McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"] (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Tom Zurinskas]

In Swahili, the most popular language of Africa, the word for

black is -eusi (suffix?)
people is watu

Put together you got watu-eusi or in short watusi?  ~waattuesee
This is the name of a tall slender African tribe, an African long-horned cow, and a dance in the 60's.
I think we can watusi off as a nice name for black people.  Watusi's the dance made for romance.

from  http://africanlanguages.com/swahili/

-eusi adjective
1 black
2 dark
nyeusi See -eusi
weusi cl. 11 Root -eusi
1 blackness
2 darkness

Number of results found for 'person': 1
mtu noun 1/2
1 person, human being, individual
2 someone, somebody
jitu noun 5/6, animate Stem mtu
giant
watu pl noun 1/2 See singular mtu
people, population



Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling



>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Steve Kl."
> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"] (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> To echo Salikoko, why would we turn to Swahili, or any other African
> language, for that language's word for *black*?
>
> That would be like turning to French, Finnish, or Czech to come up with the
> English word for *white.*
> *
> *
> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 4:29 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
>> (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I dissagree. I think it's a good idea to know what others think is
>> pejorative so you don't call them that out of ignorance. News to me is that
>> black folk think "Negro" is pejorative. I'll stay away from that. It's
>> gonna be "black black black" from now on so everybody is happy. But
>> somewhere out there in the evolution of words I think a better term will pop
>> up. What's Swahili for black person.
>>
>>
>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
>> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>>
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"
>>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
>> (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>>>> Behalf Of Tom Zurinskas
>>>> Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 9:16 PM
>>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> ---------------
>>>> --------
>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
>>>>
>>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> --------
>>>>
>>>> My only point on the word "Negro" is that I personally don't think of
>>>> it as a pejorative term any more than Causcasian for whites.
>>>
>>> But since you aren't black, whether or not you find it pejorative is of
>>> little consequence.
>>> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>>> Caveats: NONE
>>>
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