KlaasK

Hi there,

At the moment I’m writing my master thesis about xenophobia in South Africa and problems related to it.

For the introduction of my thesis I want to show that you can find xenophobia in every culture. Therefore I need help from you. In every society are foreign minorities which are not popular and normally you can find special dismissive terms for this foreign groups. Which words are used in your country? Which foreign-minority is the target group of these slurs? What does this slur exactly mean?

Example:

Term: makwerekwere
Used in South Africa
Target Group: Foreigners from other African countries
Meaning: a crude onomatopoeic imitation of how foreigners speak - is used to describe foreigners as "those we don't understand"

Perhaps someone can also help me with the words:
Gaijin - Japan

Métèque - France

I really hope that you can help me….

Cheers Klaas

sextus

In the United States, there is such words for everyone, as we are (or were) foreigners at one time or another. No nationality is spared.

I will refrain from posting them here as I do not wish to offend anyone.

I will help you with one. In Mexico, the call Americans "Gringos".

There are several theories of the origin, but the most common is that during the invasion of Mexico, American soldiers were wearing green uniforms and Mexicans used to say " Green Go".

Paradoxically, the term 'gringo' is not necessarily bad. It all depends how/when it is used. It could be a friendly term or an insult.

Wikipedia has an article on ethnic slurs that may be able to help in your research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs


Cheers,

sextus

KlaasK

I already read this article. I think these slurs seem to be in some cases very old.

But thank you for your help

Joe Gold

Btw, isn't 'barbarian' actually comming from the old Greek version of 'makwerekwere'?

You have denigrationg words fost western Europeans (and several others) in French, and I guess this isn't the place to list them. I'd give just one, for 'fun'. Most French won't understand this, but you can find the word "frouze". It is not really rude, and is just a common slang word in the French part of Switzerland to design people from France.

pluiepoco

He's doing research, so it's acceptable.

Mr. Gold, are you a purist?

As the slurs in Chinese language, I can give out some:


Term 1: Hui Zi (回子)
Used in China
Target Group: Muslim or Uigur or any group of Turkic/Arabic minority groups in China
Meaning: A greasy and smelly herdsman who graze sheep or cattle usually on grassland in Northwest China then in Central China, who drink milk and eat mutton or beef and live a different life with Chinese Han people. We call them because they don't eat pig meat, which is the favorite of our people.

Term 2: Man Zi (蛮子)
Used in North China
Target Group: South Chinese who speak in a different Chinese tone with Central or North Chinese people, because North Chinese and their language are widely considered the pure Chinese.
Meaning: Wild man, especially who come from deep mountains which is very backawards and underdeveloped where the communication facility is so poor that he know nothing of the modern world. But it's usual term for our North Chinese to call the South Chinese in a whole.

Term 3: Kua Zi (侉子)
Used in South China
Target Group: North Chinese who are deemed by the South Chinese as dirth because they don't bath as often as South one.
Meaning: As I said already, it means North Chinese who don't like to wash face, hands, any part of his body, who usually bath once a year or half a year (it's true decades ago and true in some regions at present time ), and who as North Chinese eats wheat- flour- made foods and drinks less water than South one, because North China is drier than the South and produces wheat and corn than rice.

Term 4: Gui Zi (鬼子)
Used in China
Target Group: Foreigners who come to China, especially Japanese invading China in WWII.
Meaning: Demon-like person, ugly person, foreign people since they aren't Chinese and we take them so differently from their "bad" looking or "bad" behavious or styles. Yet We hate the invading Japanese in WWII who did massacres all over China. The Hatred continues from generation to generation, and we call Japanese till now "Ri Ben Gui Zi" (日本鬼子), it's historical.

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刘晓雨 pluiepoco
Home of Asia, 中国语言论坛(Chinese Forum of Languages), 西瓜村

abu_dana

O! My!!! Pluiepoco, I see you are in love with us!!??

Let me see what I can tell about this interesting subject. We have similar words denigrating Chinese, yes, also reflecting on what Chinese usually prefer eating lots of grass, veggies, compared to us, we Kazakhs eat lots of meat and lots of horse meat too. People say Chinese eat everything that moves and stands. Including insects.

In the past we called Chinese "Qara Orus" (meaning black Russians). And Russians proper were "Aq Orus" (White Russians).
Now it's simply "Qara qulaq" (Black ears) for Chinese and Russians are "Aq qulaq" (White ears).

That's why some Mideast Turks and Arabs don't like that in us, because horse is regarded to be friend of Muslim in waging jihad against infidels.
But we eat it, I think Mongols eat them too. But then again Mongols aren't Muslims, and we are.

Being fellow Muslims to Persians doesn't stop us from calling them "Sarts" - merchants and profiteers of our Southern neighbours. Of course, our peoples were cattle herders and nomads and they hated anybody who would settle on land, plant and gather crops, and trade.

Among ourselvels we also devide into tribes who like alliances with Russia, China and Persian peoples, living closeby with borders of these countries. And we got these bad names according to who prefers alliance with who accordingly. Even for those who want to stay without one we also got names. But there are simply lots of them and I can't post them all here, it's going to be a long book of bad names and curses.

pluiepoco

Well, interesting that we Chinese are called "black ears", but we have yellow ears not black at all! We also eat every kinds of meats in every animal including human (in great famine only), but mostly we eat plants and grains, vegetables, it's good and civilised sedentary nations do this alike, but babarians like romanics prefer to a vagabond life. Frankly speaking, civilsed life presents higher productivity, you must face this reality, abu-duna, I don't suggest you quit your nomadic life, but just clarify that nomandic life is not properly right in modern society, contrary, it's like a wild life.

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刘晓雨 pluiepoco
Home of Asia, 中国语言论坛(Chinese Forum of Languages), 西瓜村