February 25, 2006
Up from the comments section
More key comments from Meskel Square.
Comment by Nemo under Ethiopia goes to the dogsA bit off topic, but after perusing your blog, I can't help but rant about the use of "ferengi" and "ferengis". I've always found it supremely annoying. "ferenj" or "ferenjoch" would make sense. What's up with the "i" suffix? Is it supposed to make it plural? So then why add another "s" on top of it? Even when writing or speaking in english, you could just say e.g. "all these ferenj", it sounds better and is more accurate.
There's nothing worse than gratuitous exoticism, which happens to be wrong, and that's what the "i" suffix seems like to me. It just sounds vaguely Arabic, Italian, foreign, exotic, whatever, so people just throw it in.
It's like when English speakers say "coup de grah" instead of "coup de grace" in french, where the "s" sound is actually supposed to be pronounced. To the non-French speaker it sounds vaguely more French to make the "ce" silent but it's not -- it's really wrong and horrible!
Or -- typical hollywood thing -- say two Nazis are talking to each other, and both are played by American actors. In the story they are of course supposed to be talking in German, but they sound like "Vee vill do zat und zis, ja" etc. which is ridiculous. Either make them actually speak in German and subtitle it in English, or just make them speak English in a natural appropriate accent within that language (e.g. tone, social class etc.). Why translate something, and then add a phoney accent on top of it, as if that will untranslate it and make it more authentic sounding.
End of rant about this totally minor point.
No doubt you are right Nemo. But the reason I keep typing 'ferengi' is because that is what every child in Addis shouts at me the moment I venture out on to the streets (in between their cries of 'you, you, you'). Up until recently, when I am in a good enough mood, I have shouted 'habesha' back at them. It always gets a few laughs, no doubt at my expense. (By the way, am I being rude or in any way gramatically accurate?) Now that I know better, I will walk up to them, grab them by an ear and scream "surely you mean 'ferenj' or 'ferenjoch'".
Coment by ciilaaloo Lakki about Parris back in AddisI think Afars are very gentle and beautiful people; they are not ferocious and deadly as it was narratted by people in the past. The Europeans who came with their guns and armies 500 and 600 years ago were more ferocious than the Afaris. They took our lands, killed our people and destroyed our governments all over Africa. Who was more ferocious than the pushy new imperialists of the 1890 Joe Chamberlin and Cecil Rhodes. Leave my people alone, please. Do not reinforce steryotyping as it used to be told in the past.If you do not stop saying that; you may watch for your groin. Africa has been bleeding since the arrival of the imperialists.
This, I think, was a reaction to Matthew Parris writing "I shall be among the ferocious Afar, the native tribe who were described by the explorer Nesbitt as wearing necklaces of the desiccated scrotums of all the men they had killed." It's a good point, well made by ciilaaloo Lakki - although a little undermined by the threat to my groin.
Posted by aheavens at February 25, 2006 5:01 AM
Comments
Ferenji as opposed to forenj is the Oromo pronunciation of the vaguely Amharic word forenj. You'll find this in other words the Oromo pick up from Amharic as well. Since Finfine (Addis Ababa) is historically Oromo (not to mention the capital of Oromia until Meles *asked* them to move), you can understand why the kids say ferenji instead of forenj.
Posted by: Michael at February 25, 2006 5:37 PM
ROFL (rolling on floor laughing, for the non-geeks here).
You may want to have a link to a glossary, or something. Star Trek, in its Deep Space Nine incarnation, had an alien race of unprincipled traders called Ferengi. I assumed you were applying this term to people who were behaving badly. It didn't always make sense in context. Now I see why.
What does it actually mean? A version of "foreigner"?
Posted by: quixote at February 28, 2006 4:07 AM
Apparently it comes from the word "French". When other European nationalities also started showing up in Ethiopia, then all westerners ended up being "ferenj".
It's not clear to me why the French were the first people whose identity got plastered into Amharic. Ethiopians had preceding and more enduring contact with the Portuguese during Lebne Dingil, Gelawdeos, etc. So why French and not Portuguese?
On a related note, the last time i was in Ethiopia I had a discussion about who exactly is referred by the term 'ferenj' - is it only white people, or is it all Westerners. In my book, African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, etc. are also 'ferenj'. My other habesha friend didn't think so. She believed it referred to white people only.
What do others think?
Posted by: tobaini at March 1, 2006 10:38 PM
Hahaha ... Andrew, I fear for you.
Posted by: tobian at March 1, 2006 10:40 PM
Tobaini, I think you're close. I've been told by a scholar of Arabic that it comes from the Arabic word for the French. I said above that it is only a vaguely Amharic word, by which I was alluding to its place in Arabic. In that case its an older word for "whites" than any specific group encountered by the Amhara in recent years. This would also explain why African Americans, etc, are not included.
