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Nigger is a racial slur directed at black people. References to nigger have been increasingly replaced by the euphemistic "the N-word", notably in cases where nigger is mentioned but not directly used.[1] In an instance of linguistic reappropriation, the term nigger is also used casually and fraternally among African Americans, most commonly in the form of nigga, whose spelling reflects the phonology of African-American English.[1][2]

The origin of the word lies with the Latin adjective niger ([ˈnɪɡɛr]), meaning "black".[1][2] It was initially seen as a relatively neutral term, essentially synonymous with the English word negro. Early attested uses during the Atlantic slave trade (16th–19th century) often conveyed a merely patronizing attitude. The word took on a derogatory connotation from the mid-18th century onward, and "degenerated into an overt slur" by the middle of the 19th century. Some authors still used the term in a neutral sense up until the later part of the 20th century, at which point the use of nigger became increasingly controversial regardless of its context or intent.[1][2][3]

Because the word nigger has historically "wreaked symbolic violence, often accompanied by physical violence",[2] it began to disappear from general popular culture from the second half of the 20th century onward, with the exception of cases derived from intra-group usage such as hip-hop culture.[2] The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary describes the term as "perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English".[2] The Oxford English Dictionary writes that "this word is one of the most controversial in English, and is liable to be considered offensive or taboo in almost all contexts (even when used as a self-description)".[1] At the trial of O. J. Simpson, prosecutor Christopher Darden referred to it as "the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language".[4] Intra-group usage has been criticized by some contemporary Black American authors, a group of them (the eradicationists) calling for the total abandonment of its usage (even under the variant nigga), which they see as contributing to the "construction of an identity founded on self-hate".[2][5][6][7] In wider society, the inclusion of the word nigger in classic works of literature (as in Mark Twain's 1884 book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and in more recent cultural productions (such as Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction and 2012 film Django Unchained) has sparked controversy and ongoing debate.[5][7]

The word nigger has also been historically used to designate "any person considered to be of low social status" (as in the expression white nigger) or "any person whose behavior is regarded as reprehensible". In some cases, with awareness of the word's offensive connotation, but without intention to cause offense, it can refer to a "victim of prejudice likened to that endured by African Americans" (as in John Lennon's 1972 song "Woman Is the Nigger of the World").[1]

Etymology and history

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Further information: Negro

Early use

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The word nigger, then spelled in English neger or niger, appeared in the 16th century as an adaptation of French nègre, itself from Spanish negro. They go back to the Latin adjective niger ([ˈnɪɡɛr]), meaning "black".[8][9]

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 Aethiop, bearing witnes".[10] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first derogatory usage of the term nigger was recorded two centuries later, in 1775.[11]

In the colonial America of 1619, John Rolfe used negars in describing the African slaves shipped to the Virginia colony.[12] Later American English spellings, neger and neggar, prevailed in New York under the Dutch and in metropolitan Philadelphia's Moravian and Pennsylvania Dutch communities; the African Burial Ground in New York City originally was known by the Dutch name Begraafplaats van de Neger (Cemetery of the Negro). An early occurrence of neger in American English dates from 1625 in Rhode Island.[13] Lexicographer Noah Webster suggested the neger spelling in place of negro in his 1806 dictionary.[14]

18th- and 19th-century United States

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Lyrics for the song "Run, Nigger, Run", about a fugitive slave escaping from a slave patrol, printed in 1851

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, 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.[15] During the early 1800s to the late 1840s 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!"[16] 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".[17] "The noun slipped back and forth from derogatory to endearing."[18]

By 1859, the term was clearly used to offend, in an attack on abolitionist John Brown.[19]

The term "colored" or "negro" became a respectful alternative. In 1851, the Boston Vigilance Committee, an abolitionist organization, posted warnings to the Colored People of Boston and vicinity. Writing in 1904, journalist 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".[20] 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."[21]

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 narrative persona.[22] 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[23] and American reviewers understood the change as reflecting American "refinement" and "prudery."[24]

The US edition of Joseph Conrad's The Nigger of the "Narcissus" was called The Children of the Sea.

20th-century United States

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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'".[25] 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.[26] Black characters in Nella Larsen's 1929 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."[27]

By the late 1960s, the social change brought about by the civil rights movement had legitimized the 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, 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.[28]

Usage

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Surveys from 2006 showed that the American public widely perceived usage of the term to be wrong or unacceptable, but that nearly half of whites and two-thirds of blacks knew someone personally who referred to blacks by the term.[29] Nearly one-third of whites and two-thirds of blacks said they had personally used the term within the last five years.[29]

In names of people, places and things

[edit]
Main article: Use of nigger in proper names

Political use

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Historical American cartoon titled "Why the nigger is not fit to vote", by Thomas Nast, arguing the reason Democrats objected to African-Americans having the vote was that, in the 1868 US presidential election, African-Americans voted for the Republican candidates Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax. "Seymour friends meet here" in the background is a reference to the Democratic Party candidate: Horatio Seymour.

"Niggers in the White House"[30] was written in reaction to an October 1901 White House dinner hosted by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who had invited Booker T. Washington—an African-American presidential advisor—as a guest. The poem reappeared in 1929 after First Lady Lou Hoover, wife of President Herbert Hoover, invited Jessie De Priest, the wife of African-American congressman Oscar De Priest, to a tea for congressmen's wives at the White House.[31] The identity of the author—who used the byline "unchained poet"—remains unknown.

In explaining his refusal to be conscripted to fight the Vietnam War (1955–1975), professional boxer Muhammad Ali said, "No Vietcong ever called me nigger."[32] Later, his modified answer was the title of a documentary, No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger (1968), about the front-line lot of the U.S. Army black soldier in combat in Vietnam.[33] An Ali biographer reports that, when interviewed by Robert Lipsyte in 1966, the boxer actually said, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong."[34]

On February 28, 2007, the New York City Council symbolically banned the use of the word nigger; however, there is no penalty for using it. This formal resolution also requests excluding from Grammy Award consideration every song whose lyrics contain the word; however, Ron Roecker, vice president of communication for the Recording Academy, doubted it will have any effect on actual nominations.[35][36]

The word can be invoked politically for effect. When Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick came under intense scrutiny for his conduct in 2008, he deviated from an address to the city council, saying, "In the past 30 days, I've been called a nigger more than any time in my entire life." Opponents accused him of "playing the race card" to save his political life.[37][38]

Cultural use

[edit]
Main article: Use of nigger in the arts

The implicit racism of the word nigger has generally rendered its use taboo. Magazines and newspapers typically do not use this word but instead print censored versions such as "n*gg*r", "n**ger", "n——" or "the N-word";[39] see below.

1885 illustration from Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, captioned "Misto Bradish's nigger"

The use of nigger in older literature has become controversial because of the word's modern meaning as a racist insult. One of the most enduring controversies has been the word's use in Mark Twain's novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). Huckleberry Finn was the fifth most challenged book during the 1990s, according to the American Library Association.[40] The novel is written from the point of view, and largely in the language, of an uneducated white boy, who is drifting down the Mississippi River on a raft with an adult escaped slave, Jim. The word "nigger" is used (mostly about Jim) over 200 times.[41][42] Twain's advocates note that the novel is composed in then-contemporary vernacular usage, not racist stereotype, because Jim, the black man, is a sympathetic character.

In 2011, a new edition published by NewSouth Books replaced the word nigger with slave and also removed the word injun. The change was spearheaded by Twain scholar Alan Gribben in the hope of "countering the 'pre-emptive censorship'" that results from the book's being removed from school curricula over language concerns.[43][44] The changes sparked outrage from critics Elon James, Alexandra Petri and Chris Meadows.[45]

In his 1999 memoir All Souls, Irish-American Michael Patrick MacDonald describes how many white residents of the Old Colony Housing Project in South Boston used this meaning to degrade the people considered to be of lower status, whether white or black.[46]

Of course, no one considered himself a nigger. It was always something you called someone who could be considered anything less than you. I soon found out there were a few black families living in Old Colony. They'd lived there for years and everyone said that they were okay, that they weren't niggers but just black. It felt good to all of us to not be as bad as the hopeless people in D Street or, God forbid, the ones in Columbia Point, who were both black and niggers. But now I was jealous of the kids in Old Harbor Project down the road, which seemed like a step up from Old Colony ...

