Thread: Who speaks which language?

Originally Posted by Alex80

Do you mean "Пиндостана"? Switched letters make this sounds fun, like composition of "пни-" (kick), "достать" (piss off) and "-стан" in "Afgani-stan".

Alex80, thank you, now I like the word "Пиндостан" even more!

What I already knew about the very interesting word пиндос:

(1) It comes from the Greek geographical name of the "Πίνδος" горная система ("mountain range") in northwest Greece;

(2) Historically, it was used in Russian as a rude term for ethnic Greeks who lived на северном берегу Чёрного моря ("on the northern shore of the Black Sea");

(3) During the Kosovo War of the late 1990s, Russian troops began using "пиндосы" in reference to US military personnel, instead of using it for Greeks -- and although no one knows the true explanation, it's possible that...

(4) ... "пиндосы" was a phonetic replacement for an already-existing taboo term, such as pidor (cf. episode S13/E12 of South Park , "The F Word"), or maybe something derived from pizda -- because Russia and the US were theoretically "UN allies," but did not really trust each other, and the Russians knew that American translators would probably know the older terms, but would not understand "pindos".