Posted by: Michael at March 2, 2006 9:18 AM
NO- Ferenj is essentially an old word. It predates the French. The French are not the first Europeans for that matter. But Ferenj etymologically is an old Arabic word meaning European. It somehow survived the ages and now has been immortalized in the streets of Addis. So please don't say it is from French. This sounds like a smart take at the meaning of this ubiquitous word-It is wrong.Ummmm,....I think I should stop here.
-Your favorite Habesha from Philly
Posted by: vandia at October 17, 2006 11:38 PM
A friend of mine recently visited Thailand and mentioned that the Thai use the word 'Farang' to refer to white foreigners. Digging up the origins of Farang in wikipedia reveals the Arabic roots of both the Thai 'Farang' and the Ethiopian 'Ferenj':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farang
http://tinyurl.com/cgcsd
Posted by: Yonas at October 19, 2006 11:15 AM
Ferenji: it's going to be a bumpy ride...
It must be Arabic in origin, from the Franks, which is what the Europeans were often known as in the Middle East centuries back. (The Franks were a Germanic tribe, of whom Charlemagne was the most famous, and happen to have bequeathed their name to the modern French.)
In Cairo there are lots of examples of things called 'afrangi' (with a hard 'g' sound) to mean 'foreign/European style', like 'afrangi' bread which means baguette-style rather than flat Arab bread. Northern Egyptian Arabic pronounces the sound that is 'j' in other Arabic dialects, as a hard 'g', so 'afrangi' in northern Egypt is 'afranji' in southern Egypt and Sudan, and from there it's a short hop to Oromiffa and Amharic.
Posted by: Andy at October 19, 2006 1:45 PM
There is a logical mistake if you assume that "Ferenj" came from "French"... Because the French call themselves "français". And I don't think that if the French were the first Europeans to meet the Ethiopians that they would have told them their name in English... ;)
The word must have appeared in the so called "Dark Ages"... and the only thing that was "dark" about it, apart from the existance of only a few Ethiopian sources from that time, is that there was no contact to Europe... So the Ethiopians started to use the Arabic word for Europeans, which is "Faranj" or "Farang" (depending on the dialect)... and on the other hand the Europeans started to use the Arabic name for "Ethiopia", which is "Al-Habesha", which in Latin became Habessinia (there is no "sh" in latin) and that later became Abyssinia....
Posted by: Tiqur_Anbessa at October 23, 2006 6:37 PM
The word ferenj has nothing to do with Amharic. A version of it is used all the way from Mauritania to Malaysia and anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of either Arabic or any one of the languages spoken eastwards can appreciate this. It simmers down to context and the continuum of usage goes from the plain neutral to the ambivalent to the despondent to the borderline hateful to the downright xenophobic. If you did an overland trip say from Paris to Bangkok, you'd encounter the word farang long before you reached Asia.
Farang sure derives from the name of a Germanic people... the ethnonym was passed on to Arabic ifranji , Ethiopic faranj, whence it spread eastwards... in Sanskrit it is phiranga and in Kurdish and Malay is farangi , in Dhivehi faranjee in Thailand is farang, and Khmer barang and farangi in Persian. The actual reference is not necessarily to Franks or Francia, in modern-day France, the Low Countries, Rhineland and Hess. For people of the Eastern Roman Empire i.e. present day Istanbul the word gained currency when Charlemagne, a member of the Franks, originally a pagan, barbarian, Germanic people was annointed Holy Roman Emperor. Byzantium was upset when this barbarian was crowned Emperor of Holy Rome by Pope Leo in 800 AD. A shock to the world. A name heard all around the world.
The word became synonymous with an uncouth barbarian who has taken over the capital of civilisation and it gained further ground during the crusades, at first led mostly by nobles from northern France who claimed descent from Charlemagne. Of course Ethiopians or Thais do not distinguish between parts of Europe, but suffice to say that the usage got expanded in time....and the next time someone calls you farang or faranj, pop that denial...it is not a term of affection, in fact it is a pejorative term for an outsider.
In the end the very word "faranj" "farang" means a barbarian, and what is a barbarian? I'll leave that for the wonkers to dissect.
Posted by: Percival at October 31, 2006 8:15 AM
Percival
OMG! You mean to tell me ferenji is not a good word?
Posted by: Bebe at April 10, 2008 2:23 AM
ferenji mean a white person in oromo just to let you all know its not suppose to be a bad word just means white oromos also call white people nam adi nam meaning a person and adi meaning white
Posted by: omar at August 15, 2008 2:25 AM