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responses</title></head><body>
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<div>Arabic-L: Wed 15 Jan 2002</div>
<div>Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson
<dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu><br>
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<div>1) Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div>2) Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div>3) Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div>4) Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div>5) Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div><br>
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<div>1)</div>
<div>Date: 15 Jan 2002</div>
<div>From: mughazy <mughazy@students.uiuc.edu><br>
Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>[moderator's note: sorry about the weird characters. I
think the message can still be read. It has something to do with
my program not being able to decipher things. Dil]</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Dear Dan<br>
In Egyptian Arabic, which I am most familiar with, there are not that
many<br>
ethnic slurs probably because the society is more stratified
economically than<br>
ethnically. There are of course some ethnic slurs, many of which are
historic<br>
and I would argue that some of them lost their use as ethnic
derogatory terms<br>
and maintained their use as insults. For example, “nawar” (the
singular is<br>
‘nawary’) is, as you mentioned, close in meaning to “white
trash”, and it<br>
might be related to the Nuweyr tribes in the Sudan (this is a wild
guess).<br>
Whatever its origin is people do not know it except maybe for a couple
of<br>
linguists. Other slurs such as ‘a9jami’ lost their use as slurs. I
think that<br>
word means ‘mute’ and it was used to refer to foreigners in
generals (not just<br>
Persians) because of their limited competence in Arabic, and later it
was used<br>
only to mean ‘foreigner’.<br>
<br>
As far as I know in Jordanian Arabic the word ‘maSri’ (Egyptian)
is used to<br>
mean (of low or unknown descent i.e., bastrad)<br>
<br>
I do not know of any publication on Arabic ethnic slurs, but if you
are<br>
interested here are some modern Egyptian ones, and I hope I am not
offending<br>
any of the list members.<br>
<br>
-<x-tab> </x-tab>‘hindi’ (Indian) and the plural is ‘hunuud’
or ‘hanadwa’. This word is used<br>
to mean ‘dumb’, ‘melodramatic’ or ‘oaf’. That is because
of the Indian movies<br>
that were extremely popular in Egypt in the seventies and
eighties.<br>
<br>
-<x-tab> </x-tab>‘taiwaani’ (Taiwanese) which is
used to mean ‘fake’ or ‘of low quality’ as<br>
in the most frequent use “esh-sheikh da da`noh taiwaani’ (This
sheikh’s beard<br>
is Taiwanese or made in Taiwan.) meaning he is not well-informed
about<br>
religion or he does not follow what he preaches. That is because of
the<br>
perception that the abundant made-in-Taiwan electronic products are of
low<br>
quality.<br>
<br>
-<x-tab> </x-tab>‘barabra’ which is used to refer to Nubians and
not speakers of Berber even<br>
if the latter is the accurate etymology. It is used only to refer to
bad<br>
manner of speaking, namely for interlocutors to speak too fast and at
the same<br>
time.<br>
<br>
-<x-tab> </x-tab>‘toska’ which is an Italian woman’s name. It is
used to mean ‘prostitute’ or<br>
‘loose woman’ and it was common when many Europeans lived in
Alexandria.<br>
<br>
I would not list any of the fallaHeen (Delta peasants) or Sa3ayda
(Upper<br>
Egyptians) slurs because these are well known.<br>
<br>
Some ethnic remarks are used only in frozen expressions or
proverb-like<br>
utterances such as<br>
(a)<x-tab> </x-tab>daakh dookhet el-baljeeki (he got as dizzy as
someone from Belgium.)<br>
(b)<x-tab> </x-tab>el-menoofi el-aSeel zay el-gazma eT-TafSeel ‘a
real menoofi (from<br>
Menoofeyya, a district in the Delta) is like a custom made shoe.
