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Terms for ’foreigner’ - good and bad | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5221 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 1 of 30 28 August 2012 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Coming away from a hotel in Spain recently I noticed a difference in the tone and vocab used to address 'visitors'. My Spanish is okay and the staff had been polite to me.
Years ago when I was working in the South of England and visitors/tourist were referred to between the locals as 'grockles' as a derogatory term. If by some chance the visitor was also not British the term was 'Johnny Grockle'. I was a Gaijin in Japan but I became noh-Ajrianjin Gaijin-san and I could pick up the phone and say Gaijin-desu. There were no other Europeans for dozens of miles. What are your experiences of 'terms for foreigner' ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4641 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 2 of 30 28 August 2012 at 5:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, in Spain they use the word "guiri" to describe what is considered to be the stereotypical tourist from Northern Europe particulary (think English/German/Scandinavian man with beer belly and socks in sandals...) I have also heard the term Guirilandia used about places like Benidorm etc.
Edit: I should add that it is a rather pejorative term, although my Spanish friends also use it sometimes in a friendly, jokingly way about me. Edited by Ogrim on 28 August 2012 at 5:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5221 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu | Message 3 of 30 28 August 2012 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's one of the terms I heard.
What do the French call the same ? Edited by maydayayday on 28 August 2012 at 5:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4612 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 4 of 30 28 August 2012 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that in Canada even the term "foreigner" is viewed as somewhat pejorative.
Preferred terms are "new Canadians" or "tourists" depending on the status. But perhaps I move about particularly PC circles. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 30 28 August 2012 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | ||
I have been called "guiri" lots of times, and I do not take offense. What's wrong with socks in sandals anyway :-) In Norwegian any word that describes a foreigner, just as any word which describes black, or the mentally ill will, at some point become politically incorrect. - The supposedly neutral one "utlending" is non PC. - They moved on to "innvandrer" (immigrant)which is now non PC - Then they moved on to "asylsøker" (asylum seeker - which were most of the foreigners)- which is non PC. - Then our dear king Olav, who wanted to include everyone, coined the expression" våre nye landsmenn" (our new countrymen), which is now non PC. - Then they moved on to "fremmedspråklige" (those who speak a foreign language)- which is now non PC. - The next one was "fremmedkulturelle" (those who have another culture) - which is now non PC. - Then "folk fra den 3dje verden" (people from the third world) was used - which is now non PC - The Bureau of statistics used the term "ikke vestlig" (non Western) - in particular about countries. That is non-PC. The Correct Term to be used is "Asia, Africa, Latin-Amerika, Oceania utenom Australia og New Zealand og Europa utenom EU/EØS". I trust I do not have to translate all that. The one who wrote the article I found it in, noted with particular glee, that it was so complicated to use, that it was to hope that it would be used very seldom. And then of course there are some genuinely offensive ones, that I do not want to quote. I cannot help to be sad about the fact that the more they make it impossible to call someone a foreigner,black or mentally ill in a respectfull way, the more stigma they attach, where there should be none. We are all foreigners to someone, skin coulours are unimportant and hey, raise the hands all of you have never had the blues to varying degree or know someone with some sort of diagnosis. The politically correct one for foreigner in Norwegian? I have no idea. For the moment I go with "folk fra andre land" (people from other countries) which noone has had the creativity to make non PC yet. Just a matter of time though. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| atama warui Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 4703 days ago 594 posts - 985 votes Speaks: German*, English, Japanese | Message 6 of 30 28 August 2012 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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We just use Ausländer (foreigner) and that's been neutral for ages now. Sure, there are unfriendly terms and I can't really remember a friendly term off the top of my head. But I also think that's international and not a trait of specific countries. Edited by atama warui on 28 August 2012 at 9:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4951 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 7 of 30 28 August 2012 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think in the "large" New World countries there is no such concept of foreigner like in Europe, which tends to be more aligned with cultural nationalism. Similar perhaps to countries like Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, etc, where there is a stronger cultural identity due to language, history, or pre-columbian civilizations, where I know there are some terms like that.
Paraguayans for example call Argentines "curepi" (pig skin). The two main theories are that this comes from the Triple Alliance War (a war where Paraguay was ruthlessly and largely destroyed), because Argentine soldiers wore boots made from pig skin, white/pinkish in color. Other say its a racial thing (Paraguayans being bronzed skinned compared to the more White-european Argentines). Neither in the United States nor Argentina is there a generalized concept of "foreigner". These two countries and Brazil + Canada, are countries with 200 years of being characterized by waves of immigration, so a "fixed" national character like in European countries or the indian influenced countries of the Americas is much more difficult to develop. But there are individual terms for people from specific countries, and in the USA, racial epithets. In Argentina, these two are mixed. I really don't like to give examples here, because they are derogatory words, but they exist for Paraguayans, Bolivians, Brazilians, Peruvians, and to a lesser extent for Asians. Basically, all the recent immigrant groups. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6584 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 8 of 30 28 August 2012 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dudes and dudettes, there are no words that are so offensive that we cannot talk about them on a language
forum. It's been established before that swears and such language, though not normally permitted, are allowed if one is talking about them rather than using them. Don't bereave us of the derogative words, please! In Cantonese the term for "foreigner", if white, is 鬼佬, "gwailo" (or 鬼婆/鬼仔/鬼妹). This is the infamous "foreign devil" term, literally translated as "ghost man". It's considered derogative by some people, but most people don't seem to think so nowadays. I don't get offended if someone uses it to describe me, but a few foreigners might, and many Hong Kongers avoid it. The corresponding words for black people are more pejorative, like 黑鬼 "black ghost/devil)" for an ethnic African, 阿差 for an Indian or Pakistani, or 賓賓 for a Filipino. And there are lots of derogative names for the Chinese (who are currently extremely unpopular with many Hong Kongers), like 蝗蟲 "locust", or 強國人 "strong-country person", referring to Chinese nationalism. More "apropriate" names are 大陸人 "mainlanders" (not sure if writing it as 大六人 as I've seen makes it derogative), 內地人 "inner-place person" or 中國人, though the latter is somewhat non-PC as it implies Hong Kongers are not Chinese. There are some funnier but nowadays less used words for foreigners, epecially Englishmen, like 紅毛鬼"red- haired devil", and English can be humourously referred to as 鹹水話 "salt water speech". Some words will use the 番 character, mening "foreign", like 番鬼佬 or 番洋人 "overseas person". More apropriate terms for Westerners would be the Standard Chinese terms 外國人"outside-country person" or 老外 "old foreigner", though the latter is quite rare and not necessarily unoffensive. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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