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The tourist hub of Bangkok's Khaosan Road is associated with farang

Farang (فرنگ) is a Persian word which refers to Franks, the major Germanic tribe ruling Western Europe. In the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia "Farang" refers to Europeans. This in turn comes from the Old French word franc, meaning "Frank", a West Germanic tribe that became a major political power in Western and Central Europe during the early Middle Ages, and from which France derives its name. Because the Frankish Empire ruled a large part of Europe (France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Low Countries) for centuries, all Europeans and even Middle Easterners associated the word "Frank" with Latins who professed the Roman Catholic faith. Frangistan (Persian: فرنگستان‎) was a term used by Muslims and Persians in particular, during the Middle Ages and later periods, to refer to Western or Latin Europe. Muslim traders referred to European traders as Farang and it also entered the local vernaculars of South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Farang (Thai: ฝรั่ง  [faràŋ], colloquially [falàŋ]) is a generic Thai word for person of white race no matter where they may come from. The Royal Institute Dictionary 1999, the official dictionary of Thai words, defines the word as "a person of white race".^[1]

Edmund Roberts, US envoy in 1833, defined the term as "Frank (or European)".^[2] People of mixed sub-Saharan African-European descent were called farang dam (Thai: ฝรั่งดำ; 'black farang') to distinguish them from white people. This began during the Vietnam War, when the United States military maintained bases in Thailand. The practice continues in present-day Bangkok.^[3][4]

Name

Farang statue in Wat Pho, Bangkok, Thailand

The word farang is from Persian word farang (فرنگ) or farangī (فرنگی), refers to Franks, the major Germanic tribe ruling Western Europe. Frangistan (Persian: فرنگستان‎) was a term used by Muslims and Persians in particular, during the Middle Ages and later periods, to refer to Western or Latin Europe. According to Rashid al-din Fazl Allâh, farang comes from the Arabic word afranj.^[5] In Ethiopia faranj means white/European people. During the Muslim Mughal Empire when the Europeans arrived in South Asia, the Persian word Farang was used to refer to them since the Muslims knew the Europeans during their Crusades wars in the Middle East. The words also added to local languages such as Hindi and Nepali as firangi (Devanāgarī: फिरंगी). The word was pronounced paranki (പറങ്കി) in Malayalam, parangiar in Tamil, entered Khmer as barang, and Malay as ferenggi. From there the term spread into China as folangji (佛郎機), which was used to refer to the Portuguese and their breech-loading swivel guns when they first arrived in China.

Other uses

Farang is also the Thai word for the guava fruit, introduced by Portuguese traders over 400 years ago.^[6]

Farang khi nok (Thai: ฝรั่งขี้นก) is slang commonly used as an insult to a person of white race whose is rude, having extremely bad manners, or poor. The term means "bird-droppings guava", as khi means waste, nok means bird and farang mean guava (in this setting it means "a person of the white race"). It may be also be used toward Thais that acts similar to a Farang.^[7]

Varieties of food/produce that were introduced by Europeans are often called farang varieties. Hence, potatoes are man farang (Thai: มันฝรั่ง), whereas man (Thai: มัน) alone can be any tuber; culantro is called phak chi farang (Thai: ผักชีฝรั่ง, literally farang cilantro/coriander); and chewing gum is mak farang (Thai: หมากฝรั่ง). Mak (Thai: หมาก) is Thai for arecanut; chewing mak together with betel leaves (baiphlu) was a Thai custom.

In the Isan Lao dialect, the guava is called mak sida (Thai: หมากสีดา), mak being a prefix for fruit names. Thus bak sida (Thai: บักสีดา), bak being a prefix when calling males, refers jokingly to a Westerner, by analogy to the Thai language where farang can mean both guava and Westerner.^[8]

In the Maldives faranji was the term used to refer to foreigners of European origin, especially the French. Until recently the lane next to the Bastion in the northern shore of Male' was called Faranji Kalō Gōlhi.^[9]

See also

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Foreigners in Thailand.

• Farang in the Concise Oxford Dictionary


• German language bi-monthly magazine, published by Der Farang, Pattaya, Thailand


• The Thai word "Farang", its variations in other languages, and its Arabic origin


• 
  Corness, Dr Iain (2009). Farang. Dunboyne: Maverick House Publishers. ISBN 978-1-905379-42-2.
  


• 
  Marcinkowski, Dr Christoph (2005). From Isfahan to Ayutthaya: Contacts between Iran and Siam in the 17th Century. With a foreword by Professor Ehsan Yarshater, Columbia University, New York. Singapore: Pustaka Nasional. ISBN 9971-77-491-7.
  


• 
  Farang: A Nature Mockumentary (ใจดีทีวี ตอนฝรั่ง) This Thai language mockumentary on the farang is a spoof of the Thai educational TV series กระจกหกด้าน Krajok Hok Dan (Crackers)