OT: 'Pied noir' [was: McWhorter on "Negro"]

[Salikoko Mufwene]

I just cleaned up the text. Let's hope the whole of it is posted now.

Wikipedia gives the following etymology for "Pied-Noir":

> The origin of the term /Pied-noir/ is debated. According to the Oxford 
> English Dictionary, it refers to "a person of European origin living 
> in Algeria during the period of French rule, especially a French 
> person repatriated after Algeria was granted independence in 1962."^ 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied-Noir#cite_note-OED-0> The /Le 
> Robert/ dictionary states that in 1901 the word indicated a sailor 
> working barefoot in the coal room of a ship, who would find his feet 
> dirtied by the soot. In the Mediterranean, this was often an Algerian 
> native, thus the term was used pejoratively for Algerians until 1955 
> when it first began referring to "French born in Algeria."^ 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied-Noir#cite_note-Shephard-4> This 
> usage originated from mainland French as a negative nickname.^ 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied-Noir#cite_note-OED-0> There is also 
> a theory that the term comes from the black boots of French soldiers 
> compared to the barefoot Algerians^ 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied-Noir#cite_note-6> . Other theories 
> focus on new settlers dirtying their clothing by working in swampy 
> areas, or trampling grapes to make wine.^ 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied-Noir#cite_note-7> 
/Le trésor de la langue française/ gives the following etymology, which 
is in agreement with the above:
> ** "matelot chauffeur sur un bateau à charbon" (ds ESN.); 1917 "surnom 
> donné jadis aux Algériens" (/ibid./); 1955 "Français né en Algérie" 
> (/ibid./). Comp. de /pied/* et /noir/*, le surnom viendrait du fait 
> que les chauffeurs des bateaux, souvent algériens, marchaient pieds 
> nus dans la soute à charbon. 
Sali.


Damien Hall wrote:
> Robin said he had been '(mis)reading "noir" as if it mapped directly onto
> English "black"'. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the misunderstanding, but it
> seems to me as if that _is_ a direct mapping. Algerian-born children of
> French settlers there, like Camus, were referred to as 'pieds noirs'
> because they were said to have one 'black foot' - ie a small 
> proportion of
> their body which had black (in the skin-colour sense) skin - as a 
> result of
> their having been born to white-skinned parents but in an area where the
> natives were dark-skinned. It's a while since my undergraduate 
> dissertation
> on Camus, but I believe the designation 'pieds noirs' was only applied to
> people born in Algeria, not to their French-born parents as well.
>
> How appropriate that this should have come up ten days or so after the
> fiftieth anniversary of Camus' death!
>
> Damien
>
> -- 
> Damien Hall
>
> University of York
> Department of Language and Linguistic Science
> Heslington
> YORK
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> UK
>
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>
> http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/lang/people/pages/hall.htm
>
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-- 
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Salikoko S. Mufwene                    s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
The Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and the College
Professor, Committee on Evolutionary Biology
University of Chicago                  773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924
Department of Linguistics
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http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene
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