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Terms for ’foreigner’ - good and bad | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4692 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 25 of 30 29 May 2013 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think I have mentioned this before, but I didn't find the Icelanders to be particularly
unfriendly...but that might also be because a) I was a tourist (so they got money), but I also didn't find it to be the case with the Icelanders I met up with (although I didn't speak Icelandic at the time. Actually I still don't really.) In Dutch it's also "outside-landers", or the dreaded "allochthonous vs autochthonous (allochtoon vs autochtoon). Buitenlander has no derogatory connotation, allochtoon is used to mean "is not of Dutch descent", usually in some derogatory way - and sometimes it's used in schools to get more money from the government; "vreemdeling" means "stranger" (also in the sense that a person is strange). Edited by tarvos on 29 May 2013 at 9:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6214 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 26 of 30 31 May 2013 at 2:07am | IP Logged | ||
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One of my favorite terms for foreigner comes from Hawaiian; haole (sounds like howlee). In Hawaiian haole means
"ghost". You can imagine how odd the first white explorers looked to the Hawaiians and the name stuck! Growing up in Southern California, a name I saw tossed around a lot was "kook". This could describe anyone who showed up on your local beach who was clearly not from there. Eg: " Arrgh! Those kooks totally cut me off!! Go back to Nebraska, kooks!!!" I doubt this is still used, however, as California slang seems to change as much as the weather does there.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5247 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 27 of 30 31 May 2013 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||
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In Haitian Creole the term is "blan" and it doesn't matter if you are black or white, non-Haitian = "blan". As RG pointed out about "turco" in Brazil, "turco" is universally used in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean to mean an Arab. This stems from the fact that most of the immigration of Syrians and Lebanese to the Caribbean and Latin America occurred when the Turkish Ottoman Empire ruled the middle-east before World War 1. Most Arabs traveled with Turkish passports. So, Arab = "turco", at least in the DR, Puerto Rico and Caribbean Colombia.
Years ago when I visited Newfoundland, I heard the term "CFA" for "come from away" to mean anyone who wasn't a Newfie. Edited by iguanamon on 31 May 2013 at 3:09am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4354 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 28 of 30 31 May 2013 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
I grew up going down to Seaside Heights, so I've definitely been on the receiving end of the "Benny" term! It's not even like people will directly come up to you and refer to you as one, but on the boardwalks it's not uncommon to see a definite feeling of resentment towards outsiders. Though I must say, when I was out there this past week, I didn't notice that sentiment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5952 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 29 of 30 31 May 2013 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes the Benny designation isn't very nice. It may go out of use - I hope so - after the NJ shore areas suffered such severe destruction in the hurricane last year. "Bennies" are very much needed to restore the economy now. I miss the place terribly.
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| Jake Day Newbie United States Joined 5014 days ago 30 posts - 35 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 30 of 30 30 July 2013 at 5:35am | IP Logged | ||
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In the southwest US and northern and coastal Mexico, the Spanish term "gringo" (which literally means "foreign" or
"foreigner") used to be offensive, but seems to be pretty much acceptable nowadays. Truly offensive is the term "gabacho" (usually used to refer to an Anglo-American). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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