N-word ( 's of the world unite !)
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For other uses, see N-word (disambiguation).
N-word is an extremely controversial term used in many English-speaking countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia (but also in other languages such as German as a loanword) to refer to people of African descent. During the chattel enslavement of Africans, it was once the standard, casual English term for black people. Associations with the word traditionally have been an institutional contempt, a presumption of inherent inferiority, even of bestiality, making it extremely pejorative and abusive.
Despite, or expanding the controversy, "n-word" originates from the Dutch and German "neger," which is their orthography and phonetics for the Portuguese and Spanish "negro." The English distorted neger to "negar" to "n-word." "Neger" (sometimes spelled "neggar") prevailed in the North in New York under the Dutch and in Philadelphia in the Moravian and "Pennsylvania Dutch" [German] communities. For example, the New York City "African Burial Ground" was originally known as "Begraaf Plaats van de Neger." It acquired its offensive and dehumanizing character from the confluence of Catholic and Protestant religious doctrine of nations engaged in slavery and, in America, the American Revolution, which could not admit to black equality, even after freedom. Thus, after the Revolution n-word became a racial epithet, a word of hatred, for the black presence in "white" America.
Historically, African Americans have appropriated the slur, subverting it to a self-referential term that is often suggestive of familiarity, endearment, or kinship. When spelled phonetically, the word often was represented as nigguh; however, currently, when used in this manner, the spelling is often changed to nigga or niggah. In general the word is accepted as being racist and dehumanizing.
Contents
* 1 Modern meanings * 2 Uses of word
* 2.1 Usage
* 2.2 Literary uses
* 2.3 N-word in popular culture
* 2.4 Names of places and things
* 3 Avoiding offense
* 3.1 "The N-Word"
* 3.2 Near-homophones
* 3.3 Revisionist usage
* 3.4 "N-word" versus "nigga": the new revisionism
* 4 Combinations with other words
* 5 References
* 6 Further reading
* 7 See also
* 8 External links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-word