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Essay On The Word Nigger

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Essay On The Word Nigger
The word nigga comes from the Latin word niger which simply means black. The word niger was then changed to negro and integrated into two other languages, Spanish which kept the pure meaning of the word as “black”, and English which perverted the meaning into “black person”. However, by about the 1800s most white Americans had adopted the word as a derogatory racial slur to describe black African American slaves and yet again changed it into a new form of the word. They transformed the word negro into the much more racially insulting word nigger. Most people believe that this transformation was made through the inability for the white southern slave owners to properly pronounce the word negro and thus, the word nigger was born. The New Oxford …show more content…
It has changed not only the word which is now pronounced nigga, but the meaning has turned completely around and now is understood to be a very endearing term between black African Americans. The relationship and rules behind using the two words are very complex and difficult to decipher. Both words still exist and have the same background and meaning however, nigga is used by the black community interchangeably with bro, dude, or other words of that nature, while nigger is used predominantly by the racially insensitive white community. It is culturally acceptable for most minorities to use the word nigga or even sometimes nigger while it is almost culturally forbidden for the majorities to say it, instead the majorities are expected to use “the N word”.
It is not known when the word nigga started to be used by black African Americans and at what point the term shifted from being one of the most despised hated words known to the race, to being an everyday term widely accepted by the majority of the African American race. But one thing is certain, the words nigga and nigger are now widely realized as actual words and will more than likely continue to change in very drastic ways as they have for years before

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