Arabic-L:LING:ethnic slurs

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 21 Jan 2002
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-------------------------Directory-------------------------------------

1) Subject: ethnic slurs
2) Subject: ethnic slurs
3) Subject: ethnic slurs
4) Subject: ethnic slurs

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1)
Date:  21 Jan 2002
From: zouhair maalej <zmaalej at gnet.tn>
Subject: ethnic slurs

Dear colleagues:

There exist a few ethnic slurs in Tunisian Arabic used to refer to Tunisians
(no offense is meant to anybody):

(i) bulRari (Bulgarian): there was a time when Tunisia used to receive
Bulgarians in the national sector (especially as doctors, engineers,
teachers, etc.) as part of international co-operation. They used to be
categorised as second best to the French. Now, some people from poor regions
in Tunisia moving to other regions seeking for jobs are referred to as
bulRariyyiin (Bulgarians), because skill-wise they are deemed less
proficient and skilful than the natives of the region. This is a regionalist
expression to denigrate another region.

(ii) If someone is referred to as "yhudi" (jewish), they are evil, having no
mercy in the heart.

(iii) If someone is referred to as "liibi" (Libyan), they are tasteless and
dumb. For more on this, see:
Muhawi, Ibrahim (1996). “Language Ethnicity and National Identity in the
Tunisian Ethnic Joke.” In: Yasir Suleiman (ed.), _Language and Identity in
the Middle East and North Africa_. Surrey: Curzon Press, 39-59.

(iv) If someone is referred to as "suri" (French and not Syrian), they are
deemed snobbish or stylish.

(v) If something is referred to as "shinwa" (Chinese), it is not
understandable (equivalent to "someone is Greek" in English).

There are two surviving referring expressions (but rare now), which I don't
consider ethnic slurs, to refer to foreigners, because they are hardly ever
in use and have lost most of their derogation: "rumi" (from Rome or Roman)
and "gawri" (perhaps having to do with foreigners that had brought war with
them). "Gawriyya" often denotes a non-Muslim foreigner, especially in
talking about marriage).


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2)
Date:  21 Jan 2002
From: Humphrey Davies <hdavies at aucegypt.edu>
Subject: ethnic slurs

Dear List Members,

     The singular of Egyptian Arabic nawar "gypsies" is recorded in
Hinds/Badawi's A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic as nuuri rather than
nawari, and the definitions given are "gypsy" and "swindler".  The
pronunciation is confirmed by the proverb quoted under the same
entry:alf nuuri wala damanhuuri, which the dictionary translates as
"a thousand con men are preferable to a single Damanhouri (a comment
on the alleged Damanhour propensity for cunnng and swindling)" - so
voila, another ethnic slur.

Slurs on hunuud "Indians" go back at least to the late 17th century,
when Yusuf Al-Shirbini, in Hazz al-Quhuuf fi-Sharh Qasid Abi Shaduuf,
describes the children of country people as mithl awlaad al-hunuud aw
awlaad al-quruud; he also compares the sounds made by women during
intercourse as resembling barbarat al-hunuud "the (incomprehensible,
barbarian) gabbling of Indians", which perhaps counts as two ethnic
slurs in one (or three, if one includes the unconscionably
speciesist reference to apes); and one could go on.

The manawfa (people of Minufiyya) are usually castigated specifically
for their miserliness and venality.

As also are Copts, of whom the particulary offensive comment is
sometimes made by Muslim Egyptians that they are 'aDma zarqa
(literally "blue bone": Hinds-Badawi "a pejorative epithet for
Copts"), the term sometimes being accompanied by a dumbshow of biting
on one's forefinger (implying I think that Copts "bite" (financially)
to the bone).  The term kuftus (pl. kafatsa) is also used of Copts
and is I think purely pejorative, though etymologically-speaking
identical with the neutral qibTi, qubTi.

