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Re: [westasianconlangs] Re: Carpets



On Jul 8, 2004, at 3:11 PM, John Cowan wrote:
Adam Walker scripsit:
Egad!  Don't start giving me Farsi!  Though it is
interesting that Farsi and Turkish share the word.

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?


"Overseas" doesn't count?
In Hebrew there's Ha'aretz ('the land') and Hhutz La'aretz ('out of the land').


-Stephen (Steg)
"Presumably, Sauron gave up carnal pleasures when he became an all-seeing eye at the top of a tower, but it’s hard to say for certain. Maybe he gets a kick out of the all-seeing bit."
     ~ alex ross, The New Yorker