"Amerika"

James Smith jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM
Tue May 29 16:02:12 UTC 2007


I've always associated the spelling Amerika with
russian.


--- "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:

> >The New York bombers identified themselves
> afterwards as "revoluntary
> >force 9" in a message to "Amerika" (a current fad
> in radical literature
> >is to spell it with a German "k" to denote facism).
>  -San Francisco
> >Examiner and Chronicle, Datebook, page 18 (5 April
> 1970).
> >
> >They put us on trial; we denoucned "Amerika" with
> its teutonic look, or
> >"Amerikkka."  Todd Gitline: The Sixties, page 288
> (1987).
>
> But IIRC along about the same time there was a
> tendency among some
> activists toward the spelling "Afrika" too ... I
> don't think it was to
> suggest African fascism, I think it was to reject
> the US spelling and
> employ some other orthography, not German, maybe
> Swahili or something like
> that. I had it explained to me by a student activist
> ca. 1970 but I can't
> remember exactly what he said and I doubt it was
> linguistically
> authoritative anyway.
>
> "Afrika[n]" is still around. Google (e.g.) <<afrikan
> student>>.
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
>
> --
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James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.



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