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Comment by PaulRobinson | Hacker News Reader

While I 100% applaud the effort - and I absolutely love the idea of languages in non-English languages - you should be aware that phonetically (and if you drop the 'h'), the name is a racist term in the UK at least.

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I think it is we who decided it is a racist word. I was a guest instructor in a university class in Islamabad, and people there used that word quite casually. It surprised me how often I heard it, but also that it was never treated in a negative manner. An important differentiator is that they weren't using it as a label to call each other maliciously, but more to denote that something is from Pakistan.

Perhaps at least in this case, intent has everything to do with its interpretation. I still don't use the word because that nuance is too easily missed.

Probably both cultures (which apparently are directly related, in terms of overlapping histories) are aware of words like this, and not likely to confuse them for ill intent. A little like how Canadian Anglophone children make fun of the French word for 'seal', but Francophones who also use the English swear word that it sounds like clearly know when you're swearing, versus when you're talking about a seal.

There are plenty of terms in languages that are common words in that language but may sound like different and possibly offensive words in other languages. But that doesn't mean we should avoid using those words.

This is an ignorant statement. Pakhi means "bird" in Bengali. Check the translation.

Edit: To all the downvoters, I truly hope that ignorance is bliss for you. Maybe learn another language before you project your ressentiment tinged identity-politics idiocy onto something you don't even understand.

[1] https://translate.google.com/?sl=bn&tl=en&text=pakhi&op=tran...

You're probably being downvoted for the 1st sentence. And for the Edit.

Why is it ignorant? OP is just stating a fact. Is OP the PC police, or is he the canary trying to warn that the "cancel mob" might attack this project if they took offense at the name, I can't tell.

You saying it means "bird" is also just a fact...

I wouldn't go so far as to say it is ignorant, but just imagine if some english speaking person named their programming language or product "Bird", and one of the top comments brought up the fact that it was similar to a racial slur in their language.

I'm not saying it is wrong to point this out, but it must be slightly disheartening for the author of the language. And more importantly, Bangladesh was literally called East Pakistan, so I'm sure whoever made this is aware of the actual racial slur.

Also please note, I'm actually Bangladeshi, so I'm not speaking for a group I don't represent here.

It is ignorant because the concern stems from ignorance of the fact that many languages that are used by billions of people in the world treat the aspirated and non-aspirated versions of consonants as completely different consonants.

Well said. If I can add a final point, it's that it is nonsensical and inappropriate to judge how a word sounds in one language based on how it sounds in one which is only very distantly related (PIE at best).

One more casualty of the absence of retroflex consonants in English. Before you jumped the gun, you should’ve taken into account the difference between ‘Ka’ and ‘kha’ consonants.

Erm, I think you are confusing retroflex consonants with aspirated consonants. "Kha" is just the aspirated version of "Ka". English doesn't have two different alphabets for these two different sounds and which one is used depends on the context (king vs sink). Indic languages on the other hand treat these as completely different sounds and there are many pairs of words which differ only in the non-aspiration/aspiration of one particular alphabet.

Interestingly, even though the IPA has the aspiration modifier letter, the transcriptions that you find in dictionaries seldom care to use them. For instance, the Cambridge dictionary lists the pronunciation of the word king as /kɪŋ/ but almost everyone actually says /kʰɪn/.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/king

It doesn’t sound the same spoken. Pakhi (bird) is pronounced like “pa” (as in dad) + “khee” (as in “fee” but starting with an aspirated k). It’s not pronounced like the racist term, which is pronounced in Britain like “pack” + “e.”

Pakhi means bird in Bangla. Bangladeshis also used to be Pakistani, so they're probably fine. ;)

Also in Urdu “pankhi” - bird/winged thing. Speaking as one, I think the P***s will be fine with this one.

Yes, non-white Englishman here cringed when I saw the name having been on the receiving end of the term many times.

Isn’t “Paki” just shortened for “Pakistani”? I never knew the word itself to be considered racist; but it’s definitely been used often in a racist / degenerative context and manner.

The thing is that nobody should care about what is considered racist term by some people in the UK or the US. Customs of the anglosphere most definitely shouldn't define and limit language and culture in rest of the world.

Pakhi means bird in bangla. I was not aware it was a racist term when i named it.

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