Humphrey Davies
c/o School of Humanities (223)
American University in Cairo
Cairo, Egypt

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3)
Date:  21 Jan 2002
From: mughazy <mughazy at students.uiuc.edu>
Subject: ethnic slurs

My understanding of ethnic slurs is that they are derogatory expressions that
fulfill certain sociolinguistic functions, and they emerge as the result of
extensive cultural contact between two communities. If the power differential
between two communities is great, such words emerge to refer to the weaker
one, usually a minority, so as to assert their inferiority. That could be seen
clearly in many Arabic speaking countries where lower and middle class
Egyptians and others migrated in search for a better economy. For example, in
some Gulf areas the term “maSri” ‘Egyptian’ is used as a derogatory term
particularly when calling people ‘ya maSri’ instead of using their names, or
to refer to a teacher as ‘el-maSri’ rather than ‘the teacher’. That is similar
to the use of the word ‘filibeeneyya’ ‘Philippines’ instead of the word ‘maid’
especially in Kuwait.

At other times, one community might have cultural characteristics that are
seen as lowly in another community. For example, Egyptians are known for their
ethnic diversity and inter-ethnic marriages. That is why Lawrence Durrelle
called Alexandria a ‘real melting pot’ in his quartet. Since not knowing one’s
genealogy and hence the limited use of family names is seen as lowly in a
tribal community like Jordan, the word ‘Egyptian’ has the literal meaning of
‘bastard’ for them. Another type of cultural differences is eating habits.
Since people in Libya find it lowly for humans to eat fava beans, they call
Egyptians ‘el-fawwaala/el-fawaleen’ (the fava beans eaters).

These expressions need to be studied in their historical context because they
change a lot. For example, in the famous Egyptian wedding song: ‘Salli Salli,
3anaabi Salli w-elli ma-ye-Salli abo-h armanli’ (praise the Prophet, and
whoever does not, his father is Armenian), the slur for Armenians changed
(because of the end of cultural contact with Armenians) to ‘aramalli’ which
has no meaning at all, and finally it became ‘daramalli’ which is a man’s name
associated with the elitist socio-economic classes. Also, the word ‘agha’
(pimp) was actually an honorable Turkish title, and the word ‘khawal’ (fagot)
was also a Turkish title for the head of the treasury. These were slurs that
lost their ethnic attribute and maintained their use as an insult. I apologize
for using such terms, and hope nobody is offended.

As for Waheed’s comment about the use of ‘hinid’ (Indian), I have to disagree
because as far as I know it is used to refer to Asian Indians as depicted in
Indian movies. The motivation for that claim is that there are other
expressions such as ‘da film hindi’ to mean (that is ridiculous). The
confusion could be due to expressions such as ‘inta shayefni HaTeT reesha?’
(do you see me wearing a feather?), where the feather thing refers to the way
Maharajas and rich Indians wear a feather in their turbans in these movies.
Let me mention one last thing, Egyptians do not use these terms to insult
Asian Indians but to denote the attribute perceived in these melodramatic
movies.

Mustafa A. Mughazy
Graduate student
Depatment of Linguistics
University of Illinois
Urbana Champaign

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4)
Date:  21 Jan 2002
From: Albrecht Hofheinz <Albrecht_Hofheinz at web.de>
Subject: ethnic slurs

>-	‘hindi’ (Indian) and the plural is ‘hunuud’ or ‘hanadwa’.
>This word is used to mean ‘dumb’, ‘melodramatic’ or ‘oaf’. That is
>because of the Indian movies that were extremely popular in Egypt in
>the seventies and eighties.

Cf. the Sudanese expression, "ana hindii wallaa 3indii gambuur
[qanbuur]?", to mean, 'do you think I'm dumb?' (gambuur is a certain
hairstyle used for young children in the Eastern and Western Sudan,
whereby the head is bald shaven except for the crane). And no,
Sudanese clearly think of Hindi movies, not American ones, when using
this expression.

>It is possible, too, that zinjii/zanjii is being used as a slur, "pure"
>racial, of course. In Syria and Lebanon "9abd" is still used for a Negro.

Dto in the Northern Sudan - but only if no foreigner's around ;->

Albrecht Hofheinz

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