Nigger

Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people, and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur. The word originated as a term used in a neutral context to refer to black people, as a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger, meaning "black".

Earlier variants (such as neger or negar) derive from the Spanish/Portuguese word negro, meaning "black", and probably also the French nègre, which has also been used pejoratively (but also positively as in Négritude), derived from negro (the ordinary French word for "black" being noir). Both negro and noir (and therefore also nègre and nigger) ultimately come from nigrum, the accusative form of the Latin word niger (pronounced [ˈniger], like "knee-ger" with the final r being trilled), simply meaning "black".

In Colonial America, negars was used in 1619 by John Rolfe, describing slaves shipped to Virginia colony. Neger (sometimes spelled "neggar") also prevailed in northern New York under the Dutch and also in Philadelphia, in its Moravian and Pennsylvania Dutch communities. For example, the African Burial Ground in New York City was originally known as "Begraafplaats van de Neger" (Dutch phrase meaning "Cemetery of the negro" in English).

In the United States the word nigger was not always considered derogatory,[citation needed] but was instead used by many as merely denotative of black skin, as it was in other parts of the English-speaking world. In nineteenth-century literature, there are many uses of the word nigger with no intended negative connotation. Charles Dickens, and Joseph Conrad (who published The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' in 1897) used the word without racist intent. Mark Twain often put the word into the mouths of his characters, white and black, but did not use the word when writing as himself in his autobiographical Life on the Mississippi.

In the United Kingdom and other parts of the English-speaking world, the word was often used to refer to darker skinned peoples colonized by the British Empire, or merely to darker-skinned foreigners in general; in his 1926 Modern English Usage, H. W. Fowler observed that when the word was applied to "others than full or partial negroes," it was "felt as an insult by the person described, & betrays in the speaker, if not deliberate insolence, at least a very arrogant inhumanity." The note was excised from later editions of the book.

In the 1800s, as "nigger" began to acquire pejorative connotations, the term "colored" gained popularity as an alternative to "negro" and associated terms. For example, abolitionists in Boston, Massachusetts posted warnings to "Colored People of Boston and vicinity." The name of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People reflects the preference for this term at the time of the NAACP's founding in 1909.

Southern dialect in many parts of the southern United States changes the pronunciation of "Negro" to "nigra" (used most famously by Lyndon B. Johnson, a proponent of civil rights during the later portion of his political career). In the early editions of his dictionary, Noah Webster suggested the new spelling of neger for "Negro".

Black became the preferred term in English in the late 1960s, and this continues to the present day. In the United States this has been displaced to some extent by African American, at least in politically correct usage, though this blanket term does not accurately describe those from other African nations such as Morocco; this resembles the term Afro-American that was in vogue in the early 1970s. Nevertheless, black continues in widespread use as a racial designation in the United States and is rarely regarded as offensive.

Today the word is often spelled nigga or niggah, in imitation of the manner in which some pronounce it. (Less-common variants are nigguh or even nikuh.) Other variations, designed to avoid the term itself, include nookah, reggin, nukka, nagger and the much older "jigger."