Firangis

Firangi or Ferengi is a word cognate with the words French, frank and Frankish which are related to the word widely used in India for foreigners—feringi, ferangi and various spellings. It is best heard voiced in the tone of contempt which many Indians had for the English (their attitudes towards the Indians being the source of the contempt) in the film Lagaan, Once upon a time in India when Rajesh Vivek as Guran, the fortune teller utters, rather growls, the word as some British Soldiers marched by.

Strangely enough the word arrived in India with Arab traders who had since the crusades used the word for all Europeans, not to their faces of course, as the crusaders had been made up largely by Franks or people from France. When Vasco da Gama landed on the shores of India he was greeted with - "May the Devil take thee!… by an Arab trader who was less than happy to see the Portugese Admiral show up in Kozhikode soon to be europeanized to Calicut.

The current writer, or me, less formally had the unusual experience of shopping in an Indian clothing store in an Indian mall north of Atlanta with my wife, looking for some bangles, when I heard an older Desi woman, behind the counter say, what are those Firangis doing here and keep an eye on the ferangis. She had, of course, no idea that we knew what she was saying — strange to be called a foreigner in one's own country.

In the USA TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the character name of the ever greedy profit hungry ferengies who were always out to swindle anyone they traded with and whose topi (top of their heads) have the same cleft as Indian elephants are based on the Arabic/Indian word.