Editing Nigger (section)

==Etymology and history==
{{further|Negro}}

===Early use===
The word ''nigger'', then spelled in English ''neger'' or ''niger'', appeared in the 16th century as an adaptation of French ''[[wiktionary:nègre|nègre]]'', itself from Spanish ''[[wiktionary:negro#Spanish|negro]]''. They go back to the [[Latin]] adjective ''[[wiktionary:niger#Latin|niger]]'' ([ˈnɪɡɛr]), meaning "black".<ref name=":12">{{Cite journal |last=Rahman |first=Jacquelyn |date=2012 |title=The N Word: Its History and Use in the African American Community |journal=Journal of English Linguistics |language=en |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=137–171 |doi=10.1177/0075424211414807 |issn=0075-4242}}</ref><ref name=":02">[[Oxford English Dictionary Online]], s.v. ''nigger, n. and adj''.; ''neger, n.'' ''and adj''.; ''N-word, n''.</ref><!--Romance language nouns (typically) derive from the accusative case, not the nominative case quoted in English.-->

In its original English-language usage, ''nigger'' (also spelled ''niger'') was a word for a dark-skinned individual. The earliest known published use of the term dates from 1574, in a work alluding to "the Nigers of [[Aethiopia|Aethiop]], bearing witnes".<ref>{{cite book |author=Patricia T. O'Conner |author2=Stewart Kellerman |title=Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language |date=2010 |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-8129-7810-0 |page=134 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hsu47CBwJPUC&pg=PA134 |access-date=August 18, 2017 |archive-date=October 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191016202235/https://books.google.com/books?id=hsu47CBwJPUC&pg=PA134 |url-status=live }}</ref> According to the [[Oxford English Dictionary]], the first derogatory usage of the term ''nigger'' was recorded two centuries later, in 1775.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Peterson |first1=Christopher |title=Bestial Traces:Race, Sexuality, Animality: Race, Sexuality, Animality |date=2013 |publisher=Fordham Univ Press |isbn=978-0-8232-4520-8 |page=91 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Z54563cYpoC&pg=PA91 |access-date=August 18, 2017 |archive-date=October 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191016202223/https://books.google.com/books?id=_Z54563cYpoC&pg=PA91 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In the [[colonial America]] of 1619, [[John Rolfe]] used ''negars'' in describing the African slaves shipped to the [[Virginia colony]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/nigger.htm |title=Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word |last=Kennedy |first=Randall |author-link=Randall Kennedy |date=January 11, 2001 |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=August 17, 2007 |archive-date=November 23, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171123115941/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/nigger.htm |url-status=live }} (Book review)</ref> Later [[American English]] spellings, ''neger'' and ''neggar'', prevailed in [[New Netherland|New York under the Dutch]] and in [[Moravian Church in North America|metropolitan Philadelphia's Moravian]] and [[Pennsylvania Dutch]] communities; the [[African Burial Ground]] in New York City originally was known by the Dutch name {{lang|nl|Begraafplaats van de Neger}} (Cemetery of the Negro). An early occurrence of ''neger'' in American English dates from 1625 in [[Rhode Island]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Hutchinson |first=Earl Ofari |author-link=Earl Ofari Hutchinson |title=The Assassination of the Black Male Image |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=1996 |page=82 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tL2dpZGqIrIC&pg=PA82 |isbn=978-0-684-83100-8 |access-date=September 24, 2016 |archive-date=September 15, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240915130533/https://books.google.com/books?id=tL2dpZGqIrIC&pg=PA82#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Lexicography|Lexicographer]] [[Noah Webster]] suggested the ''neger'' spelling in place of ''negro'' in his 1806 dictionary.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.bartleby.com/185/|title=The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States|last=Mencken|first=H. L.|publisher=A.A. Knopf|year=1921|edition=2nd rev. and enl.|location=New York|chapter=Chapter 8. American Spelling > 2. The Influence of Webster|author-link=H. L. Mencken|chapter-url=http://www.bartleby.com/185/32.html|access-date=August 8, 2007|archive-date=February 6, 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060206121229/http://www.bartleby.com/185/|url-status=live}}<!--|isbn=978-1-58734-087-1 from Bartleby is not correct--></ref>

