Hindi in Star Trek

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Bryan Moore
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Hindi in Star Trek

Post by Bryan Moore »

It's no shock that a lot of names in Star Trek are derived from mythology, different languages, etc. (Think Romulus/Remus) What I have found interesting though, is the more Hindi I learn the more I see of Star Trek. For example, the British, for their mercantilist policies were called "firinghi" (derived from "foreigner") by Indians in the 19th century. Another great example: An Indian military rank for a foot soldier roughly equivelent of lieutenant: Jemadar. Clever writers, those Trek folks =)
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Re: Hindi in Star Trek

Post by Lazar »

Yes, I had read about that too. (IIRC the Indian word "firingi/ferengi" was derived from "Frank", which has often served as a generic name for western Europeans.) But I would have liked to see more South Asian characters in Trek.
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Re: Hindi in Star Trek

Post by Sionnach Glic »

Lazar wrote:(IIRC the Indian word "firingi/ferengi" was derived from "Frank", which has often served as a generic name for western Europeans.)
While I'm certainly no linguist, I've my doubts that that's true. The Franks were originally located in what's now western Germany, and later conquered Gaul (what we now know as France). That's pretty far West, and far from the trade routes between India and Europe. It'd be a long time before the Franks and their descendents would ever really be known in India, so I seriously doubt that their name passed into colloquial Indian. If anything, you'd expect maybe Greek, Macedonian or Roman. But certainly not Frank.
Wikipedia (I know) theroizes that the name may be derived from the Persian word faranji, meaning foreigner. Personaly I find that a lot more likely.

That said, it's quite possible that you're right. Languages are odd things.
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Re: Hindi in Star Trek

Post by Lazar »

Sionnach Glic wrote:While I'm certainly no linguist, I've my doubts that that's true. The Franks were originally located in what's now western Germany, and later conquered Gaul (what we now know as France). That's pretty far West, and far from the trade routes between India and Europe. It'd be a long time before the Franks and their descendents would ever really be known in India, so I seriously doubt that their name passed into colloquial Indian. If anything, you'd expect maybe Greek, Macedonian or Roman. But certainly not Frank.
Wikipedia (I know) theroizes that the name may be derived from the Persian word faranji, meaning foreigner. Personaly I find that a lot more likely.
But as you can see here and here, the Arabic/Persian word "farangi" was most likely derived from "Frank". I know that the western European crusaders were generically known as Franks in the Middle East, that Persian served as a court language in the Mughal Empire, and that there was a lot of Persian influence on the Hindustani (i.e. Hindi/Urdu) language by the time the British arrived.
Last edited by Lazar on Sat Oct 17, 2009 1:21 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Hindi in Star Trek

Post by Sionnach Glic »

Ah, point conceded then.
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Re: Hindi in Star Trek

Post by Bryan Moore »

I agree on the need for more South Asian/Asian characters in Trek (and even Hispanic). I made an off-hand comment in a large scale writing project that attributes this to the fact that the Eastern Coalition (mentioned in ST:FC) took the heaviest brunt of nuclear casualties in the Third World War, as did Latin America. Silly, but it would explain the anglo-heavy presence.
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Re: Hindi in Star Trek

Post by Lazar »

Bryan Moore wrote:I agree on the need for more South Asian/Asian characters in Trek (and even Hispanic). I made an off-hand comment in a large scale writing project that attributes this to the fact that the Eastern Coalition (mentioned in ST:FC) took the heaviest brunt of nuclear casualties in the Third World War, as did Latin America. Silly, but it would explain the anglo-heavy presence.
But we know from FC that the total number of casualties was 600 million, less than 10% of the world's population, so that wouldn't account for the lack of Asian and Latin American characters and the dominance of Americans.

On a related note, I've always wished that they could have retconned WW3 and the Eugenics Wars together, so that the ECON was the group of Asian and Middle Eastern nations led by Khan, referenced by Spock in Space Seed. It would have made perfect sense and helped tie the franchise together, so naturally, they didn't do it.
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