Props

[Salikoko S. Mufwene]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barnhart" <ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 11:17 PM
Subject: Re: Props


| Following, for what it's worth, is the entry from John Holm¿s
| Dictionary of Bahamian English (c. 1982) (submitted with diacritics,
| but you're system may not read them):
|
| nigger, _n._ 1. [OED a negro ... usu. contemptuous; cf. US Black "when
| used by a whit person addressing a black person usually it is offensive
| and disparaging; used by black people among themselves, it is a racial
| term with undertones of warmth and good will--reflecting, aside from
| the irony, a tragicomic sensibility that is aware of black history"
| (Major)]

SSM: Unfortunately the facts we know do not corroborate such as general statement.

| a black person (not necessarily derogatory):
| 1880 _The newly converted negro ... was persuaded to be baptized by
| immersion in the ocean, and having accidentally slipped from the grasp
| of the officiating clergyman while his wooly head was under water,
| declared, so soon as he could get the sea out of his eyes and
| mouth--"Some gemman kum nare losing a good nigger by dis yere cussed
| foolishness_" (Ives 164). <Black>

SSM: The meaning of the term has evolved over the past century and longer. I think Geneva Smitherman and John Baugh published papers on terms for self-reference among African Americans in the early 1980s (perhaps 1981--I am too far from my office and home to double-check, and this is not worth a trip to the library here in Singapore). Besides, how can one be so sure that this source represented a universal norm in the late 19th century?

| 2. [cf. Haitian "En créole le mot _nègre_ désigne encore l'homme en
| général sans acception de race" (Faine 1974:313)]
| (any) person:
| _I bet you're one happy nigger_ [to a white] (Nassau).
| _Dat nigger could dance!_ [of a white] (Nassau). <Black>

SSM: Etymologically, I can see the benefits of validating an interpretation of "niggger" by adducing its usage in Haitian Creole. Still, this is a different language, and the community of African descent that uses it is not North American. One could also invoke the use of "negro" (or is it something close?) in Spanish and shed light on the evolution of the meaning of "nigger" in varieties of (American) English.

| 3. [cf. US Black _my nigger_ best friend (Brown 1972:135); cf. Haitian
| _men nèg mwen_ that's my friend man (Gaujean p.c.); cf. Haitian _nèg_
| man (male person) HCEFD and Reunion Cr. Fr. _monwa:r_ (cf. Fr. _mon
| noir_) my friend (Chaudenson 1974:158)]
| a male friend or a boyfriend (youth clang; not derogatory):
| _Dancie say you better don't mess round with her nigger!_ (Nassau).
| <Black>
| 4. a person (of any race) who acts the opposite of a gentleman. <White>
| 5. a sly person. <Adelaide>
|
SSM: There are definitely some African Americans who use the term in these different ways, but that changes nothing to my earlier observation that not every African American shares these interpretations nor the felicity of their usage.

Sali.