McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"] (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Herb Stahlke]

Tom,

You might want to look at the Ethnologue at www.ethnologue.com to get
a better sense of languages in Africa.  The most widely spoken
language in Africa is Arabic, with about 100,000,000 speakers across
North Africa and Saharan countries like Sudan and Chad.  Hausa is
spoken as a first or second language by about 45 million in the
southern Sahara and Sahel, especially Niger, Nigeria, and Chad.
Swahili is spoken as a first language by about three quarters of a
million and as a second language by about 30 million, so it comes in
third at best.  You might also check a Swahili grammar and get some
sense of how phrases are formed.

Herb

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"] (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In Swahili, the most popular language of Africa, the word for
>
> black is -eusi (suffix?)
> people is watu
>
> Put together you got watu-eusi or in short watusi?  ~waattuesee
> This is the name of a tall slender African tribe, an African long-horned cow, and a dance in the 60's.
> I think we can watusi off as a nice name for black people.  Watusi's the dance made for romance.
>
> from  http://africanlanguages.com/swahili/
>
> -eusi adjective
> 1 black
> 2 dark
> nyeusi See -eusi
> weusi cl. 11 Root -eusi
> 1 blackness
> 2 darkness
>
> Number of results found for 'person': 1
> mtu noun 1/2
> 1 person, human being, individual
> 2 someone, somebody
> jitu noun 5/6, animate Stem mtu
> giant
> watu pl noun 1/2 See singular mtu
> people, population
>
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>
>
>
>>
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: "Steve Kl."
>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"] (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> To echo Salikoko, why would we turn to Swahili, or any other African
>> language, for that language's word for *black*?
>>
>> That would be like turning to French, Finnish, or Czech to come up with the
>> English word for *white.*
>> *
>> *
>> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 4:29 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
>>> (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> I dissagree. I think it's a good idea to know what others think is
>>> pejorative so you don't call them that out of ignorance. News to me is that
>>> black folk think "Negro" is pejorative. I'll stay away from that. It's
>>> gonna be "black black black" from now on so everybody is happy. But
>>> somewhere out there in the evolution of words I think a better term will pop
>>> up. What's Swahili for black person.
>>>
>>>
>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
>>> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>>>
>>>
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>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"
>>>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
>>> (UNCLASSIFIED)
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>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>>>>> Behalf Of Tom Zurinskas
>>>>> Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 9:16 PM
>>>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
>>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> ---------------
>>>>> --------
>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>>>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro" [Was: on "Negro English"]
>>>>>
>>>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> --------
>>>>>
>>>>> My only point on the word "Negro" is that I personally don't think of
>>>>> it as a pejorative term any more than Causcasian for whites.
>>>>
>>>> But since you aren't black, whether or not you find it pejorative is of
>>>> little consequence.
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