Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 13:59:27 CST
From: salikoko mufwene mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU
Subject: Re: offending idioms
In Message Mon, 31 Oct 1994 00:03:34 CST,
"Donald M. Lance" ENGDL%MIZZOU1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uicvm.uic.edu writes:
One of the nagging little questions that has occurred to me from time to time
is to wonder about 'Negro' coming from Spanish and 'n---' from the French
form 'neger'. A good research project for someone; I'm frying other fish for
a while.
Incidentally, the term "creole" came into English, in apparently 1604,
from Spanish, more or less at the same time the term was being borrowed by
French (1598). In both cases the term was used in translations of Jose Acostas'
HISTORIA NATURAL Y MORAL DES LAS INDIAS (1590), in which the term "criollo"
or "crollo" (?) is used for Spaniards born in the West Indies. The Spaniards
seem to have played an important role in the development/spread of some
colonial terms, another example of which is "mulatto", used also from the
late 16th century. (What I report here does not take into account the less
clear matter of whether the term originated in Spanish or Portuguese. The
historical evidence just shows the term spread from Spanish.)
Sali.
Salikoko S. Mufwene
University of Chicago
Dept. of Linguistics
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu
312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861