Posted on 06/21/2009 8:47:03 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
Doesn't Tehran hate all things Western?
The Chinese can’t spell “Police” in Farsi?
I wondered about that, too. Maybe it’s a kind of psychological ploy. Whenever the police shoot and beat the demonstrators, they want the Iranian public to think of them as the Great Satan.
LOL that’s probably more accurate than you know.
LOL that’s probably more accurate than you know.
Maybe your English speaking American tax dollar bought the vests.
Donated by obama I’m sure
The Islamic Republic of Iran hates all things western. The people of Iran who are Persians, not Arabs, they have a history of democracy.
Why the police have "Police" on their equipment, probably because they got the Obama civilian corp surplus equipment < /s >
Its what they’ll wear here, when the riots begin in this country.
THAT’s a damm good question.
Here’s a link that explains it. Sounds good dont know if it is the real reason
http://www.slate.com/id/2220307?nav=wp
Post-election protests continued in Tehran for the fifth day on Wednesday. In many photos, riot police wear uniforms with the English word police on them. Ambulances, too, bear the word ambulance in English. Why not use Persian words instead of their English equivalents?
Because everyone knows English. Like many capital cities, Tehran has its emergency personnel wear markings that are internationally recognizable. Street signs, too, are translated into English, and police cars are generally inscribed in both English and Persian. That makes the city more tourist-friendly without sacrificing clarity for locals. After all, the Persian word for police is the same: polise. (Persian, or Farsi, is an Indo-European language that uses an Arabic script, but people will often use Latin lettering, also known as Penglish or Fingilish, especially when typing or texting.) It’s also the same word in French (police), German (polizei), Italian (polizia), Czech (policie), and many other languages. Iranian students are required to take English classes in high school. So using the English word for police actually maximizes the number of people who will understand it.
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Police isn’t the only word Farsi borrows from English. There’s a long list of “loanwords” that have trickled into the language since World War II. For example, Iranians use the words computer, chat, and mobile (as in, cell phone) in the same way English speakers do. Hot dog isn’t a perfect translation, but it refers to a sausagelike sandwich popular in Iran. Persian slang often incorporates English, too. The phrase love terekkundan—literally, to burst with love—is slang for hooking up. Top means cool. And you can use the phrase trip zadan to say, “He’s tripping,” in a literal (i.e., drug-related) or figurative sense.
Because “totalitarian murdering torturers” wouldn’t fit
Because it is all being filmed on a set. Like the fake moon landings.
/s
Look at how many “Western countries” sports Iran plays: basketball, soccer, tennis,...What’s up with that?
Surplus production from the Obama order.
OK, that seems reasonable. Thanks.
Good question. The answer is fairly straightforward, I think, but you have to separate the people and culture of Iran from their (unrepresentative) government. Iranians — Persians — are not Arabs, and are among the most cultured and Western of all the peoples in the Middle East. English is taught from an early age through all levels of school. While it is a second language, it is widespread in daily use and even more broadly understood in writing. Most street signs, for example, are in both languages. I’d guess that the word “police” is easier to understand at a glance than its Farsi equivalent — especially since similar words are found in French, Spanish, German etc.
A number of languages use Roman script, such as Vietnam and Indonesia, instead of Arabic or Chinese writing. More due to French and Dutch colonial rule. Like Iran, countries in the Middle East and Asia will often display native language with English.
Since France used to trade more with Iran under Chirac, uniform items could have come from France, where the spelling of ‘Police’ is identical to English.
Also, thanks for the vocabulary. I’ll try it on some Persians I know.
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