In an academic setting

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The word's usage in literature has led to it being a point of discussion in university lectures as well. In 2008, Arizona State University English professor Neal A. Lester created what has been called "the first ever college-level class designed to explore the word 'nigger'".[47] Starting in the following decade, colleges struggled with attempts to teach material about the slur in a sensitive manner. In 2012, a sixth grade Chicago teacher Lincoln Brown was suspended after repeating the contents of a racially charged note being passed around in class. Brown later filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the headmaster and the Chicago public schools.[48] A New Orleans high school also experienced controversy in 2017.[49] Such increased attention prompted Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, the daughter of Richard Pryor and a professor at Smith College, to give a talk opining that the word was leading to a "social crisis" in higher education.[50]

In addition to Smith College, Emory University, Augsburg University, Southern Connecticut State University, and Simpson College all suspended professors in 2019 over referring to the word "nigger" by name in classroom settings.[51][52][53] In two other cases, a professor at Princeton decided to stop teaching a course on hate speech after students protested his utterance of "nigger" and a professor at DePaul had his law course cancelled after 80% of the enrolled students transferred out.[54][55] Instead of pursuing disciplinary action, a student at the College of the Desert challenged his professor in a viral class presentation which argued that her use of the word in a lecture was not justified.[56]

In the workplace

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In 2018, the head of the media company Netflix, Reed Hastings, fired his chief communications officer, Jonathan Friedland, for using the word twice during internal discussions about sensitive words.[57] In explaining why, Hastings wrote:

[The word's use] in popular media like music and film have created some confusion as to whether or not there is ever a time when the use of the N-word is acceptable. For non-Black people, the word should not be spoken as there is almost no context in which it is appropriate or constructive (even when singing a song or reading a script). There is not a way to neutralize the emotion and history behind the word in any context. The use of the phrase 'N-word' was created as a euphemism, and the norm, with the intention of providing an acceptable replacement and moving people away from using the specific word. When a person violates this norm, it creates resentment, intense frustration, and great offense for many.[58]

The following year, screenwriter Walter Mosley turned down a job after his human resources department took issue with him using the word to describe racism that he experienced as a black man.[59]

While defending Laurie Sheck, a professor who was cleared of ethical violations for quoting I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin, John McWhorter wrote that efforts to condemn racist language by white Americans had undergone mission creep.[60] Similar controversies outside the United States have occurred at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and the Madrid campus of Syracuse University.[61][62] In June 2020, Canadian news host Wendy Mesley was suspended and replaced with a guest host after she attended a meeting on racial justice and, in the process of quoting a journalist, used "a word that no-one like me should ever use".[63] In August 2020, BBC News, with the agreement of victim and family, mentioned the slur when reporting on a physical and verbal assault on the black NHS worker and musician K-Dogg. Within the week the BBC received over 18,600 complaints, the black radio host David Whitely resigned in protest, and the BBC apologized.[64]

In 2021, in Tampa, Florida, a 27-year-old black employee at a Dunkin' Donuts punched a 77-year-old white customer after the customer had repeatedly called the employee a nigger.[65] The customer fell to the floor and hit his head. Three days later, he died, having suffered a skull fracture and brain contusions. The employee was arrested and charged with manslaughter. In a plea bargain, the employee pled guilty to felony battery, and was sentenced to two years of house arrest. In 2022, in explaining why the employee did not receive any jail time, Grayson Kamm, a spokesman for Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren, said "Two of the primary factors were the aggressive approach the victim took toward the defendant and everyone working with the defendant, and that the victim repeatedly used possibly the most aggressive and offensive term in the English language."[66]

Intra-group versus intergroup usage

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Main article: Nigga
See also: Ingroups and outgroups

Black listeners often react to the term differently, depending on whether it is used by white speakers or by black speakers. In the former case, it is regularly understood as insensitive or insulting; in the latter, it may carry notes of in-group disparagement, or it may be understood as neutral or affectionate, a possible instance of reappropriation.[67]

In the black community, nigger is often rendered as nigga. This usage has been popularized by the rap and hip-hop music cultures and is used as part of an in-group lexicon and speech. It is not necessarily derogatory and is often used to mean homie or friend.[68]

Acceptance of intra-group usage of the word nigga is still debated,[68] although it has established a foothold amongst younger generations. The NAACP denounces the use of both nigga and nigger. As of 2001, trends indicated that usage of the term in intragroup settings is increasing even amongst white youth, due to the popularity of rap and hip hop culture.[69] Linguist Keith Allan rejects the view that nigger is always a slur, arguing that it is also used as a marker of camaraderie and friendship, comparable to the British and Australian term "mate" or the American "buddy".[70]

According to Arthur K. Spears in Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 2006:

In many African-American neighborhoods, nigga is simply the most common term used to refer to any male, of any race or ethnicity. Increasingly, the term has been applied to any person, male or female. "Where y'all niggas goin?" is said with no self-consciousness or animosity to a group of women, for the routine purpose of obtaining information. The point: nigga is evaluatively neutral in terms of its inherent meaning; it may express positive, neutral, or negative attitudes;[71]

Kevin Cato, meanwhile, observes:

For instance, a show on Black Entertainment Television, a cable network aimed at a Black audience, described the word nigger as a "term of endearment". "In the African American community, the word nigga (not nigger) brings out feelings of pride." (Davis 1.) Here the word evokes a sense of community and oneness among Black people. Many teens I interviewed felt the word had no power when used amongst friends, but when used among white people the word took on a completely different meaning. In fact, comedian Alex Thomas on BET stated, "I still better not hear no white boy say that to me ... I hear a white boy say that to me, it means 'White boy, you gonna get your ass beat.'"[72]

Addressing the use of nigger by black people, philosopher and public intellectual Cornel West said in 2007:

There's a certain rhythmic seduction to the word. If you speak in a sentence, and you have to say cat, companion, or friend, as opposed to nigger, then the rhythmic presentation is off. That rhythmic language is a form of historical memory for Black people ... When Richard Pryor came back from Africa, and decided to stop using the word onstage, he would sometimes start to slip up, because he was so used to speaking that way. It was the right word at the moment to keep the rhythm together in his sentence making.[73]

2010s: Increase in use and controversy

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In the 2010s, "nigger" in its various forms saw use with increasing frequency by African Americans amongst themselves or in self-expression, the most common swear word in hip hop music lyrics.[74][75] Ta-Nehisi Coates suggested that it continues to be unacceptable for non-blacks to utter while singing or rapping along to hip-hop, and that by being so restrained it gives white Americans (specifically) an impression of what it is like to not be entitled to "do anything they please, anywhere". A concern often raised is whether frequent exposure will inevitably lead to a dilution of the extremely negative perception of the word among the majority of non-black Americans who currently consider its use unacceptable and shocking.[76]

[edit]

Derivatives

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Anti-abolitionist cartoon from the 1860 presidential campaign illustrating colloquial usage of "Nigger in the woodpile"

In several English-speaking countries, "Niggerhead" or "nigger head" was used as a descriptive name for many sorts of things, including commercial products, places, plants and animals. It also is or was a colloquial technical term in industry, mining, and seafaring. Nigger as "hidden defect" derives from "nigger in the woodpile", a US slave-era phrase denoting escaped slaves hiding in train-transported woodpiles.[77] In the 1840s, the Morning Chronicle newspaper report series London Labour and the London Poor, by Henry Mayhew, records the usages of both "nigger" and the similar-sounding word "niggard" denoting a false bottom for a grate.[78]

In American English, "nigger lover" initially applied to abolitionists, then to white people sympathetic towards black Americans.[79] The portmanteau word wigger ('White' + 'nigger') denotes a white person emulating "street Black behavior", hoping to gain acceptance to the hip hop, thug, and gangsta sub-cultures. Norman Mailer wrote of the antecedents of this phenomenon in 1957 in his essay The White Negro.

In Ukraine, the word "zigger" (Ukrainian: 'зіггер') is sometimes used as a derogatory term by Ukrainians to refer to Russian soldiers and those who follow the Russian government's propaganda. The word comes from replacing the first letter of "nigger" with a Z, which is a reference to the "Z" tactical symbol used by Russian troops and Russian nationalists.[80] It is used as a more offensive alternative to calling someone a "vatnik."

The N-word euphemism

[edit]
Notable usage[81]

The prosecutor [Christopher Darden], his voice trembling, added that the "N-word" was so vile he would not utter it. "It's the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language."

— Kenneth B. Noble, January 14, 1995 The New York Times[82]

One of the first uses of the N-word euphemism by a major public figure came during the racially contentious O. J. Simpson murder case in 1995. Key prosecution witness Detective Mark Fuhrman, of the Los Angeles Police Department—who denied using racist language on duty—impeached himself with his prolific use of nigger in tape recordings about his police work. Co-prosecutor Christopher Darden refused to say the actual word, calling it "the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language". Media personnel who reported on Fuhrman's testimony substituted the N-word for nigger.[83][84]

Similar-sounding words

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Niger (Latin for "black") occurs in Latinate scientific nomenclature and is the root word for some homophones of nigger; sellers of niger seed (used as bird feed), sometimes use the spelling Nyjer seed. The classical Latin pronunciation /ˈniɡeɾ/ sounds similar to the English /ˈnɪɡər/, occurring in biologic and anatomic names, such as Hyoscyamus niger (black henbane), and even for animals that are in fact not black, such as Sciurus niger (fox squirrel).

Nigra is the Latin feminine form of niger (black), used in biologic and anatomic names such as substantia nigra (black substance).