That<br>
indicates their low status.<br>
(c)<x-tab> </x-tab>el-menoofi la yaloofi w-law akala
laHma el-kitoofi. ‘a menoofi will never<br>
change even if he ate the shoulder meat of a lamb’ meaning they will
always be<br>
of low status. It is interesting that there are case marking vowels
even on<br>
the verb for the sake of the rhyme!!!<br>
(d)<x-tab> </x-tab>naTTa faranasaawi (a
French jump) indicating a sexual intercourse. This<br>
phrase lost its insulting use and is used only as a very rude remark
about the</div>
<div>beauty of an Egyptian blonde particularly from el-manSoora where
the French<br>
soldiers of Napoleon stayed.<br>
<br>
I hope these help your work, and I hope nobody is offended.<br>
<br>
Mustafa A. Mughazy<br>
Graduate student<br>
Depatment of Linguistics<br>
University of Illinois<br>
Urbana Champaign</div>
<div><br></div>
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<div>2)</div>
<div>Date: 15 Jan 2002</div>
<div>From: Srpko Lestaric <srpkole@EUnet.yu><br>
Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>This subject promises to enrich our knowledge of Arabic with a
good deal of<br>
sometimes humorous and sometimes dirty words. Anyhow, if
"9ajamii" for<br>
"Persian" may be considered an ethnic slur -- and it is
found in every<br>
dialect of Arabic, not only spoken, but also in the classical
written<br>
language and MSA -- than "barbarii", on the other end of
what we call the<br>
Arab world, should be put in the same basket. Yet there is no need to
hurry<br>
with such conclusions: many peoples found no better names to give to
their<br>
first neighbors than "The Mutes", for the latter were unable
to speak in an<br>
intelligible way to them.<br>
<br>
On the other hand, "ghajarii" is nowadays counted for an
insult between the<br>
Arabs ("nawar" is of the same branch, i.e. Gypsies) and
different names of<br>
this ethnic, in any of so-called great languages of the world, are<br>
considered slurs in the respective societies. In Enno Littmann's
Modern<br>
Arabic Tales, Leiden, 1905 (translated to German by Littmann himself
under<br>
the title Arabische Maerchen aus muendlicher Ueberlieferung, Leipzig
1935,<br>
and to Serbian by myself -- Antologija arapske narodne price, Vreme
knjige,<br>
Beograd, 1994) there is a folktale from Jerusalem (kayd al-nisaa'
ghalab<br>
kayd al-rijaal) in which a young man, entrapped in marriage with
the<br>
horribly handicapped judge's daughter, rescues himself by mere
declaring<br>
before his not destined father-in-low that he is remotely related with
the<br>
Gypsies.<br>
<br>
It is possible, too, that zinjii/zanjii is being used as a slur,
"pure"<br>
racial, of course. In Syria and Lebanon "9abd" is still used
for a Negro.<br>
<br>
More than probable is that the Levantine Arabic today comprises quite
a<br>
number of "active" ethnic slurs on the account of the Jews
(vice versa also<br>
applies, to be sure). In an old Iraqi folktale (v. al-turaath
al-sha9bii,<br>
10/1975, p.117) I came across the noun/adjective
"al-yahaadii", which seams<br>
to me a clear pejorative (through the form of an augmentative).<br>
<br>
In Iraq, the genuine Arab name of Abu Naajii still means either
English(man)<br>
or UK of Great Britain, sharply connotating political shrewdness
of<br>
(neo)colonialism. Therefore, this name, bearing the idea of salvation,
is<br>
sometimes paradoxically used to mark a corrupt man whose ways are
dangerous<br>
for others.<br>
<br>
Srpko Lestaric</div>
<div><br></div>
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<div>3)</div>
<div>Date: 15 Jan 2002</div>
<div>From: Patricia Kelly Spurles <pkellyspurles@yahoo.com><br>
Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In urban women's language of Marrakesh, "yahudi"
(Jew)<br>
is used pejoratively to refer to non-Jews.<br>
<br>
"Gawri" (foreigner, fr "kafir" via Turkish, I
suppose)<br>
also has pejorative connotations for some, and is<br>
avoided by some speakers. It reminds me of the<br>
confusion in the US over politically correct terms of</div>
<div>reference for African Americans.<br>
<br>
=====<br>
Patricia Kelly Spurles<br>
<br>
PhD candidate<br>
Dept. d'anthropologie, Univ. de Montreal<br>
<br>
300 East Shelbourne Dr., apt. 73<br>
Normal, Illinois 61761</div>
<div><br></div>
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<div>4)</div>
<div>Date: 15 Jan 2002</div>
<div>From: "Schub, Michael"
<michael.schub@trincoll.edu><br>
Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div><br></div>
<div> One Arab author of Kurdish origin (Ahmad Amin[??]) was
abashed when he<br>
was referred to as having a /ra's kurdi/ ("Kurdish
head").<br>
<br>
<span
></span
> <span
></span
> <span
></span
> <span
></span> Mike Schub</div>
<div><br></div>
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<div>5)</div>
<div>Date: 15 Jan 2002</div>
<div>From: Neal Kaloupek <NKaloupek@compuserve.com><br>
Subject: Ethnic Slurs response</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#0000FF">I hesitate somewhat
to talk about these things for fear of offending someone - however, I
lived at the border between the UAE and Oman for seven years, and was
told that Egyptians were sometimes referred to as "Himaar"
(donkey) - (possibly because in the past they did the manual labor?)
Also, I heard those from the Levant called "zelemy" (as in
"He first spoke like a 'zelemy', but now he's learned to speak
better") - probably because Levantines use the term more
frequently than "Gulfies" use it.</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#0000FF">Neal</font></div>
<div><br></div>
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<div>End of Arabic-L: 15 Jan 2002</div>
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