Word: maharlika
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Sometimes rulers decide it is best to leave well enough alone. Filipinos have long bristled at the colonialistic implications of calling their country the Philippines, in honor of Philip II of Spain. During the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, there was a campaign to rename the country Maharlika, a native word meaning noble and aristocratic. Plans for the rechristening proceeded apace until an academic pointed out that the word was probably derived from Sanskrit. Fine, its proponents said, Sanskrit is a non- imperialist language. Yes, replied the scholar, but Maharlika was most likely derived from the words maha lingam, meaning "great...
...Japanese, to which he makes frequent and boastful reference, was judged by the U.S. Army back in 1948 to be "fraudulent" and "absurd." Ever since his early political days Marcos has claimed to have played a hero's role as leader of a Philippine guerrilla unit called Ang Mga Maharlika (Free Men) between 1942 and 1944. An Army report squirreled away in U.S. Government archives shows that Marcos had instead deserted his guerrilla unit, eventually to join up with an American force during the 1944 Philippines invasion. Within hours of the article's publication in New York City, the information...
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