Editing Farang (section)

==Origin and geographic spread{{anchor|Name}}==
{{More citations needed section|date=November 2020}}

===Arabic===
The [[Persian language |Persian]] word ''[[Franks#Legacy| farang]]'' ({{lang|fa|[[wikt:فرنگ|فرنگ]]}}) or ''farangī'' ({{lang|fa|[[wikt:فرنگی|فرنگی]]}}), refers to [[Franks]], the major [[Germanic peoples| Germanic]] tribe ruling [[Western Europe]]. ''[[Frangistan]]'' ({{langx|fa|فرنگستان}}) was a term used by Easterners from the Muslim world and [[Persian people| Persians]] in particular, during the [[Middle Ages]] and later periods, to refer to [[Western Christianity |Western or Latin Europe]]. According to [[Rashid-al-Din Hamadani]], the [[Arabic language |Arabic]] word "Afranj" comes from the Persian "Farang".<ref>{{ill|Karl Jahn|de|Karl Jahn (Orientalist)}} (ed.) ''Histoire universelle de Rashid al-Din fadl Allah Abul-Khair'': "I. Histoire des Francs (Texte Persan avec traduction et annotations)", Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1951. (Source: M. Ashtiany)</ref>{{clarify |1) What page? 2) What does "Source: M. Ashtiany" mean? 3) Who is M. Ashtiany, maybe Mohsen Ashtiany,  lecturer on Persian literature and history at Oxford U., U. of Manchester and UCLA? Sloppy!! |date= April 2025}} This seems unlikely though, considering that the Arabic "Afranj" (also "Faranj" or "Ifranj") has been attested since the 9th century in the works of [[al-Jahiz]] (c. 776–868/869), over a century before "Farang" was first used in an anonymous late-10th-century Persian geography book,<ref>{{Cite book |last =Dabashi |first= Hamid |author-link= Hamid Dabashi |title= Reversing the Colonial Gaze: Persian Travelers Abroad |year= 2020 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |page= 68 |quote= The earliest source in which the word farang appears in Persian is actually by the anonymous author of ''Hudud al-'Alam/Boundaries of the World'' from the tenth century, and even before in Arabic in the works of Al-Jahiz (776–869), as in the expression "King of Farang" or the region of "Farang." |isbn= 9781108488129 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DW7CDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 |access-date= 2 April 2025}}</ref> suggesting that the Persian "Farang" is a loan from Arabic. By the 11th century, Arabic texts were increasingly using the term "Faransa" or "al-Faransiyah" for France, already attested in the work of [[Said al-Andalusi]] in the mid-11th century.{{cn |date= April 2025}}

===Ethiopia and Eritrea===
In the languages of [[Ethiopia]] and [[Eritrea]], ''faranj'' or ''ferenj'' in most contexts still means distant foreigner (generally used to describe [[Europeans|Europeans or European descendant]]/[[White person|white people]]), in certain contexts within the Ethiopian and Eritrean diaspora, the term ''faranj'' or ''ferenj'' has taken on a slightly alternative meaning that closely resembles the term [[Western world|Westerner or Westernized people]] even though it still mostly applies to [[Europeans |European descendants]]/[[White person|White People]], it can be applied to [[African Americans]] and other Westernized [[People of Color]].

===South, Southeast and East Asia===
During the Muslim [[Mughal Empire]] when the Europeans arrived in [[South Asia]], the [[Persian language|Persian]] word Farang was used to refer to foreigners of European descent. The words also added to local languages such as [[Hindi]]/[[Urdu]] as ''firangi'' ([[Devanāgarī]]: फिरंगी and Urdu فرنگی) and [[Bengali language|Bengali]] as ''firingi'' (ফিরিঙ্গি). The word was pronounced ''paranki'' (പറങ്കി) in [[Malayalam]], ''parangiar'' in [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Sinhala language|Sinhala]],  and [[Malay language|Malay]] as ''ferenggi''{{Citation needed|date=November 2020|reason=ferenggi doesn't exist in malaysian or indonesian}}. 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 gun]]s when they first arrived in China.