No. The Czechs and Slovaks are two different ethnic groups. They have two separate languages although they're closely related and with a little practice they can learn to understand each other pretty well. The land of the Czechs used to be known as Bohemia, and in fact the Czechs were generally called "Bohemians" by others and never objected, even though the Bohumil were a Celtic people who lived there 1500 years ago. My mother's family were Bohemians and they called themselves that in English. They didn't expect anyone else to be able to pronounce or spell "Czech," which is the Polish spelling of their own name for themselves. (I don't have the character set to spell it in the Czech language.) The country of Czechoslovakia was formed in the 20th century by combining the two countries of Bohemia and Slovakia. Americans often referred to both Czechs and Slovaks as "Czechs," the same way Europeans refer to all Americans as "Yankees" even though that only applies to people from the Northeast. Our Southerners put up with it graciously, and so did the Slovaks. The country split into "the Czech Republic" and "Slovakia" after Perestroika. The fine distinction between slang and offensive language is not the same in all anglophone countries, so please don't depend on what you learned in the UK to be true in America. I know Alison Moyet used that word in a song lyric, just to mean "a downtrodden person," without raising any hackles in Britain, but do not throw it around here or you might end up being extremely regretful. As you can see, I won't even let what we refer to here as "the N-word" go out through my company's server with my ID.
Nope. Outsiders cannot tell the difference, Pakistanis and Indians can (as well as those that pay attention). The Indian Subcontinent is an area that is incredibly diverse, the people in the East (Afghans) are a lot different to those in the West (Nepal, Bangladesh), and those from the North a lot different to those in the South. As a general rule the further down you go the shorter and darker toned the people become. There is a major mish-mash of different races and religions. Rotfl - Pakistan is not in the Mid-East. Pakistan was India, the British ruled Pakistan/India at one time. And? That makes it right to be prejudiced against Pakistan and Pakistanis? Yes. I'm sure you hate the Irish just as much for their many bombings of London. India has a Muslim population of over 150 million, around about the same amount in Pakistan and Bangladesh. I'm sure you knew that. Do you like Indian Muslims? You don't make sense to me. Did you know that the Punjab province is split with half in Pakistan and the other half in India? The distinction between Indian and Pakistani is many cases is so blurred – your understanding (as usual) is fucked beyond belief. Another thing, you make all this fuss about religious clothing, what is your take on the Sikh turban? Do you know what a Sikh is? Once you're done googling I look forward to your response. And finally, did you know that Pervez Musharraf is ‘Indian’? lmfao.
'Pakistanian' Hahaha, its Pakistani! These days people get the name wrong. They pronounce it: Pack-is-Tan Its supposed to be: Pah-kih-stahn Listen to how Obama says it (vid in link): http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004641.html
Stationed in the Falklands after the Falklands war, British troops started calling the locals "Bennies" after a very slow witted character in a soap of the time. The Falklanders were understandably upset by this, and the Army made it a punishable offence for the soldiers to use the nickname. The soldiers responded by renaming the Islanders "Stills" Why Stills? Still Bennies.
There is no doubt that the term Paki has often been used as a term of racial abuse by white nutters. I have also heard it used in conversation as term, which as worst was neutral and at best complimentary. In the 1960s the only grocery stores in the UK that were open past five o'clock were owned/operated by individuals from the Indian sub-continent. We appreciated the service they offered and their commitment to earning a living to support their families. Visiting one of the stores would be described as 'going down to the Paki's. In my home town, an enterprising local kept his store open into the evening and was known as the white paki. These latter usages were all intended positively, but I would not employ them today.
Paki, which I would imagine is only offensive in the UK, was a term used to refer to all Asians, not just Pakistanis. This particularly upset Indians, who were probably more anti-Pakistani than the British.
************* M*W: Thanks for claifying that. When I was writing this, I questioned the correct usage and still got it wrong. No offense to anyone.
No-one from the North of England would pronounce it Pak-i-Stahn. That would be too bloody la-di-dah. Its Pak-i-stan. And I don't care how Obamma pronounces it.
Words are more than just their etymology. The history of their use is vitally important to the meaning of the word. The historical reason for shortening Pakistani to paki was so that it would be easier to say things like "filthy paki go home," etc. IMO the word paki carries racist undertones no matter how the person speaking intended. It simply shows the intelligence and consideration of the odious little wanker harry that he used it at all. (PS, apologies for the rant.)