===18th- and 19th-century United States===
[[File:Run, nigger, run, or the M. P. 'll catch you.jpg|left|thumb|Lyrics for the song "[[Run, Nigger, Run]]", about a [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|fugitive]] slave escaping from a [[slave patrol]], printed in 1851]]
During the late 18th and early 19th century, the word "nigger" also described an actual labor category, which African American laborers adopted for themselves as a social identity, and thus white people used the descriptor word as a distancing or derogatory epithet, as if "quoting black people" and their non-standard language.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stordeur Pryor |first1=Elizabeth |title=The Etymology of Nigger: Resistance, Language, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North |journal=Journal of the Early Republic |date=Summer 2016 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=203–245 |doi=10.1353/jer.2016.0028 |s2cid=148122937 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/620987 |access-date=February 26, 2021 |archive-date=April 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415191429/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/620987 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }} = {{cite journal |last1=Stordeur Pryor |first1=Elizabeth |title=The Etymology of Nigger: Resistance, Language, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North |journal=Smith ScholarWorks |date=Summer 2016 |publisher=Smith College |location=Northampton, Massachusetts |pages=203–245, especially 206 f |url=https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hst_facpubs |access-date=February 26, 2021 |archive-date=March 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230314030732/https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hst_facpubs |url-status=live }}</ref> During the early 1800s to the late 1840s [[North American fur trade#Fur trade in the western United States|fur trade in the Western United States]], the word was spelled "niggur", and is often recorded in the literature of the time. [[George Ruxton]] used it in his "[[mountain man]]" lexicon, without pejorative [[connotation]]. "Niggur" was evidently similar to the modern use of "[[dude]]" or "guy". This passage from Ruxton's ''Life in the Far West'' illustrates the word in spoken form—the speaker here referring to himself: "Travler, marm, this niggur's no travler; I ar' a trapper, marm, a mountain-man, wagh!"<ref>{{cite book |last=Ruxton |first=George Frederick |title=Life In the Far West |year=1846 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-1534-4}}</ref> It was not used as a term exclusively for blacks among mountain men during this period, as Indians, Mexicans, and Frenchmen and Anglos alike could be a "niggur".<ref>{{cite web |title=Language of the Rendezvous |url=http://www.coon-n-crockett.org/cnc~glos.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121119031856/http://www.coon-n-crockett.org/cnc~glos.htm |archive-date=November 19, 2012 |access-date=September 6, 2012 }}</ref> "The noun slipped back and forth from derogatory to endearing."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Coleman |first1=Jon |title=Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, a Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation |url=http://us.macmillan.com/herelieshughglass/jontcoleman |date=2012 |publisher=Macmillan |page=272 |access-date=November 21, 2016 }}{{Dead link|date=April 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

By 1859, the term was clearly used to offend, in an attack on [[John Brown (abolitionist)|abolitionist John Brown]].<ref>{{cite news
|title=A new version of an old song. Illustrating the growth of Public Sentiment [Old John Brown, he had a little nigger]
|newspaper=[[The National Era]] (Washington, D.C.)|date=November 10, 1859|page=3|via=[[newspapers.com]]|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97344558/old-john-brown-he-had-a-little-nigger/|access-date=March 11, 2022
|archive-date=January 1, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230101220431/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97344558/old-john-brown-he-had-a-little-nigger/|url-status=live}}</ref>

The term "[[colored]]" or "negro" became a respectful alternative. In 1851, the [[Boston Vigilance Committee]], an [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist organization]], posted warnings to the ''Colored People of Boston and vicinity''. Writing in 1904, journalist [[Clifton Johnson (author)|Clifton Johnson]] documented the "opprobrious" character of the word ''nigger'', emphasizing that it was chosen in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "colored" or "negro".<ref>{{cite news |last=Johnson |first=Clifton |date=October 14, 1904 |title=They Are Only "Niggers" in the South |url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025811/1904-10-14/ed-1/seq-5/ |newspaper=The Seattle Republican |location=Seattle, Wash. |publisher=Republican Pub. Co. |access-date=January 23, 2011 |archive-date=July 21, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721044934/http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025811/1904-10-14/ed-1/seq-5/ |url-status=live }}</ref> By the turn of the century, "colored" had become sufficiently mainstream that it was chosen as the racial self-identifier for the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP). In 2008 Carla Sims, its communications director, said "the term 'colored' is not derogatory, [the NAACP] chose the word 'colored' because it was the most positive description commonly used [in 1909, when the association was founded]. It's outdated and antiquated but not offensive."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2008/11/12/lohan-calls-obama-colored-naacp-says-no-big-deal#ftnb |title=Lohan calls Obama 'colored', NAACP says no big deal |newspaper=Mercury News |date=November 12, 2008 |access-date=May 12, 2016 |archive-date=January 10, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180110133214/http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2008/11/12/lohan-calls-obama-colored-naacp-says-no-big-deal/#ftnb |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Mark Twain]], in the autobiographic book ''[[Life on the Mississippi]]'' (1883), used the term within quotes, indicating [[reported speech]], but used the term "negro" when writing in his own [[Comic persona|narrative persona]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Twain |first=Mark |title=Life on the Mississippi |journal=Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges |publisher=James R. Osgood & Co., Boston (U.S. edition) |year=1883 |volume=75 |issue=10 |page=11,13,127,139,219 |doi=10.1097/00001888-200010000-00016 |pmid=11031147 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nBWbSj-r4U4C&pg=PA11 |isbn=978-0-486-41426-3}}</ref> [[Joseph Conrad]] published a novella in Britain with the title ''[[The Nigger of the "Narcissus"]]'' (1897); in the United States, it was released as ''The Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle''; the original had been called "the ugliest conceivable title" in a British review<ref>{{Cite journal|last=GOONETILLEKE|first=D.C.R.A.|date=2011|title=Racism and "The Nigger of the "Narcissus""|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24669418|journal=Conradiana|volume=43|issue=2/3|pages=51–66|jstor=24669418|issn=0010-6356|access-date=February 6, 2022|archive-date=February 6, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220206024508/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24669418|url-status=live}}</ref> and American reviewers understood the change as reflecting American "refinement" and "prudery."<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=RUDE|first1=DONALD W.|last2=DAVIS|first2=KENNETH W.|title=The Critical Reception of the First American Edition of "The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'"|date=1992|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20874005|journal=The Conradian|volume=16|issue=2|pages=46–56|jstor=20874005|issn=0951-2314|access-date=February 6, 2022|archive-date=February 6, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220206024508/https://www.jstor.org/stable/20874005|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:TheChildrenOfTheSea.jpg|thumb|The US edition of Joseph Conrad's ''[[The Nigger of the "Narcissus"]]'' was called ''The Children of the Sea''.]]

