Dutch Treat (1885)

[Mark A Mandel]

On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, A. Maberry wrote:

#On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, James A. Landau wrote:
#> It's possible.  At one time Arabs referred to Europeans as "Franks" due to
#> some interesting experiences with French Crusaders.
#
#And still do. Hans Wehr, Arabic-English dictionary: tafarnaja (vb.) to
#become Europeanized, adopt European manners, imitate the Europeans
#al-Ifranj the Europeans, Bilad al-Ifranj Europe. Ifranji (adj) European.
#Firanja Land of the Franks, Europe. tafarnuj (n) Europeanization,
#imitation of the Europeans. mutafarnij (adj) Europeanized, etc.

ISTR a long discussion of this topic some years ago either here or on
LINGUIST List. It included quite a bit of solid etymology.

-- Mark M.