Talk:Franco-Levantine
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Note[edit]
Under Ottoman rule but also modern times.
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
Sense 1 (not challenged): "A Catholic or Latinophone of the East." Sense 2 (subject of this RFV): "Citizen of the East, culturally relevant to the (or a) catholic and latinophone civilization." What is this trying to say exactly? (P.S. Might need an adjective section too.) Equinox ◑ 18:11, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
- The terms Levantine and Franco-Levantine, when applied to people, are practically synonymous. Used as English nouns, these words are almost always used in their plural forms. Like the term Jew, it is difficult to delineate the meaning in a crisp and unambiguous way; whether someone is considered to belong to the group of Levantines is a muddled mix of descent, religion, first language (mother tongue), and other cultural aspects such as customs (dress, manners) and eating habits; additionally, all this is much fuzzier now than in the heyday of the Ottoman Empire. I think the first sense focuses on religion and first language, whereas the second sense is trying to say you can still culturally belong to the Levantine community, even if you are not a believer yourself and your mother tongue is actually Turkish or Syriac. A criticism of these definitions is the use of the vague term “East”; Akie Abe is a Catholic of the (Far) East, but she is certainly not Franco-Levantine. --Lambiam 20:11, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
RFV-resolved I have merged the two definitions. Kiwima (talk) 03:55, 18 November 2018 (UTC)