The word niggardly (miserly) is etymologically unrelated to nigger, derived from the Old Norse word nig (stingy) and the Middle English word nigon. In the US, this word has been misinterpreted as related to nigger and taken as offensive. In January 1999, David Howard, a white Washington, D.C., city employee, was compelled to resign after using niggardly—in a financial context—while speaking with black colleagues, who took umbrage. After reviewing the misunderstanding, Mayor Anthony A. Williams offered to reinstate Howard to his former position. Howard refused reinstatement but took a job elsewhere in the mayor's government.[85]

Negro [ˈne.ɣ̞ɾo] is the Spanish word for 'black', and is commonly a part of place names and proper names, particularly in the Southwest of the United States.

Denotational extension

[edit]

"Die Arab sand-niggers", graffiti by far-right Israeli Kach activists on a Palestinian home in Hebron in 2002[86]

The denotations of nigger also include non-black/non-white and other disadvantaged people. Some of these terms are self-chosen, to identify with the oppression and resistance of black Americans; others are ethnic slurs used by outsiders.

Jerry Farber's 1967 essay collection, The Student as Nigger, used the word as a metaphor for what he saw as the role forced on students. Farber had been, at the time, frequently arrested as a civil rights activist while beginning his career as a literature professor.

In his 1968 autobiography White Niggers of America: The Precocious Autobiography of a Quebec "Terrorist", Pierre Vallières, a Front de libération du Québec leader, refers to the oppression of the Québécois people in North America.

In 1969, in the course of being interviewed by the British magazine Nova, artist Yoko Ono said "woman is the nigger of the world"; three years later, her husband, John Lennon, published the song of the same name—about the worldwide phenomenon of discrimination against women—which was socially and politically controversial to US sensibilities.

Sand nigger, an ethnic slur against Arabs, and timber nigger and prairie nigger, ethnic slurs against Native Americans, are examples of the racist extension of nigger upon other non-white peoples.[87]

In 1978, singer Patti Smith used the word in "Rock N Roll Nigger". One year later in 1979, English singer Elvis Costello used the phrase "white nigger" in his song "Oliver's Army". The slur usually remains uncensored on radio stations, but Costello's usage of the word came under scrutiny, particularly after he used racial slurs during a drunken argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett in 1979. In the same year, Costello's father published a letter in Rolling Stone defending his son against accusations of racism, stating "Nothing could be further from the truth. My own background has meant that I am passionately opposed to any form of prejudice based on religion or race ... His mother comes from the tough multiracial area of Liverpool, and I think she would still beat the tar out of him if his orthodoxy were in doubt".[88]

Historian Eugene Genovese, noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and slaves in the South, uses the word pointedly in The World the Slaveholders Made (1988).

For reasons common to the slave condition all slave classes displayed a lack of industrial initiative and produced the famous Lazy Nigger, who under Russian serfdom and elsewhere was white. Just as not all Blacks, even under the most degrading forms of slavery, consented to become niggers, so by no means all or even most of the niggers in history have been Black.

The editor of Green Egg, a magazine described in The Encyclopedia of American Religions as a significant periodical, published an essay entitled "Niggers of the New Age". This argued that Neo-Pagans were treated badly by other parts of the New Age movement.[89]

Other languages

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Other languages, particularly Romance languages, have words that sound similar to or share etymological roots with nigger but do not necessarily mean the same. In some of these languages, the words refer to the color black in general and are not specifically used to refer to black people. When used to refer to black people, these words have acquired varying degrees of offensiveness, ranging from completely neutral (as in Spanish negro) to highly racist (as in Finnish Neekeri). Examples of related words in other languages include:

  • Bulgarian: Негър (negar), loaned from French nègre, is considered a neutral word for black people in Bulgaria. Some publications and institutions use чернокож or тъмнокож, but the use of негър is more widespread.
  • Dutch: Neger ('negro') used to be neutral, but many now consider it to be avoided in favor of zwarte ('black').[90][91][92][93] Zwartje ('little black one') can be amicably or offensively used. Nikker is always pejorative.[94]
  • Finnish: Neekeri ('negro/nigger'), as a loan word ('Neger') from the Swedish language, appeared for the first time in a book published in 1771.[95] The use of the Finnish equivalent (neekeri) began in the late 19th century. Until the 1980s, it was commonly used and generally not yet considered derogatory, although a few instances of it being considered to be so have been documented since the 1950s; by the mid-1990s the word was considered racist, especially in the metropolitan area and among the younger population.[96] It has since then usually been replaced by the metonym musta ('black [person]').[97] In a survey conducted in 2000, Finnish respondents considered the term Neekeri to be among the most offensive of minority designations.[98]
  • French: Nègre is now considered derogatory. Although Nègre littéraire was the standard term for a ghostwriter, it has largely been supplanted by prête-plume. Some white Frenchmen have the surname Nègre. The word can still be used as a synonym of "sweetheart" in some traditional Louisiana French creole songs.
  • German: Neger is dated and now considered offensive. Schwarze/-r ('black [person]') or Farbige/-r ("colored [person]") is more neutral.
  • Haitian Creole: nèg is used for any man in general, regardless of skin color (like dude in American English). Haitian Creole derives predominantly from French.
  • Italian has three variants: negro, nero and di colore. The first one is the most historically attested and was the most commonly used until the 1960s as an equivalent of the English word "negro". It was gradually felt as offensive during the 1970s and replaced with nero and di colore. Nero was considered a better translation of the English word black, while di colore is a loan translation of the English word colored.[99]
  • Portuguese: Negro (as well as preto) is neutral;[100][101] nevertheless preto can be offensive or at least "politically incorrect" and is almost never proudly used by Afro-Brazilians. Crioulo and macaco are always extremely pejorative.[102]
  • Romanian: Negrotei is derogatory;[103]
  • Russian: the word негр (negr) has been commonly used as neutral word to describe black people until recent years. It can also be used as a synonym for underpaid worker; "литературный негр" (literaturny negr) means ghostwriter.[104][105][106] Nowadays, a black person would often be described neutrally as "чернокожий" (chernokozhiy, 'black-skinned'), though the organization Help Needed instead recommends "темнокожий" (temnokozhiy, 'dark-skinned').[107]
  • Spanish: Negro is the word for "black" and is the only way to refer to that color.[108]

See also

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References

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Sources

[edit]
Look up nigger or N-word in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Further reading

[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Nigger

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Nigger is an English-language term derived from the Latin niger ("black"), transmitted through Spanish and negro and French nègre, first appearing in English around 1574 as a neutral descriptor for black-skinned , particularly those of African origin. By the late , amid the expansion of the transatlantic slave trade and colonial attitudes associating blackness with subjugation, the word underwent semantic pejoration, evolving into a slur connoting racial inferiority and targeted at individuals of sub-Saharan African descent. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, its usage proliferated in during eras of legalized , Reconstruction, and Jim Crow segregation, where it reinforced hierarchies through literature, minstrel shows, and everyday discourse, often paired with stereotypes of laziness, criminality, or intellectual deficit. Post-civil rights movement, the term's overt deployment declined in polite society due to heightened awareness of its role in perpetuating trauma from historical , yet it persists in private speech, hate crimes, and cultural artifacts. A variant, nigga (phonetically identical but often distinguished orthographically), emerged in , particularly from the mid-20th century onward in comedy, music, and interpersonal contexts, functioning as a reclaimed in-group signifier of camaraderie, resilience, or shared identity—though this does not extend acceptability to out-group usage and sparks ongoing debate over its reinforcement of intra-community divisions or dilution of historical weight. Controversies surrounding the word include literary debates, such as expurgated editions of Mark Twain's , and public backlash against non-Black figures employing it, underscoring persistent asymmetries in linguistic norms driven by group power dynamics rather than inherent semantics.

Etymology

Linguistic Origins

The word nigger traces its linguistic roots to the Proto-Indo-European root *negʷ-, potentially linked to concepts of darkness or night, underlying the Latin adjective niger, denoting "black" or "dark," originally applied without inherent pejorative connotations to inanimate objects like or pots and to animals with dark coloration, as in Virgil's Eclogues contrasting a shepherd's swarthy complexion: "nonne Menalcan, quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses?" Phonetically, Latin niger underwent sound changes in Vulgar Latin to forms like nēgru or negru, evolving into Romance descendants such as Italian nero, French noir, and Spanish/Portuguese negro, all preserving denotations of dark hues. In the Iberian Peninsula, negro increasingly applied to dark-skinned individuals, including sub-Saharan Africans during 15th-century explorations. The Latin niger connects to the nekw-t-, associated with "night," reflecting an ancient descriptor for . French adopted nègre as a borrowing from Iberian negro, primarily in descriptions of Africans in trade contexts. The word entered English in the late 16th century, adapted from Spanish and Portuguese negro (meaning "black"), initially as a neutral phonetic variant or descriptive term for individuals with black skin, particularly those of African descent, with early spellings like "niger" by 1574 in travelogues referring to "the Nigers of Aethiopia" and neger in 1568, primarily in Scottish and northern English dialects. By 1619, forms like "Negars" or "20 and odd Negars" appeared in British North American contexts, such as the Virginia census referring to enslaved Africans arriving in , functioning as a shorthand for "black person" without pejorative intent. The spelling nigger emerged by 1689 in colonial records from , New York, with early variants including negar and negur, illustrating phonological adaptation from Romance forms. These forms initially served as neutral descriptors for dark-skinned individuals, akin to negro, before semantic shifts; English colonists extended such terms to non-African dark-skinned peoples, as in applications to indigenous groups in or during the 18th and 19th centuries. Later phonetic evolutions, like nigga (attested 1827) and niggah (1835), arose in vernacular speech, including dialectal variants in American English by the 1800s representing phonetic renderings in African American communities, stemming from the same derivational lineage.

