Afrikan

Tue Mar 5 23:02:53 UTC 2013

In one discussion of this topic yesterday on a website that tends to be skeptical of what they perceive as 'political correctness' someone said it was indeed a reference to Africanism, and was how you spell the name in Swahili. Which is probably true (I don't have a Swahili dictionary handy)
FWIW

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Professor, Linguistics Program
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)

----- Original Message -----

> From: "Victor Steinbok" <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2013 5:54:17 PM
> Subject: Re: Afrikan

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: Afrikan
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The naming was deliberate. I've already inquired about that, but no
> one
> seems to be able to tell me why. On the other hand, "Amerika" has
> come
> acquire some rather negative connotations. Then, there's
> Kalifornia...

> VS-)

> On 3/5/2013 5:13 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > Th CNN crawl mentions an "Afrikan Heritage House" at Oberlin
> > College.
> >
> > What's this "Afrikan" business? I can remember when radicals were
> > using
> > "Amerika" and even "Amerikkka." But they were being critikal. So
> > what gives?
> >
> > JL

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