Where did the middle finger come from?

The one-finger salute might be humanity's longest-running insult gesture.

[burtorable]

My dad told me it was because in the medieval times, they chopped off their middle fingers as punishment in war (or something) so, to show that they didn't get caught and the can still fight, they put up the middle finger.

[paultrapani]

00:10
Here I got you something to keep as a souvenir.
Oh here it is
*gives off the finger*

[willseidler]

This didn't answer my question. Just more speculation

[tylerbruno]

2:12 is greatest movie scene of all time

[Daa_Imon]

Im still wheezing at how Mr. Bean did the middle finger with out realizing the meaning of it. 😂😂😂😂😂

[justindantes]

I came here because of rise of kingdoms

[onee-chan]

it was from a king a long long time ago...the king said he will cut off our middle finger but he failed to do that because all of the peoples disagree so the peoples yelled at him with the middle finger.

[ntart]

My 17 years old brother used the middle finger to me and I didn't even got offended, and I just ignore him and laughed at him and I'm only 10. I didn't told my mom because I find it funny 😂

[Tony-idi]

It was popularized by the native Americans when they would use it with two fingers: index and middle showing the back hand and with the fingers slightly curled inward, with the upward pump of the fist. This gesture was an insult that the colonizers didn’t like and they’d cut off their index finger if they did it. So what was left was their middle finger to make the gesture

[luislizard]

Italians ... the masters of hand signals 😭😂😭

[TheMidnightBell]

Hey, when I was young I thought it was the lane changing signal in my aunt's car.

[Iamstillazombie]

“I have five fingers and the middle one is for you.”

[alayciia]

So basically it just depends how your intentions when you use it. I only use it as a joke

[Nintentional]

My science teacher told me back in 2005 that there were a group of indians that had an enemy indian tribe that would cut off their index finger so that they couldn't pluck a bow and arrow called a yew. And in retaliation they stuck out their middle finger and yelled "pluck yew" meaning that they could still use the bow with their middle finger. Idk if that's true or not either lol.

[scotandiamapping]

Didnt it originate in the hundred years war?

[metin]

It's probably connected to old time spells

[zerox]

Even the middle finger has history too 😅

[YosefDonutPrince]

The middle finger isn’t even bad it’s just that bad people wanted to make it that meaning. That’s like if someone claimed that the word hi was a bad word.

[taniatonu]

Man at my school I can’t put a rude finger

[EisakoTheAvali]

This gesture basically transcends language barriers