Shift to Derogatory Connotation

The variant spelling "nigger" emerged in English by the late as a phonetic rendering of "," derived ultimately from Latin niger ("black"), and was initially employed in neutral or descriptive contexts to refer to dark-skinned Africans or those of African descent, as evidenced in early travel accounts such as Richard Hakluyt's 1577 Divers Voyages and descriptions of inhabitants as "simple and harmless" niggers, or in diaries, travel accounts, and legal records from the late 16th to early 18th centuries denoting a laboring class without inherent contempt. With the expansion of the transatlantic slave trade in the , the term became synonymous with enslaved status, often interchangeable with "slave" in colonial records, such as the Jamestown reference to "20. and odd Negroes" evolving into "negars" and later "niggers." Amid the intensification of the Atlantic slave trade and colonial hierarchies in the 18th and 19th centuries, the term underwent a semantic shift toward derogatory usage, increasingly applied as a racial slur to enforce hierarchies of servitude and inferiority against enslaved Africans and free Black people in English-speaking colonies, transitioning from descriptive neutrality to a marker of degradation in contexts paired with hostile adjectives (e.g., "lazy nigger"). By the mid-18th century, the first clear derogatory attestation appeared around 1775, carrying contempt and patronizing overtones. By the late , as hereditary racial solidified in the American South and free black populations grew in the North following gradual emancipation laws (e.g., Pennsylvania's 1780 act), "nigger" accrued overtones, signaling imputed inferiority and , particularly in denying to freed individuals, reflecting causal linkages to pseudoscientific racial hierarchies. Compounds like "nigger-work" (denoting menial labor) emerged, embedding connotations of laziness tied to enslaved conditions. The term's derogatory force intensified in the early , particularly from the onward, targeting free blacks' amid white backlash, as noted in David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens. By the , during minstrelsy and anti-abolition violence, it acquired violent connotations, used in mob attacks like the 1824 New York assault with cries of "kill the nigger!" and described by Easton in 1837 as an "opprobrious term" for racial terror. Black abolitionists like J.C. Pennington (1843) and (1845 Narrative) attested to its dehumanizing role, solidifying it as an overt racial slur by the mid-19th century, distinct from the formal "," rooted in material incentives of slavery's defense encoding beliefs in innate .

Historical Usage

Early Descriptive Applications

The term nigger first appeared in English in the 1570s as a phonetic variant of negro, itself derived from Spanish and negro ("black"), ultimately tracing to Latin ("shiny black" or simply "black"). In its inaugural recorded uses, it served descriptively to denote dark-skinned peoples, particularly those of sub-Saharan African origin encountered in European and trade. For example, English translator Richard Eden employed it in 1574 to describe Ethiopian inhabitants as "niggers," framing them within geographic and phenotypic observations rather than moral judgment. This application mirrored contemporaneous neutral descriptors like Moor or Ethiopian, applied to non-Europeans based on skin color and regional association. By the early , nigger entered colonial American documentation as a practical identifier for enslaved Africans imported for labor. The first such reference dates to in Jamestown records, where "20. and odd Negroes" (variant negars) arrived aboard Dutch ships, with nigger soon standardizing as a descriptor for this racialized workforce. In and probate inventories and proceedings from the 1630s onward, it cataloged human property without pejorative inflection, e.g., "one nigger man named Tom" valued alongside in estate appraisals. Similarly, runaway advertisements in colonial newspapers, such as a 1704 Virginia Gazette notice for "a Negro man Slave named Nigger Jack," used the term interchangeably with negro to specify racial traits, age, and ownership for recovery purposes. Through the , nigger retained descriptive utility in legal, commercial, and everyday contexts, denoting enslaved or free black individuals as a distinct social category tied to African descent and servile status. Pre-1770s Southern records show it as functionally synonymous with slave, emphasizing labor role over inherent inferiority, as in plantation ledgers listing "niggers" by skills like blacksmithing or field work. Northern abolitionist texts and black-authored narratives from the era, such as those referencing indentured Africans, similarly applied it to self-identify community bounds, reflecting intra-group adoption amid shared Atlantic labor experiences. This usage predated widespread pejorative shifts, rooted in empirical categorization of imported populations rather than ideological animus.

Association with Slavery and Racial Hierarchy

During the era of American chattel , which began with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in in and persisted until the Civil War's end in 1865, the term "nigger" was routinely used by white enslavers and overseers to designate enslaved individuals, embedding a linguistic marker of subjugation and inferiority within the that underpinned the system. This usage distinguished enslaved people from free whites, often prefixed to names in records and speech—such as "nigger Jim" or "nigger John"—to emphasize their status as property rather than persons with full humanity. The word's application reinforced pseudoscientific and biblical justifications for , portraying Africans as inherently suited for bondage due to supposed racial traits like laziness or intellectual deficiency, thereby naturalizing white dominance over an estimated 4 million enslaved people by 1860. In slaveholding societies of the , "nigger" permeated legal documents, auction sales, and daily interactions, serving as a tool to dehumanize and control the enslaved population, which comprised about one-third of the region's inhabitants. Slave narratives collected in interviews reveal how the term was internalized in the lexicon of both enslavers and formerly enslaved individuals, though primarily as an wielded by the former to enforce and ; for instance, patrollers— militias enforcing curfews—invoked it in threats like the rhyme "," warning of capture and punishment for fugitives. This linguistic practice contributed to a causal framework where verbal denigration supported physical coercion, labor extraction, and the prohibition of or family autonomy, all calibrated to perpetuate generational enslavement under the doctrine of , which bound children to their mother's slave status regardless of paternity. The term's entrenchment in extended beyond mere , manifesting in cultural artifacts like songs and pro-slavery literature of the , which depicted "niggers" as childlike or brutish figures unfit for freedom, thereby ideologically buttressing the economic system reliant on unpaid black labor that generated immense wealth for white planters— exports alone accounted for over half of U.S. value by 1860. While some enslaved people adopted variants in intra-community speech, historical evidence indicates the dominant association remained one of white-imposed derogation, with the word's phonetic shift from "" amplifying its pejorative force to signify not just color but caste-based degradation. Post-emancipation persistence in and systems further illustrates how "nigger" linguistically sustained hierarchical residues, though its core linkage to slavery's coercive apparatus defines its historical toxicity.

Persistence in Segregation and Post-Civil Rights Eras

During the Jim Crow era of legalized segregation, spanning roughly from the late to the mid-1960s, the term "nigger" was ubiquitously deployed by in public and private spheres to demean , reinforcing racial subjugation through everyday language, media, and cultural artifacts. It functioned as a shorthand for ascribing purported moral, intellectual, and physical inferiority to blacks, appearing in newspaper articles, political discourse, and consumer products like household goods bearing anti-black imagery. For example, Southern publications such as the Times-Picayune routinely used the word in reporting up through the early to describe in derogatory contexts, embedding it in narratives that justified discriminatory laws and social norms. This usage extended to interpersonal enforcement of segregation, where the slur was invoked to police racial boundaries, as recounted in oral histories of beach and public space interactions in the South, where whites employed it to assert dominance and exclude blacks. In popular songs and folklore of the era, including those from Northern Jim Crow contexts, the word reinforced stereotypes, often alongside caricatures like the "picaninny" or "coon," which portrayed blacks as childlike or brutish to rationalize exclusionary practices. Such persistence reflected the term's role in causal mechanisms of racial control, where linguistic dehumanization complemented physical violence and legal barriers, with no widespread societal taboo against its intergroup application by whites until the 1960s. Following the and , overt public use of "nigger" by non-blacks faced growing social and legal censure, yet it endured in private resentments, workplace hostilities, and hate-motivated incidents, often surfacing in conflicts as a marker of unresolved racial animus. Federal cases under Title VII frequently cited the slur's deployment by supervisors or coworkers against African American employees, with examples including the 2006 Burlington Industries v. Ellerth precedent involving racially charged language, and subsequent rulings documenting its role in creating hostile environments. In criminal contexts, it remained the predominant racial in hate crimes and speech, as analyzed in post-2000 studies of bias incidents, where its utterance correlated with assaults or targeting blacks. Notable post-1960s examples include its etching in during disputes, as in a 2021 Supreme Court petition referencing "racially hostile graffiti" of the word at a Parkland facility, and judicial accounts of verbal assaults, such as a 2021 case where an individual taunted and called an African American man a "fucking nigger." Despite desegregation, the term's retention in these settings underscores incomplete cultural shifts, with data from 2014 indicating its entrenchment in American discourse, including sports like the where officials were directed to penalize its use amid player incidents. reports on such persistence, however, warrant scrutiny for potential amplification of selective narratives, as empirical hate crime statistics from the FBI show the slur's continued invocation in intergroup violence without equivalent emphasis on intra-group variants.

