Q: Did Latin's "niger" (black) originate from an African word for the Niger River?

[Douglas G. Wilson]

On 10/22/2011 8:39 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Q: Did Latin's "niger" (black) originate from an African word
>                for the Niger River?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This sounds like what we linguists call "garbazh."   There could
> scarcely have been enough influential "Nigerians" in the Roman Empire
> to have introduced a new, basic Latin word like _niger_.  And even if
> there were, how could a name (used by only some of them, presumably)
> for an African river become a common Latin word for "black"?
>
> The etymology of Latin _niger_ is admittedly unknown.
>
> What is true is that the Romans also used _ater_ for "black."  As I
> understand it, _ater_ generally meant "dull black" and even
> "black-skinned." _Niger_, by way of contrast, meant most other sorts
> of black and dark, including deep gray, dark brown, sable, etc., and
> was also more likely to be used figuratively ("shady," "funereal,"
> "black-hearted," etc.).
--

Possible etymology of "Niger" [river] is discussed on the Wikipedia page.

Latin "niger" is thunk by some to be derived from IE: e.g., the AHD
IE-roots list shows it from *nek[w]-t-, "night", alongside Germanic
*naht, Latin "nox", Greek "nyx".

-- Doug Wilson

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