, Persian and Turkish can
be treated as Arabic dialects, just as Japanese 'on' readings can be
treated as a Chinese dialect.
(The English word for the language that calls itself "Farsi" is "Persian".
So saith the Persian Academy (as it is called in English) and centuries
of English tradition. See http://shorl.com/bygygypubrugro , the declaration
in Persian and English: in short, Ferighistanis should stick to "Persian"
and variants thereof when speaking their barbarous dialects.)
Which reminds me: all languages seem to have a word for "foreigner",
but only some have a singular noun for "where the foreigners live".
In English, the foreigners apparently were always conceptualized as
living in distinctly different places. In German, though, we have
Deutschland (where the germanophones live, not necessarily tied to any
particular regime) and Ausland (where everyone else lives); in Farsi the
above-mentioned Feringhistan; and in Arabic the tripartite distinction
between Dar al-Islam, Dar al-`Ahd (where Muslims live in peace though
not in power), and Dar al-Harb (everywhere else). Any others?
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