Modern Applications

Distinctions in Intra-Group and Inter-Group Contexts

Within African American communities, the variant ""—phonetically distinguished by ending in a schwa rather than a hard /r/ sound—is commonly used as a term of camaraderie, endearment, or casual address among in-group members, serving functions such as expressing , approval, or shared identity. This intra-group application emerged prominently in the mid-20th century through cultural expressions like hip-hop and street , where it functions as a reclaimed marker of resilience against historical rather than perpetuating it. Linguistic analyses indicate that such usage relies on contextual cues like tone, relationship proximity, and mutual racial identification, transforming the term's illocutionary force from to affiliation. In contrast, inter-group deployment of "nigger" or its variants by non-African Americans typically retains the term's original force as a racial slur, evoking associations with , segregation, and systemic subjugation, regardless of intent. Empirical perception studies reveal that out-group usage elicits near-universal condemnation within Black communities, with surveys showing over 80% of African American respondents viewing it as inherently offensive when spoken by whites, due to the speaker's lack of shared historical context or experiential claim to reclamation. Surveys of Black Americans, including one at a historically Black college showing 76% agreement, indicate a dominant view that non-Black usage of the term is never acceptable in any context. This asymmetry stems from causal asymmetries in power dynamics: in-group use presupposes equality and mutual understanding, while inter-group application reinforces outsider dominance, as substantiated by sociolinguistic frameworks examining slur semantics. Notable exceptions occur in artistic or performative contexts, such as or by non-blacks, where the term may be employed analytically (e.g., in Quentin Tarantino's , 1994), but these provoke backlash for blurring group boundaries and risking reinforcement of . Quantitative corpus analyses of media and speech confirm higher tolerance thresholds for intra-group instances—appearing frequently in rap lyrics since the 1980s—versus inter-group ones, which correlate with classifications in over 90% of reported incidents. However, intra-group usage is not monolithic; generational and regional variations exist, with older cohorts (pre-1960s) often rejecting it outright as internalized degradation.

Prevalence in Entertainment and Subcultures

In hip-hop music, a genre originating in African American communities in the 1970s Bronx, the term "nigger" (often variant "nigga") emerged prominently in the 1980s through gangsta rap subgenres, reflecting intra-group reclamation amid discussions of street life, systemic inequality, and cultural defiance. Groups like N.W.A., whose 1988 album Straight Outta Compton titled them "Niggaz Wit Attitude," integrated the word into lyrics to signify camaraderie or critique, diverging from its prior derogatory white usage in earlier music. By the 1990s, quantitative analyses of rap corpora showed the n-word as one of the most distinctive terms in hip-hop lyrics relative to broader popular music, appearing frequently in themes of marginalization and identity. In a 2019 study of 146 hip-hop tracks addressing marginalization, the word featured in 15% of songs, underscoring its normalized role in expressing resilience or in-group bonding. The term's prevalence extended to comedy routines by black performers, where it served as a tool for satirical reclamation or raw . , in routines from the 1970s albums like (1974), employed it to humanize black experiences under , contributing to its mainstream desensitization within before his 1979 pledge to cease usage post-Africa visit. Later comedians like debated its intra-racial acceptability in specials such as (1996), arguing contextual ownership while critiquing white appropriation, a view echoed in intra-comic discussions highlighting persistent double standards. In film and television tied to hip-hop aesthetics, such as (1991), the word appeared in dialogue to depict urban subcultures authentically, though non-black usage often sparked backlash, as in debates over white actors reciting rap lyrics. Within subcultures like gang-affiliated street communities and (AAVE) speakers, the term functions as vernacular shorthand for endearment or shared adversity, embedded in oral traditions predating but amplified by hip-hop's global reach. , mirroring 1980s-1990s gang dynamics, codified this in lyrics glorifying or lamenting "nigger" against perceived , with usage peaking post-1980s as norms shifted. Empirical observations note its contextual mutability: derogatory when outsider-deployed, but routine in AAVE-influenced peer interactions, as evidenced by linguistic analyses showing higher intra-group frequency without inherent toxicity in those settings. This subcultural entrenchment has influenced broader pop dissemination, yet surveys of usage patterns reveal resistance to inter-group adoption, with black artists like citing risks of diluting its reclaimed edge.

Occurrences in Professional and Institutional Settings

In professional workplaces, utterances of the word "nigger" have frequently resulted in disciplinary actions, including terminations, under anti-harassment policies, with courts recognizing even a single instance as potentially creating a under Title VII of the . For example, in a 2022 Fifth Circuit ruling, an employee's claim proceeded after an employer allegedly directed the epithet at him once, affirming that isolated severe conduct can suffice for liability without requiring pervasiveness. Similarly, a employee was terminated in 2023 for discussing a rap and referencing the word overheard by colleagues, illustrating zero-tolerance enforcement regardless of context. Intra-racial uses have also triggered litigation, challenging perceived double standards, as employees have sued over the term's deployment by supervisors or coworkers when deemed offensive. In a 2013 New York federal case, Brandi Johnson, a woman, won $280,000 after her coworker repeatedly called her "nigger" in a derogatory manner, with the jury rejecting defenses rooted in cultural reclamation or endearment among . A 2025 Canadian complaint involved a worker alleging from three managers' repeated use of the slur, highlighting that institutional policies often prioritize individual complaints over group norms. At around 2010, employees sued after a supervisor frequently used "nigger" in workplace comments, such as "nigger please," contributing to claims of a discriminatory environment. In academic institutions, have faced suspensions, investigations, or public backlash for verbalizing the word during discussions of literature, history, or , even when quoting sources. In 2019, an was suspended after saying "nigger" while analyzing its usage in a James Baldwin essay, prompting debates on pedagogical necessity versus harm. Law's Paul Zwier, a white , underwent a termination hearing in 2019 for uttering the term while recounting facts in a discussion. At the in 2021, Verushka Govender, a black , used the word in a on , leading to walkouts and an institutional review that ultimately affirmed protections. cleared visual arts Joe Scanlan in 2022 after he said the word once in class, though protested, arguing it lacked educational value. These cases underscore tensions between contextual utterance for scholarly purposes and institutional zero-tolerance stances, with outcomes varying by administration but often involving formal inquiries.

Debates on Reclamation and Ownership

Arguments for Semantic Reappropriation

Proponents of semantic reappropriation contend that in-group usage of variants such as "nigga" enables African American communities to seize control of a historically weaponized term, thereby neutralizing its capacity to inflict harm when deployed by outsiders. This process, observed in linguistic shifts within African American Vernacular English since at least the mid-20th century, transforms the word from a marker of dehumanization into one of camaraderie or neutral address, akin to terms like "bro" or "homie." Linguist Arthur K. Spears has documented this evolution, noting that "nigga" in black speech communities often lacks the racial derogation of "nigger," serving instead to foster solidarity and subvert the original oppressive intent. Early exemplars include comedian Dick Gregory's 1964 autobiography titled Nigger!, which aimed to reclaim the slur by embracing it defiantly, arguing that self-application stripped away its power as an external insult and asserted agency over racial identity. In hip-hop culture, popularized from the 1980s onward by groups like N.W.A., the term's frequent invocation as a term of endearment or group affiliation—evident in over 70% of rap lyrics analyzed in sociolinguistic studies—demonstrates its role in cultural expression and empowerment, where it reinforces in-group bonds amid shared experiences of marginalization. This usage, proponents argue, exemplifies linguistic resilience, employing irony to invert the slur's semantics and diminish its psychological sting for users while preserving its taboo status for inter-group contexts. Psycholinguistic research supports the efficacy of such reclamation, showing that in-group adoption correlates with reduced offensiveness ratings for the term within the , as self-labeling enhances perceived power and group cohesion without altering its denotative core. Advocates like Geneva Smitherman further posit that this semantic shift aligns with broader patterns in languages, where oppressed groups repurpose slurs to encode , evidenced by parallel reclamations in other domains such as "" in LGBTQ+ discourse. Empirical patterns from corpus analyses of African American media indicate that intra-group prevalence—over 90% of instances in rap and by 2000—has entrenched this dual semantics, making the term a tool for cultural autonomy rather than submission.

