[Multilingual Monday] "That's Racist!"

[aadroma]

So some might remember a post I did along time ago after I got called out (and rightfully so!) on the use of the word "gypped," and this led to discussing various pejorative terms in multiple languages. Even terms that might not be intended to be pejorative can be to people who happen to be referred to (inadvertently or unwittingly as it may be)

Comments

[paulintoronto]

I was shocked to discover that the French language still uses "nègre" to refer to what in English is called a "ghostwriter."

[muckefuck]

Pédé was a shocker for me. I remember watching a scene from Les roseaux sauvages where a character struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality stands in front of a mirror repeating, "Je suis un pédé!" and thinking, Why would you ever call yourself that?

[gullinbursti]

In Diné the word for "white person" is biligáana, which is simply a transliteration for "American". It reminds me of the South Philly Sicilian/Italian term for a non-Italian -- meddigan'.

[muckefuck]

Negerkuss

[pangolin]

In English, we still use the words white and black (I suspect partially because they are shorter than Caucasian and African), but have dropped yellow and red. I'm unsure though, why it 'ok' to continue using some ostensibly descriptive color labels but not others, and can only conclude that that's just what people are used to, which is probably why that Cherokee word is still in use.

[donncha22]

In Irish black people are "gorm" (= blue) because "dubh" (= black) was already taken, used to mean a person with black hair.