
Taʿârof, the ceremony of courtesy - evilsimon
http://riowang.blogspot.com/2015/11/taarof.html
======
ekianjo
Funny, "na merci" is basically the same as "non merci" in French - since the
words are so similar I wonder if that expression does not come from French
somehow.

Other than that, the whole process is not unique to Persians. Maybe they are
extreme about it, but in Japan you can see pretty much the same kind of
situations as the ones they described... while I must admit the taxi driver
telling you the trip was "nothing at all" is rather amusing and unique.

~~~
benbreen
I've been trying to learn Farsi lately and keep getting struck by the large
number of French loanwords. Including at least one that goes back to time of
the Crusades - my wife's Iranian and she always calls me a "Firangi," which
basically just mean "Westerner" now, but is a transliteration of "Frank."
Apparently it also ended up becoming the name for an Indianized variant on the
medieval European broadsword:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firangi_(sword)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firangi_\(sword\))

~~~
Texasian
Oh wow, thats crazy interesting... There's a beach area on Penang in Malaysia
called Batu Ferringhi. It means Foreigner's Rock.

I guess the loan word spread throughout the muslim world somehow...

~~~
benbreen
Amazingly, it even made its way into Chinese as folangji (佛郎機):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farang#Etymology_and_related_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farang#Etymology_and_related_words)

Sort of reminds me of an anecdote I read somewhere in a book about medieval
fashion - one theory is that those curvy-toed shoes you see in late medieval
artwork originated in Tang dynasty China, and the fashion took ~500 years to
slowly make its way west across Eurasia.

~~~
ekianjo
Your link also mentions the word is used in Thai as _Farang_ as well.

~~~
uptownfunk
It's also in Hindi as Firangi as well.

------
msoad
I don't believe Tārof is specific to Iranians. I've seen it among Asians and
some Indian coworkers.

It's not a good behavior. It's dishonest and confusing.

------
ixtli
Beautiful and interesting. And the comments section is an object study in why
you have to be very careful about which comments services you use on a blog,
if indeed you decide to use one at all.

I'm still not sure why people still do it, though if I had to pick one I've
liked using G+.

------
uptownfunk
That first paragraph, some beautiful writing there.

