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

[David Bergdahl]

When I was on an exchange at the University of Toulouse in 1988 one of my
colleagues was said to be a pied noir: he was French but Algerian-born whose
family "had to leave" after independence.  I understood it wasn't to be said
in his presence.
-db

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: OT: 'Pied noir' [was: McWhorter on "Negro"]
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> By 1963, when I was doing the junior year abroad
> thing in France, a pied noir was necessarily
> someone  ethnically French who lived in or had
> emigrated back from Algeria; I wouldn't have
> known whether it mattered whether they themselves
> were born in France or Algeria (i.e. whether they
> were a first-generation colonist or from a later
> generation), but I suppose the "Français né en
> Algérie" constraint below is accurate.  The usual
> context in which it came up was to designate
> those who had left Algeria for (usually) the
> south of France and it was I believe always
> pejorative.  In those years, there was already a
> fear of terrorism by those disaffected by De
> Gaulle's policies of giving up the colony and
> granting independence to Algeria, and there was
> the occasional setting off of "plastique" bombs.
> I apparently looked enough like a pied noir (I
> was actually given that reason once) to be
> stopped and frisked by les flics when I was
> hitchhiking through the south of France.
>
> LH
>
> At 11:32 AM -0600 1/17/10, Salikoko Mufwene wrote:
> >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
> >>YO10 5DD
> >>UK
> >>
> >>Tel. (office) +44 (0)1904 432665
> >>     (mobile) +44 (0)771 853 5634
> >>Fax  +44 (0)1904 432673
> >>
> >>http://www.york.ac.uk/res/aiseb
> >>
> >>http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/lang/people/pages/hall.htm
> >>
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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
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