Counterarguments on Inherent Toxicity and Risks

Linguists and philosophers of language have contended that the offensiveness of slurs like nigger is not encoded in their semantics but arises pragmatically from speaker intent, audience interpretation, and socio-historical context, challenging claims of inherent toxicity. For instance, the word's derogatory force depends on factors such as relational dynamics between speaker and hearer, rather than an intrinsic property making it universally harmful regardless of circumstance. Empirical analyses of usage in African American Vernacular English demonstrate that variants like nigga function as terms of endearment or solidarity within in-group settings without eliciting the same visceral harm as out-group applications, indicating toxicity as a function of social indexing rather than the lexical item itself. This view aligns with broader theories rejecting linguistic determinism, positing that no word possesses fixed, inescapable toxicity detached from human usage patterns. Critics of reclamation, including Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy, acknowledge potential risks such as inadvertent reinforcement of stereotypes or escalation of inter-group tensions but argue these are not inevitable or inherent to the word, but contingent on inconsistent application of ownership norms. Kennedy observes that while reclamation has not fully neutralized the term's explosive potential—evident in ongoing public backlash to cross-racial uses—it does not justify deeming the word irredeemably toxic, as such absolutism overlooks historical precedents where stigmatized terms evolved through in-group repurposing without perpetual harm. Data from toxicity detection models further undermine inherent risk claims, revealing systematic over-flagging of non-toxic in-group usages due to algorithmic biases against dialectal markers, suggesting perceived dangers stem more from evaluator preconceptions than objective endangerment. Proponents of further counter that equating all instances of the word ignores substitutivity failures in semantic theories of slurs: phrases conveying equivalent (e.g., explicit statements of racial inferiority) lack the purported "" of nigger, implying the reaction is not rooted in propositional content but in through . Neurolinguistic accounts this by attributing slurs' impact to conditioned emotional responses rather than immutable , allowing for desensitization via normalized exposure in controlled contexts. Risks of reclamation, such as boundary blurring leading to misuse, are thus framed not as intrinsic flaws but as manageable through explicit communal norms, with evidence from reclaimed terms like showing long-term attenuation of offense without . This perspective prioritizes evidence over categorical bans, warning that insisting on inherent perpetuates the word's power by insulating it from scrutiny and .

Empirical Observations of Usage Patterns

Linguistic corpora analyses indicate a marked decline in the term "nigger" in printed English sources following the mid-20th century, correlating with broader societal shifts post-Civil Rights Movement. Ngram data, derived from digitized texts spanning 1800–2019, show peak frequencies in the late , with usage dropping precipitously after the as derogatory applications waned in formal and published discourse. This pattern reflects reduced overt racial epithets in mainstream literature and media, though residual occurrences persist in historical reprints and niche contexts. In contrast, intra-group usage among African Americans, often as the variant "nigga," exhibits persistence and high frequency in vernacular speech, music, and subcultural media. A corpus-based analysis of 30 top rap albums (1990–2019) documented over 1,257 instances in the 1990s alone across 10 albums, with totals exceeding 200 per album in several cases (e.g., 258 in The Game's Doctor's Advocate, 2006; 260 in Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II, 2009). Neutral connotations dominated (68–73% of uses, e.g., referential or descriptive), followed by positive endearment (10–18%) and negative derogation (14–17%), with frequencies fluctuating but peaking in the 2000s before a post-2015 decline. Such patterns underscore reclamation dynamics, where the term functions as in-group solidarity rather than inter-group insult, though exact speech frequencies remain harder to quantify due to informal settings. Survey data reveal divergent self-reported usage by race. In a national sample, approximately two-thirds of respondents (65%) and nearly one-third of respondents (32%) admitted to having used the n-word at some point, indicating broader familiarity and application than public discourse often acknowledges, particularly within private or cultural contexts. These admissions align with higher intra-racial tolerance, as evidenced by attitudes surveys where respondents more frequently endorse in-group usage compared to out-group. Digital footprints, such as volumes for n-word variants, further suggest sustained private interest, though these correlate more with attitudinal measures than direct utterance rates. Overall, empirical trends highlight a bifurcation: desistance in inter-group, public spheres versus entrenchment in specific subcultures, driven by contextual norms rather than uniform taboo.

Controversies

High-Profile Incidents and Public Backlash

On November 17, 2006, comedian , known for portraying on , unleashed a tirade containing multiple uses of the word "nigger" during a stand-up performance at the in after being heckled by Black audience members. A cell phone video of the incident leaked online three days later, sparking widespread condemnation from civil rights groups, celebrities, and media outlets, which labeled it a racist outburst rooted in anger rather than comedy. Richards issued an apology on NBC's on November 20, 2006, attributing the remarks to his own and lack of impulse control, but faced professional repercussions including the cancellation of a planned and a years-long retreat from public life. In a June 25, 2013, deposition for a lawsuit filed by former employee Lisa Jackson alleging workplace discrimination, celebrity chef Paula Deen admitted to using the word "nigger" after a 1986 armed robbery at a bank where she worked, and fantasizing about a plantation-style wedding with Black servers in period attire. The testimony, revealed on June 17, 2013, prompted immediate backlash from sponsors like Walmart, Target, and Caesars Entertainment, who severed ties, and the Food Network announced on June 22, 2013, it would not renew her contract, citing the remarks as incompatible with its values. Deen publicly apologized multiple times, including in a tearful Today show interview on June 26, 2013, but the scandal led to the closure of her Savannah restaurant empire by 2015 and a lasting dent in her career, though she later resumed limited media appearances. During the June 2, 2017, episode of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, host Bill Maher referred to himself as a "house nigger" while discussing political servitude with guest Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), prompting immediate outcry on social media and from figures like NAACP president Derrick Johnson, who demanded accountability. HBO deemed the comment "inexcusable" on June 3, 2017, and edited it from reruns, but did not suspend Maher; he apologized on air the following week, calling it a "bad word" said in poor taste, and retained his position amid debates over contextual intent versus historical offense. The incident highlighted inconsistencies in enforcement, as similar intra-racial usage in entertainment by Black artists, such as in hip-hop lyrics, has seldom triggered equivalent institutional fallout. On a May 2018 conference call intended to address , founder repeated the word "nigger" while recounting a prior racial sensitivity seminar, leading to his resignation as chairman on July 11, 2018, after the remarks leaked. The company distanced itself, removing his image from marketing and reporting a 5% stock drop in the immediate aftermath, with ongoing sales declines attributed partly to the scandal through 2019. sued the company for in 2019, claiming entrapment, but settled privately, underscoring how corporate responses prioritize public perception over nuanced context in such cases. In August 2020, University of Southern California communications professor Greg Patton encountered controversy after using the Mandarin Chinese filler word "nèigē" (a common verbal pause akin to "um" in English, derived from "nàgè" meaning "that") repeatedly in a lecture on filler words across languages. Several Black students perceived the pronunciation as the English slur "nigger," leading to complaints about psychological harm and a lack of sensitivity. The university investigated, and Patton voluntarily stepped back from teaching the course, prompting debates on academic freedom, cross-cultural linguistic misunderstandings, and the balance between inclusivity and free expression in educational settings. These episodes illustrate a pattern where non-Black individuals, particularly whites in prominent roles, encounter swift professional consequences—ranging from contract terminations to reputational —while public often amplifies the incidents through viral media, reflecting heightened sensitivity to inter-group usage amid broader cultural asymmetries in linguistic taboos. Mainstream coverage, frequently from outlets with documented ideological leanings, tends to frame such events as emblematic of systemic without equivalent scrutiny of intra-group applications, potentially inflating perceived universality of harm.

