Hottentots

Colonial representation of "Hottentots" on the hunt (1857)

Hottentots was a collective term used by the Boers for the first time in colonial times for the Khoikhoi family of peoples living in what is now South Africa and Namibia , to which the Nama , the Korana and Griqua ( Orlam and Baster ) belonged. Today it is assumed that the Dutch name Hottentot has been used in a derogatory, racist and discriminatory way since its introduction . In addition, the English word Hottentots was transferred to people with a supposedly inferior culture and lack of intellectual abilities.

etymology

An attempt to explain it goes back to a peculiarity of the Khoisan languages . It is based on the fact that these languages are interspersed with clicks and clicks , so-called ingressive plosives , which are unfamiliar to European ears . These sounds were then perceived the Dutch settlers as stuttering and the Khoi thus as stutterers (the northern dialect Afrikaans : hottentots ), respectively. The reference to the peculiar language (but without reference to stuttering) for the origin of the name can be found in the first descriptions from 1670.

According to the Zedler Lexicon (vol. 13, 1735), the Khoi are said to have shouted the word "Hottentot" in a happy mood, which then led to the naming by the Dutch.

There are also historical explanations according to which the word Hottentot could also be of North African origin ( Hadendoa ).

The Dutch Hottentots was first found in the corpus of Google Books in 1665. It then appears in a compiled travelogue by Olfert Dapper , which was published in 1670 in a German version by the same Amsterdam publisher, now with Hottentots .

History of German word usage

Colored postcard (1904): "Group of Hottentots prisoners of war - German South-West Africa"

As part of the German colony establishment in what is now Namibia, the German settlers adopted the views and words of their Boer neighbors. A discussion of the word Hottentots can be found in the German Colonial Lexicon 1920: “The H. call themselves Koikoin, which means as much as people. As a Naman, on the other hand, it is best to summarize all H. tribes from German South West Africa , although this designation was originally only valid for the Hottentots that existed there before 1800. The strange word 'Hottentott' has mostly been called a Dutch mockery, ... "

At this point in time, the term had manifested itself in a number of German-language literary works since the Enlightenment . To this day, idioms like “It's like the Hottentots!” Have survived in Germany, for example Marius Müller-Westernhagen called his 2011 live album “Hottentot Music”. The phrases are intended to express a lack of spatial or musical order.

Compound words

A genus of the ice plant family , Carpobrotus , is also known as "Hottentot figs"; A type of copper gold mole from southeastern South Africa is called the Hottentot gold mole ( Amblysomus hottentotus ), also native to Africa is the Hottentot duck ( Anas hottentota ), a sea bream species called Pachymetopon blochii, which is also known in German as "Hottentot fish". The compound of the Hottentot fly , a wool float , also applies . In addition, there is a genus of scorpions with the scientific name Hottentotta . This includes, for example, the Hottentotta Tamulus .

From the 19th century, the heyday of racial theories , which among other things were justified biologically , there are also names such as Hottentot apron for enlarged labia and Hottentot buttocks for prominent buttocks (" steatopygia "). Many European contemporaries at the time associated a special degree of lust and lasciviousness with the assignment of such physical characteristics to an African people . Today it is known that the aforementioned anatomical phenomena also occur in other genetically similar phenotypes .

Web links

Wiktionary: Hottentot - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Wikisource: The Hottentotic Tsű-ï-ǁgoa-b and the Greek Ζεῦς by Theophilus Hahn (1870) - sources and full texts

Susan Arndt : Colonialism, Racism and Language. Critical considerations of German African terminology on the website of the Federal Agency for Civic Education

Individual evidence

↑ Susan Arndt, Antje Hornscheidt (ed.): Africa and the German language. 2004, ISBN 3-89771-424-8 .

^ Entry on "Hottentots" in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary : "one of inferior culture and intellect." (Somebody inferior culture and intellect) ISBN 978-0-19-920687-2

↑ The South African Concise Oxford Dictionary also describes the word as offensive (ie "offensive, offensive, strange, disgusting") ISBN 978-0-19-571804-1

↑ Der Neue Herder, Volume II, p. 1744, Herder-Druckerei Freiburg im Breisgau, 1950

