Kaffer

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Kaffer (disambiguation) .

At the beginning of the 20th century , a settlement in South Africa called "Kaffir Kraal " (before 1909)

Kaffer ( plural kaffirs ) is a name derived from the Arabic kāfir ("infidel"), which the Muslims first assigned to two non-Muslim peoples, namely the Nuristani (Kafirs) in Central Asia and the Xhosa in southern Africa .

Regardless of this, the name Kaffer means "stupid guy". It was used as a swear word in Rotwelschen (attested since 1714) and comes from Yiddish kaf (f) er , "farmer, villager", which in turn originally comes from the Hebrew kāfri "village". From the crooks language "the word migrates into the dialects and since 1831 into the standard language".

As cafre ( "Cape") designated Africans. Colored copperplate engraving in Alain Manesson-Mallet : Description of the whole world circle ... , 1683

While the name Kaffer soon became obsolete for the Nuristani , the Christians also used it for South African peoples, initially only for the Xhosa , later also for other Bantu peoples. They called them cafre (Portuguese and Spanish for " barbarian "). The speakers soon equated the meanings “stupid fellow” and “barbarian”

The German dictionary names other less common meanings of Kaffer .

Other uses of the term

Namings such as Cape Buffalo , Kaffir Lime , Kaffir Wars , British Kaffraria , Kaffrarian Museum or Kaffir Express (magazine title of a mission school in the 19th century) indicate that the term was initially used less judiciously. In the 20th century, in the late colonial phase and during apartheid , on the other hand, it was used as a swear word and an assimilation to the indigenous population was referred to as " procrastination ".

On June 3, 1976, the President of the Natal Province Court found that the use of the term was offensive and sentenced a black man to a fine of 150 rand for referring to the then police minister and a police officer.

The use of the word as hate speech is now banned in South Africa .

In Sri Lanka, however, the derived term kaffir has no discriminatory meaning. There he refers to an ethnic group descended from the African slaves of the Portuguese. Their popular dance music style Kaffirinna is a variant of the African-Portuguese Baila that emerged in the 1970s .

literature

• Albert Kropf : The Xosa-Kaffer people in Eastern South Africa and their history, character, constitution and religion . Evangelical Mission Society, Berlin 1889.
• Marlene Bauer: Africa and the German language. A critical reference work . Ed .: Susan Arndt, Antje Hornscheidt . 2nd Edition. Unrast, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-89771-424-3 (first edition: 2004).
• Wilhelm Braun (temporarily): Etymological dictionary of German . Developed at the Central Institute for Linguistics, Berlin under the direction of Wolfgang Pfeifer . Ed .: Wolfgang Pfeifer. Akademischer Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-05-000626-9 (Developed in the Zentralinstitut für Sprachwissenschaft Berlin [GDR] until 1990. First edition in 3 volumes, revised new edition in 2 volumes in 1993).

Web links

• German Colonial Lexicon (1920)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Brockhaus Picture Conversations Lexicon. Volume 2. Leipzig 1838, p. 526 f.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Friedrich Kluge : Etymological dictionary of the German language. 25., v. Elmar Seebold reviewed u. exp. DeGruyter: Berlin, Boston 2011, p. 463.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Friedrich Kluge: Etymological dictionary of the German language. 18th ed., Edit. v. Walther Mitzka . deGruyter: Berlin 1960, p. 337.
4. ↑ Wolfgang Pfeifer (Etymological Dictionary of German. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag: Munich 1995, p. 607.) discusses another etymology, namely the derivation of Kaffer from Kaff , after its separate development from romani gāw .
5. ↑ ^{a b} The Great Ploetz. Lim. v. Carl Ploetz. 33., rework. Edition license edition fd Scientific Book Society. Darmstadt [approx. 1998], p. 1169.
6. ^ Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm : German Dictionary , Lemma Kaffer ; online http://woerterbuchnetz.de/cgi-bin/WBNetz/wbgui_py?sigle=DWB&mode=Vernetzung&lemid=GK00205#XGK00205
7. ↑ See “Zulukaffer” in: Kurt Tucholsky , Werke 1919, Eisner : http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Tucholsky,+Kurt/Werke/1919/Eisner?hl=zulukaffer
8. ^ SAIRR: Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1976. South African Institute of Race Relations , Johannesburg 1977, p. 34.
9. ↑ Act No. 4 of 2000: Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act. Updated to 2008 (PDF; 145 kB) accessed December 15, 2011.
10. ↑ Where kaffir is no insult. telegraph.co.uk.

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