Intersections with Free Speech and Cancel Culture

The use of the epithet "nigger" has frequently collided with First Amendment protections, particularly in public settings where courts have applied the "" doctrine to deem direct, face-to-face utterances unprotected if likely to provoke immediate violence. In State v. McMahon (2021), an appeals court upheld convictions for ethnic intimidation and against a man who repeatedly directed the word at a woman during a , classifying it as fighting words under (1942) due to its inherent provocation in context. Similarly, in a 2022 federal ruling, a high school student's online posting of the slur resulted in denial of graduation participation, with the court finding no First Amendment violation in the school's disciplinary action as it occurred in an educational environment subject to reasonable restrictions. However, broader lacks a categorical exception under U.S. law, as reaffirmed unanimously by the in (2017), emphasizing that offensive expression remains shielded absent incitement or true threats. In professional and academic spheres, invocations of the word—often in pedagogical or historical contexts—have triggered institutional sanctions, highlighting tensions with free speech principles outside government compulsion. Paul Zwier, a white law professor, faced a 2019 termination hearing after uttering the word while quoting a civil rights case fact pattern in class, prompting student protests and administrative scrutiny despite defenses from free speech advocates arguing contextual academic discourse warrants protection. Such incidents underscore how private employers and universities, unbound by the First Amendment, impose zero-tolerance policies that critics contend suppress inquiry into sensitive topics like or , where the term appears verbatim in works by authors such as or in rap lyrics. Cancel culture manifestations have amplified these conflicts, with high-profile ousters illustrating social and economic repercussions for non- individuals employing the term, regardless of intent or reclamation debates within Black communities. communications chief Jonathan Friedland was dismissed in June 2018 after using the word twice in an internal meeting while critiquing materials, a decision CEO described as necessary to maintain trust amid employee backlash. Likewise, New York Times reporter McNeil Jr. resigned in February 2021 following revelations of his 2019 utterance of the slur during a discussion with students, amid internal uproar that overshadowed his decades of reporting. These cases reveal patterns; a 2011 ruling in Hampton v. Borough of Easton suggested potential reverse where employees face termination for the word while Black counterparts do not, pointing to enforcement inconsistencies that undermine uniform speech norms. Empirical patterns indicate that such cancellations often prioritize perceived victimhood over contextual nuance, fostering a on . Faculty demands for dismissal over the word's academic use surged in 2020, per Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression () tracking, correlating with broader campus speech suppression trends where subjective offense trumps evidentiary harm. Proponents of unrestricted expression argue this dynamic erodes causal understanding of language's power, as suppression fails to address underlying resentments and instead entrenches the term's status, while institutional responses from left-leaning media and academia—prone to amplification of progressive outrage—exacerbate . In the , the use of the word "nigger" is generally protected under the First Amendment as free speech when uttered in public or non-commercial contexts, absent direct to imminent or accompanying criminal acts. However, courts have recognized isolated instances of the slur as potentially constituting "" in specific confrontational scenarios, leading to convictions for or ethnic intimidation, as in a 2021 appeals ruling upholding penalties for repeated utterances directed at an individual. When tied to bias-motivated crimes, federal and state statutes, such as 18 U.S.C. § 249, can enhance penalties if the slur evidences racial animus, though the word alone does not qualify as a standalone offense. In employment settings, Title VII of the prohibits racial harassment creating a , with the n-word often deemed severe enough to support liability even from a single utterance by a coworker or supervisor. For instance, in a 2024 decision, a lone racial slur directed at an employee was ruled capable of triggering employer accountability for failing to prevent or remedy it, potentially leading to retaliation claims if adverse actions follow complaints. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has pursued multiple suits, including a 2024 settlement where Asphalt Paving Systems paid $1.25 million to Black employees subjected to frequent slurs, underscoring patterns of repeated use in harassment claims. Federal courts remain split on whether one instance suffices for a hostile environment without additional factors, as the U.S. declined to resolve this in a 2021 denial. Educational institutions enforce against the slur under Title VI of the , which bars federally funded schools from tolerating peer-to-peer racial harassment that denies equal access to education. Many districts adopt zero-tolerance approaches, resulting in suspensions or expulsions for usage, as seen in guidelines from bodies like the emphasizing immediate disciplinary responses to offensive terms in classrooms. Courts have held schools liable for inadequate remediation of such incidents, with peer harassment involving slurs potentially violating if systemic. Staff firings, such as a 2019 case of a dismissed after invoking the word in a altercation, highlight internal enforcement prioritizing anti-slur stances over contextual defenses. Broadcast media faces (FCC) restrictions on indecent or profane content during daytime hours (6 a.m. to 10 p.m.), where the n-word could trigger fines if deemed patently offensive and lacking serious value, though enforcement focuses more on fleeting expletives than isolated slurs. No specific FCC fines for the n-word alone were documented in major cases, but stations risk penalties up to license revocation for repeated violations under 18 U.S.C. § 1464. Internationally, laws in countries like those in the criminalize public incitement to racial hatred, potentially encompassing the n-word if it stirs violence or against groups defined by race. The EU's 2008 Framework Decision mandates member states penalize such dissemination, with penalties varying by . In the UK, a 2025 case saw charges dropped against a for tweeting the word about a footballer, illustrating amid free speech debates, though the prohibits expressions likely to stir racial hatred. UN frameworks define broadly to include racial targeting but emphasize balancing against expression rights, without uniform global enforcement.

Linguistic and Semantic Dimensions

Variants, Phonetics, and Evolutionary Changes

The word "nigger" derives from the Latin niger, meaning "black," which entered Romance languages as negro in Spanish and Portuguese, denoting dark-skinned individuals without inherent pejoration. By the late 16th century, it appeared in English as "niger" or "neger," often as a descriptive term for Africans or black people, akin to contemporaneous uses of "negro." Initial attestations include its appearance in English texts around 1574, reflecting colonial encounters with sub-Saharan Africans, though it lacked the virulent connotation it later acquired. Phonetically, the English pronunciation is /ˈnɪɡər/, with a hard "g" and a rhotic "-er" ending, varying regionally in quality (e.g., closer to /ˈnɪɡɚ/ in non-rhotic dialects). A key variant, "," emerged primarily in (AAVE), pronounced /ˈnɪɡə/, featuring a to the schwa-like "-a" sound and often a softened or elided final , distinguishing it orthographically and subtly prosodically from the slur form. This "-a" ending reflects AAVE phonological patterns, such as final reduction, and serves as a spelling convention in hip-hop lyrics and informal speech since at least the mid-20th century. Linguistically, the term evolved from a neutral descriptor in —used in contexts like travelogues without strong animus—to a derogatory by the in the American South, coinciding with the institutionalization of chattel slavery, where it denoted subhuman status. Post-emancipation, its pejorative force intensified among white speakers as a marker of , while in-group usage among initially mirrored this but diverged by the early toward reclamation, with "" gaining traction as a non-derogatory signifier of , particularly from the 1970s onward in urban Black communities and amplified by in the –. This semantic bifurcation—retaining toxicity in out-group contexts but acquiring fraternal connotations in-group—illustrates intraspeaker variation driven by social indexing rather than phonetic drift alone, though empirical acoustic studies confirm minimal phonetic divergence beyond the suffix. Historical corpora show sporadic "" spellings in 19th-century Black-authored texts, predating widespread reclamation, but mass adoption correlates with cultural shifts post-Civil Rights era.

Denotative vs. Connotative Meanings

The denotative meaning of "nigger" originally signified a person, tracing its to the Latin , meaning "," which evolved through Spanish and before entering English around the late as a descriptor for individuals of sub-Saharan African descent. Dictionaries define it literally as a term referring to a person, often qualified as offensive due to its historical baggage, but stripped of connotation, it functions as a racial identifier akin to earlier neutral usages of "" or "." This literal sense persisted in some 18th- and early 19th-century texts as a factual label, before pejoration dominated. In contrast, the connotative meanings of "nigger" are intensely negative, laden with associations of racial inferiority, moral depravity, and subhuman status, forged through centuries of use in slavery-era propaganda, Jim Crow enforcement, and everyday . By the , it evoked stereotypes of intellectual deficiency, laziness, and criminality, serving as a linguistic tool to justify segregation and violence, as seen in its deployment in taunts, minstrel shows, and legal exclusions from the late 1700s onward. These connotations arise causally from repeated application in contexts of domination, amplifying emotional triggers of contempt and exclusion, distinct from the word's neutral etymological root. The divergence between and underscores semantic drift: while the former remains a basic racial verifiable in linguistic origins, the latter embeds of , rendering the term toxic outside specific in-group reclamations, where phonetic variants like "" attempt to strip layers but retain contested emotional valence. Empirical analysis of historical corpora shows connotations hardening post-1830s with abolitionist debates and Reconstruction backlash, where the word indexed not just skin color but presumed innate hierarchies unsupported by biological evidence. This loaded inference persists, often overriding denotative clarity in modern .

Cross-Linguistic Parallels

The English term "nigger" derives from the Latin adjective , meaning "black" or "dark," which entered European languages through Romance cognates such as Spanish and (black person or color) during the era of transatlantic slavery and . These cognates initially served as neutral descriptors for skin color or African origin but accrued derogatory connotations over time due to associations with enslavement and . In French, nègre functions as a direct linguistic parallel, originating from the same Latin and historically used to denote individuals, often in colonial contexts that evoked servitude. By the , nègre had become racially charged and demeaning, comparable to the English slur in its capacity to demean; for instance, in 2010, Jean-Paul Guerlain's remark that he "worked like a nègre" (implying tireless but undervalued labor) provoked widespread protests, a product , and legal scrutiny for racial insult. A variant, négro, carries even stronger vulgar connotations akin to "nigger" in English, though nègre retains a secondary, non-racial meaning as "" since the 18th century, reflecting historical metaphors of anonymous toil. In Creole contexts, nègre has undergone partial as a term of resilience and among speakers, diverging from its broader use. German Neger, another cognate from , was once a standard term for but evolved into a highly offensive slur by the late , equated with "nigger" in its discriminatory force due to postcolonial sensitivities and historical misuse. Public debates in , such as those surrounding a 2013 children's book using Neger or dictionary entries, highlight its status as outdated and racist, prompting calls for replacement with terms like Schwarzer (Black person). Similar shifts occurred in Dutch and Swedish, where neger parallels the trajectory from neutral descriptor to , though less intensely policed than in English. In Iberian languages, negro remains primarily descriptive of the color black or, by extension, individuals, without the uniform toxicity of its English counterpart; Spanish speakers, for example, use it routinely for dark-skinned or objects without inherent slur intent, though context can impart negativity. In Brazil, more pointed slurs like crioulo emerged for dark-skinned , carrying demeaning implications tied to , while negro is often reclaimed in Afro-Brazilian identity movements. These variations underscore how shared etymological roots yield divergent semantic evolutions, influenced by local histories of rather than universal linguistic taboo. An example of cross-linguistic phonetic similarity, rather than direct etymological parallel, is the Mandarin Chinese filler word "nà gè" (那個/那个), pronounced approximately as /nà ɡə/, which means "that one" or functions like the English "um" or "you know." To English speakers, it can sound akin to "nigger," leading to misunderstandings in multilingual contexts. In August 2020, University of Southern California professor Greg Patton was temporarily removed from a communications course after students interpreted his repeated use of "nà gè" as examples of filler words as the English slur, prompting an investigation that ultimately cleared him. A parallel case is the 2018 song "Sunshine, Rainbow, Little White Horse" (陽光彩虹小白馬) by Chinese artist Wowkie Zhang, whose chorus repeatedly uses "nèi ge" as a filler, phonetically resembling "nigger" to English ears and becoming a viral meme for triggering reactions. In a 2023 video, streamer IShowSpeed reacted explosively to the chorus, angrily smashing his keyboard after mistaking it for the slur, illustrating persistent cross-linguistic sensitivities. In Mandarin Chinese, a direct semantic parallel to the English slur is "黑鬼" (hēi guǐ), literally meaning "black ghost," which functions as a derogatory term for Black people, evoking similar racial disdain without shared etymological roots from Latin "niger." This term's usage reflects independent development of pejorative language tied to racial perceptions in Chinese contexts.