If it was a film from last week I would agree with you, but it was from three years ago. He certainly showed how much growing up he had to do. He was being arrogant, and perhaps worse. I caught a note of Sadism in the way he said "Our Paki Friend". I hope that his time in the army has changed his attitude. If not, he will be despised all his life. For the moment, I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt.
There's more to it than that. The suffix -ostan is the Persian word for "land." When the Mughals (one wave of the Mongol "hordes") ruled much of southwestern and south central Asia, Persian was the lingua franca and that suffix was used, quite reasonably, to form the names of individual nations within their empire. Hindustan was at that time the name for India; Hindu being the name of the Indus river, phonetically modified over the centuries as the Iranic languages separated from the closely related Indic languages. It eventually came to mean the entire continuum of ethnic groups living there and their religion. This naming convention persisted until modern times. Turkmenistan is the land of the Turkmen people, ditto for Tajikistan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. As already pointed out, what is now Pakistan was historically part of the territory of India. But since it is way up there in the northwestern corner, close to the path of the Mughal Invasion, and since along their way the Mughals adopted Islam and then proceeded to spread it everywhere they went, that part of India ended up with a much higher concentration of Muslims than the central and southern part. (Bangladesh was the eastern edge of India and underwent the same process; in fact until the 1970s Bangladesh--"Free Bengal"--was part of Pakistan.) When Pakistan separated from India in 1947, the two countries differed primarily in religion rather than ethnicity. There's not really any one ethnic group that identifies Pakistan, so they had to come up with a name for the country that was not simply the name of an ethnic group plus -stan. The writer Choudhary Rahmat Ali had published a pamphlet "Now or Never" in 1934 advocating the separation of that region from India. He named it Pakistan, which means "Land of the Pure." That name was an obvious choice for the new country. For the first time (perhaps, I'm not an expert), a country name was coined with the -stan suffix, without the first part being the name of the people who live there. So... The the people who live in Kazakhstan are Kazakhs, the people who live in Kyrgyzstan are Kyrgyz, the people who live in Tajikistan are Tajiks, the people who live in Turkmenistan are Turkmens, and the people who live in Uzbekistan are Uzbeks. Obviously after decades of Soviet occupation there are a lot of Russian people there too, not to mention there are Tajiks and Kazakhs in Uzbekistan and so forth, but that doesn't stop us from using those names for all of them. Nobody ever uses the word "Uzbekistani" or "Uzbekistanian," even though that might actually be more politically correct. So here we were confronted with a new country named Pakistan. Westerners just have to be forgiven for automatically assuming that the people who live there are called Pakis.
That's right enough, but this view completely ignores all of the recent British history that really set "paki" as a term of racist abuse. I should point out that I am white, not Pakistani, but I am old enough to remember the racism and riots of the 1980's and "paki" was a common term then, often coupled with "go home" or "dirty" or some such, as I've stated above. It's bound to have taken on a new meaning with this sort of use. This issue has come about as a result of prince Harry using the word and nothing in your (very interesting) post changes my opinion that he was wrong to use it. (Off topic) I do have a certain prejudice against the monarchy but for someone who has lived his entire life in the spotlight of the media he's shown incredibly poor judgement in the many gaffes he's made, and this is not the first time he's been criticized for his lack of nous on race issues. I am of the opinion that people with merit should be revered, not a person who's only claim is that he is someone's son.
Well there is some argument as to whose son he actually is. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The person he is most like is Prince Philip........ No, it couldn't be. Could it? Though I wouldn't put it past the old blighter.
pretty ridiculous to you maybe, but then retards have a low ridiculous level threshold. typical anglo saxon crap, yes, it wouldn't seem an insult to you my white trash friend, just as the klan don't see what all the fuss is about when the hang a nigger. hardly going to get an objective view of what is/isnt considered racially ofrensive from a member of the master race are you? the origin of the word paki lies soley in racisim. the word's very exsistence lies causing offence, it didn't have any other origin. the fact that muslim (who is a moron) doesn't find offence in the word paki doesn't actually render the word inoffensive and non racially insulting.