↑ ^a ^b Olfert Dapper: Complicated and authentic description of Africa, and the kingdoms and landscapes belonging to it, as Egypren, Barbaria, Libya, Biledulgerid, the land of the Negros, Guinea, Ethiopia, Abyssina, and the Adriatic islands: together with their various names , Borders, cities, rivers, plants, animals, customs, costumes, languages, wealth, worship, and government . Jacob von Meurs, Amsterdam 1668, Die Kafferey or the land of the Kaffirs or Hottentots, p. 602 and a . ( Online in Google Book Search [accessed January 2, 2016]). “The land of Kafraria, or, as Marmol puts it, the Quefrerie, is called by the Kaffirs ; which are bored into the country and are commonly used by the Dutch Hottentots or Hottentoses because of their offensive and clumsy language. "

↑ Walter Schultzen: East Indian trip: What is told in it Much worth remembering, and extremely strange things, bloody sea and field battles, again the Portuguese and Makasser; Siege, assault, and conquest of many take cities and castles. Jacob von Meurs & Johannes von Sommern, Amsterdam 1676, p. 6, 247 ( online in the Google book search [accessed on January 2, 2016] Dutch: Wouter Schoutens Oost-indische Voyage; vervattende veel voorname voorvallen en ongemeene vreemde divorced, bloedige Zer-en Landt-gevechten tegen de Portugeesen en Makassaren; occupancy , Bestozming, en Verovering van veel voozname Steden en Kasteelen. Amsterdam 1676. Translated by JD). Page 6: [In Table Bay , north of the Cape of Good Hope] “We were amazed at nothing more than the wild people who were seen in large numbers on the shore. These are called Hottentots because of their clattering pronunciation, which is the same as the clucking of the Welschen Hahnen. " Page 247:" Even stranger was the wild country style of the inhabitants of the Cap de bon Esperance [Cape of Good Hope] to see. which because of their inhumanity have nothing in themselves that resembles a person: they are actually the most miserable people I have ever seen in the world. For the most part, because of their strange language, they are called Hottentots, which they form in their throats in the manner of the Welschen Hahnen, as it were; … “ Original: pp. 8, 182 Online in the Google book search

↑ Hottentots. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 13, Leipzig 1735, column 990-992.

↑ Das Deutsche Kolonial-Lexikon (1920), Volume II, pp. 77 ff, ISBN 393910213X , text of the entry on the server of the Frankfurt University Library

↑ Klvcht van Jean de la Roy, of D'ingebeelde Rijke. Gspeelt op d 'Amsterdamsche Schouwburgh. Jacob Lescaille, Amsterdam 1665, p. A3a ( online in Google Book Search [accessed January 2, 2016]).

↑ Olfert Dapper: Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten van Egypt, Barbaryen, Libya, Biledulgerid, Negroslant, Guinea, Ethiopiën, Abyssinie: Vertoont in de Benamingen, Grenspalen, Steden, Revieren, Gewassen, Dieren, Zeeden, Drachten, Talen, Riendommen en Heerschappyen . tape 1 . Jacob van Meurs, Amsterdam 1668, Namaquas, p. 643 ( online in Google Book Search [accessed January 2, 2016]).

↑ The German Colonial Lexicon. Volume II. 1920, ISBN 393910213X , pp. 77ff. ( Text of the entry on the server of the University Library Frankfurt am Main ).

↑ Growth, sexual maturity and reproduction in the hottentot Pachymetopon blochii (Val.)

↑ Female genital mutilation and the Hottentot apron . A 19th Century Medical History Discourse by Marion A. Hulverscheidt

[1] Susan Arndt, Antje Hornscheidt (ed.): Africa and the German language. 2004, ISBN 3-89771-424-8 .

[2] Entry on "Hottentots" in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary : "one of inferior culture and intellect." (Somebody inferior culture and intellect) ISBN 978-0-19-920687-2

[3] The South African Concise Oxford Dictionary also describes the word as offensive (ie "offensive, offensive, strange, disgusting") ISBN 978-0-19-571804-1

[4] Der Neue Herder, Volume II, p. 1744, Herder-Druckerei Freiburg im Breisgau, 1950

[Dapper1670-5] Olfert Dapper: Complicated and authentic description of Africa, and the kingdoms and landscapes belonging to it, as Egypren, Barbaria, Libya, Biledulgerid, the land of the Negros, Guinea, Ethiopia, Abyssina, and the Adriatic islands: together with their various names , Borders, cities, rivers, plants, animals, customs, costumes, languages, wealth, worship, and government . Jacob von Meurs, Amsterdam 1668, Die Kafferey or the land of the Kaffirs or Hottentots, p. 602 and a . ( Online in Google Book Search [accessed January 2, 2016]). “The land of Kafraria, or, as Marmol puts it, the Quefrerie, is called by the Kaffirs ; which are bored into the country and are commonly used by the Dutch Hottentots or Hottentoses because of their offensive and clumsy language. "