Societal and Psychological Effects

Data on Perceived Harm and Offense

Surveys indicate varying levels of perceived offensiveness for the term "nigger" depending on context, speaker identity, and respondent demographics. In a 2015 YouGov poll of 3,000 young adults aged 18-29 in the UK, 27% considered the n-word acceptable in some circumstances, such as in music lyrics or among friends, while the majority viewed it as offensive. Similarly, a 2018 YouGov survey of Americans found that most respondents perceived the term as offensive regardless of who utters it, with 55% believing it had been used by political figures in official capacities. Among predominantly respondents, offense levels are high but nuanced by variant and usage. A survey of 347 undergraduates at a historically college (88% ) revealed that 61% rated "nigger" as always or almost always offensive, with 76% deeming it unacceptable for non- to use in any situation; however, attitudes toward the "" variant were more permissive within-group, with 52% finding it sometimes offensive. In a 2021 Broadcasting Standards Authority survey, 65% of respondents across ethnicities rated "nigger" as totally unacceptable in broadcasting contexts, rising to 84% in or commentary, with higher unacceptability among females (80%) and Pacific peoples (82%) compared to males (62%) or Asians (63%). Psychological studies link exposure to the term with elevated distress, though causation remains correlational and mediated by factors like perceived . A 2023 study of 1,056 Americans found that hearing racial slurs, including the n-word, from police was associated with higher posttraumatic stress symptoms, partially mediated by perceptions of procedural unfairness (β = 0.12 for effect). Self-reported emotional responses often include , discomfort, or upset, as captured in harassment assessment tools where terms like "nigger" exemplify triggers for such reactions. However, these effects vary by frequency and context, with in-group usage of variants showing reduced perceived harm in some communities.
Demographic FactorKey Finding on Offensiveness
Young adults (18-29, )27% acceptable in some contexts
Black undergraduates ()61% always/almost always offensive; 76% unacceptable from non-s
General NZ population65% totally unacceptable overall; 84% in formal media
Exposure to police slursCorrelated with PTS symptoms (partial mediation by injustice)

Critiques of Exaggerated Sensitivity

Critics of the prevailing taboo on the word "nigger" contend that societal hypersensitivity has escalated to the point of prohibiting even referential or academic mentions, conflating mere utterance with endorsement of . Linguist argues that this evolution treats the word as a totemic entity akin to a , where its sound alone evokes offense regardless of , leading to irrational outcomes such as cancellations for quoting historical texts or discussing its etymology without malice. For instance, in 2021, educators and journalists faced backlash or termination for employing the word in pedagogical settings, such as analyzing Mark Twain's , where the term appears over 200 times to depict 19th-century vernacular, not to slur contemporaries. This overreaction overlooks contextual variance in the word's impact, as linguistic analyses demonstrate that slurs derive potency from speaker intent and relational dynamics rather than inherent phonetics. A 2016 study in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology found that perceptions of "nigger" as offensive diminish when used descriptively or reclaimed in-group, challenging claims of universal, automatic harm and suggesting that blanket prohibitions amplify rather than mitigate discord. McWhorter further notes that black communities' widespread reclamation of variants like "" in music and casual speech—appearing in over 700 hip-hop tracks from 1990 to 2010 per content analyses—undermines narratives of existential trauma, as self-application indicates selective resilience absent in intergroup scenarios. Such double standards, critics assert, foster performative outrage over substantive dialogue, evidenced by surveys showing 65% of in a 2015 poll viewing intra-community use as acceptable, contrasting with near-total prohibition for outsiders. Exaggerated sensitivity also impedes free inquiry, as institutions increasingly censor primary sources; for example, some universities in 2020-2021 issued guidelines barring full of the word in classrooms, prompting resignations from faculty who deemed this antithetical to evidence-based of slavery's . Proponents of restraint argue this prioritizes emotional shielding over causal understanding of language's role in power dynamics, where may entrench division by pathologizing neutral references rather than addressing root socioeconomic disparities. Empirical gaps in harm quantification bolster this view: while self-reported offense rates hover at 80-90% in victim surveys, controlled experiments reveal attenuated effects when dissociated from animus, implying cultural amplification via media narratives over intrinsic trauma. Ultimately, these critiques frame the taboo as a modern sacralization, detachable through reasoned desensitation akin to historical normalization of once-taboo terms like "" or "."

Long-Term Cultural Ramifications

The entrenched on the word "nigger" has fostered a cultural norm of linguistic hypersensitivity, where its invocation—regardless of context—often triggers disproportionate backlash, as linguist observes in critiquing the term's status as an "unsayable" epithet that stifles candid racial discourse even in scholarly or artistic settings. This dynamic, evolving from the word's pejorative shift during the 19th-century American era when it symbolized , perpetuates a cycle wherein historical slurs retain outsized emotional potency, impeding the neutralization that time and usage have effected on other once-offensive terms. Over decades, this has manifested in self-policing across media and , where avoidance of the full term in discussions of its history reinforces its mystique, arguably prolonging racial divisions by tying to unresolved linguistic trauma rather than integrating it into normalized . In and , long-term ramifications include recurrent efforts that sanitize primary sources, such as the 2011 edition of Mark Twain's substituting "nigger"—used 219 times in the original—with "slave," a move decried for obscuring the era's raw racial lexicon and undermining the novel's anti-racist intent. Such interventions, repeated in curricula amid post-2010s sensitivity drives, contribute to a bowdlerized canon that deprives students of unfiltered exposure to historical attitudes, potentially cultivating ahistorical views of as aberration rather than systemic norm. Critics contend this erodes literary integrity and , as evidenced by ongoing debates over textual fidelity, where prioritizing emotional comfort over evidentiary accuracy risks generational detachment from causal realities of past oppression. The word's dual reclamation within Black communities—as "nigga" for camaraderie since the mid-20th century in and hip-hop subcultures—contrasts sharply with its prohibition for non-Black usage, engendering perceptions of asymmetric norms that fuel interracial resentment and identity-based . This bifurcation, while empowering in-group solidarity, has long-term effects of entrenching race-essentialist boundaries in language, as contextual analyses reveal the term's meaning hinges on speaker identity rather than intent, complicating integration. Paralleling the observed in racial descriptors—from "" to "African American"—the n-word's suppression fails to dissipate underlying prejudices, instead shifting them to novel triggers and sustaining a victimhood-oriented cultural framework that prioritizes symbolic offense over substantive progress. Empirical linguistic patterns suggest that unchecked taboos amplify rather than diminish slurs' cultural half-life, hindering a shift toward .

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  108. https://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-23/world/france.guerlain.protest_1_racial-epithet-jean-paul-guerlain-anti-racism?_s=PM:WORLD
  109. https://haitiantimes.com/2020/11/13/why-is-n-word-a-slur-in-english-but-negre-is-ok-in-french/
  110. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21702989
  111. https://www.dw.com/en/always-derogatory-germany-battles-over-the-n-word/a-52327824
  112. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-fight-in-germany-over-racist-language
  113. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Neger
  114. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-the-words-negro-and-black-in-Spanish-Why-is-the-word-negro-no-longer-used-in-Spanish
  115. https://www.quora.com/Do-other-languages-have-an-N-word
  116. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345082175_Why_the_word_negre_tends_to_be_more_accepted_in_French_while_the_N-word_is_a_racial_slur_in_English
  117. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-suspended-saying-chinese-word-sounds-english-slur
  118. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sunshine-rainbow-white-pony-nae-nigga-nae-nae
  119. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%BB%91%E9%AC%BC
  120. https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-32252405
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  127. https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/people-getting-fired-for-referring
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  130. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11559&context=dissertations
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  132. https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-53749800
  133. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/jan/05/censoring-mark-twain-n-word-unacceptable
  134. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-dont-shield-students-from-offensive-language-in-literature-do-this-instead/2024/12
  135. https://wynguist.com/the-euphemism-treadmill/
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