===20th-century United States===
A style guide to [[British English]] usage, [[H.W. Fowler]]'s ''[[A Dictionary of Modern English Usage]]'', states in the first edition (1926) that applying the word ''nigger'' to "others than full or partial negroes" is "felt as an insult by the person described, & betrays in the speaker, if not deliberate insolence, at least a very arrogant inhumanity"; but the second edition (1965) states "N. has been described as 'the term that carries with it all the obloquy and contempt and rejection which whites have inflicted on blacks'".<ref>Henry W. Fowler, Ernest Gowers: ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage''. Oxford University Press, 1965. Compare the [https://www.etymonline.com/word/nigger entry "nigger (n.)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210426155516/https://www.etymonline.com/word/nigger |date=April 26, 2021 }}, in: ''Online etymology dictionary''.</ref> The quoted formula goes back to the writings of the American journalist [[Harold R. Isaacs]], who used it in several writings between 1963 and 1975.<ref>Harold R. Isaacs in: ''Encounter'', vol. 21, 1963, p. 9 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=nCsdAQAAMAAJ&q=the%20term%20that%20carries%20with%20it%20all%20the%20obloquy%20and%20contempt%20and%20rejection%20which%20whites%20have%20inflicted%20on%20blacks Google Books]). Compare Harold R. Isaacs: ''Idols of the Tribe: Group Identity and Political Change''. Harvard University Press, 1989, p. 88 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=0Kne87aU7D0C&dq=the+term+that+carries+with+it+all+the+obloquy+and+contempt+and+rejection+which+whites+have+inflicted+on+blacks&pg=PA88 Google Books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230331170327/https://books.google.com/books?id=0Kne87aU7D0C&dq=the+term+that+carries+with+it+all+the+obloquy+and+contempt+and+rejection+which+whites+have+inflicted+on+blacks&pg=PA88 |date=March 31, 2023 }}).</ref> Black characters in [[Nella Larsen]]'s 1929 novel [[Passing (novel)|''Passing'']] view its use as offensive; one says "I'm really not such an idiot that I don't realize that if a man calls me a nigger, it's his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sullivan |first=Nell |date=1998 |title=Nella Larsen's Passing and the Fading Subject |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3042239 |journal=African American Review |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=373–386 |doi=10.2307/3042239 |issn=1062-4783 |jstor=3042239 |access-date=February 6, 2022 |archive-date=February 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220206025815/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3042239 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

By the late 1960s, the social change brought about by the [[civil rights movement]] had legitimized the [[identity politics|racial identity]] word ''black'' as mainstream American English usage to denote black-skinned Americans of African ancestry. President [[Thomas Jefferson]] had used this word of his slaves in his ''[[Notes on the State of Virginia]]'' (1785), but "black" had not been widely used until the later 20th century. (See [[Black Pride|black pride]], and, in the context of worldwide anti-colonialism initiatives, ''[[Négritude]]''.)

In the 1980s, the term "[[African American]]" was advanced analogously to such terms as "[[German American]]" and "[[Irish American]]", and was adopted by major media outlets. Moreover, as a [[compound word]], ''African American'' resembles the [[vogue word]] ''Afro-American'', an early-1970s popular usage. Some Black Americans continue to use the word ''nigger'', often spelled as ''[[nigga]]'' and ''niggah'', without irony, either to neutralize the word's impact or as a sign of solidarity.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Allan|first=Keith |author-link=Keith Allan (linguist) |title=The pragmatics of connotation |journal=Journal of Pragmatics |volume=39|issue=6 |date=June 2007 |pages=1047–1057|doi=10.1016/j.pragma.2006.08.004}}</ref>