Neutral designation to racist slurįrom this starting point it is perhaps a little surprising that just over a decade later we find evidence of Kaffir being used (both as a noun and as an adjective) in reference to the Nguni peoples of south-eastern Africa without any detectable offensive impact or derogatory intent. During the 450 or so years that the word has been used in this way it has spread across numerous different regions, including those which are now the countries Egypt, India, and Afghanistan (to which I’ll return later). With religious disagreement being at the core of this use, it has not remained restricted to a single geographical area, instead being used in many different parts of the world with Muslim communities. In the earliest individual instance we have found in written English (from 1577) the author, Richard Willes, explains ‘Caffer’ as meaning ‘mysbeleeuer’ (= ‘misbeliever’) and many other instances give similar glosses, such as ‘infidel’ or ‘idolater’. Labelling non-MuslimsĪt the heart of the origin of Kaffir is religious disagreement. The earliest evidence of its usage in English attests that it is used as a noun by Muslims as a pejorative term for a person who does not follow Islam – a use that is both considered offensive and intended to offend. Add to these its origins as a pejorative term used by Muslims to refer to non-Muslims and it starts to become apparent that there is a rich and complex story to be told here. A feature of the different Englishes used in several geographically quite disparate parts of the world, it ranges from being a racial insult considered so offensive in South Africa that its usage is now legally actionable there to being a perfectly neutral name for an ethnic group of South and mainland South-East Asia. ![]() ![]()
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