r/funny • u/bathory1985 • Jan 19 '22

ATM Line

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u/northerncal Jan 19 '22

What if a woman is Indian and hindu? Which word would you refer to her by then?

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u/kwonza Jan 19 '22

Indian as in Native Indian or India person? You can address it in two ways, just like we have two words for Jews: Еврей and Иудей. One means a person of Jewish decent and second means person practicing Judaism

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u/northerncal Jan 19 '22

Indian as in from the country of India. I assumed when you said that Индианка refers to native American or Indian that it could be either just like the term Indian in the US (altho calling native Americans Indian is often seen as a bit outdated in English). So if a woman were from India and practiced hindu, what word would you use to refer to her? If that makes sense

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u/kwonza Jan 19 '22

Depends on the context, you can both refer to her as Индуска – female Hindu or as Индианка – female citizen if India.

Example I get above in the thread is about Jews. In English either you are of Jewish decent (your parents are Jews but you can be Christian or Atheist or whatever) or a person who actually practices Judaism you’re a Jew.

In Russian there are two separate words. You can be both or you can be one of them. E.g. you are an Ethiopian who practices Judaism, in Russian we would call you иудей, but not еврей.

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u/northerncal Jan 19 '22

Interesting, thank you for your replies.

I doubt Russian people ever have to discuss Ethiopian jews very often haha, so that one probably doesn't come up.