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Comment by bsaul | Hacker News Reader

Note that french people saying "inshallah" say it as a joke (they use this word for fun effect), which isn't the same as really adopting this word. As for arab-derived slang, i know a lot of parents who absolutely forbid their kids to use those words, and the kids only do it to rebel, or there again to sound "special". But they'll be extra careful ( and will be able to) stop speaking in this manner in a professional context.

Which is to say, there's still a HUGE divide in the population, and the fact that the "french" part is using a few words from the other part shouldn't fool you into thinking that immigration is going well.

Don't be surprised by the results in the upcoming EU poll.

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> Note that french people saying "inshallah" say it as a joke (they use this word for fun effect), which isn't the same as really adopting this word.

I wonder if that's how Christian Spaniards started saying 'ojalá'[0] back in the day, before it became fully adopted into the language!

[0] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ojalá

Never heard inch allah used as a joke in France, I've always heard it in its original meaning but it's not broadly used.

> Note that french people saying "inshallah" say it as a joke (they use this word for fun effect),

To be fair that is how a lot of new vocabulary ends up in the standard lexicon.

Total tangent there's this thing in Japanese where a word ends up meaning one thing and also its opposite, due to being used ironically. Sometimes the original meaning is lost, sometimes it isn't. Like 貴様 (originally a honorific, now an insult) or 適当 meaning at the same time proper and sloppy.

> Total tangent there's this thing in Japanese where a word ends up meaning one thing and also its opposite, due to being used ironically

This is quite common outside Japanese: e.g. in English, ‘wicked’ can be positive or negative.

Splitting the society in two is a simplification that the far right try to make believe is a reality. There is not the French and the others, society and movement of people is much more complex.

There is a far right wave currently for sure, but this is propelled by a mix of issue, not just immigration.

I know the left likes to blame it on the complex structures of society ("it's the system's fault") and have bright scholars that want to go beyond the immediate perception of things, however in this case i don't think their attempts have been very convincing to say the least.

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