@shavixmir saidI’ll pm my reply crazy mod doesn’t like it for some explicable reason.
Yup. The Scots are right bastards too.
I have mixed feelings about this development. Although it seems perfectly reasonable for Irish-speaking people of colour to have an opinion on how they wish to be described in Irish, an alternative perspective on this “updating” might be that it is an act of Anglophone cultural imperialism, seeking to bring the norms of the Irish language into conformity with those of English. The habitual ways in which the Irish had, in their native tongue, described people of colour are being replaced by literal translations of the presently fashionable English terms.
Particularly telling is the comment that duine gorm (blue person) “evoked creatures from the film Avatar” while duine daite (coloured person) “echoed language associated with apartheid South Africa”. If these phrases really have been used “for generations”, then it might be more accurate to say that the language used in apartheid South Africa echoed the Irish-language norm, rather than the reverse; and certainly Avatar would not have been a reference point even one generation ago.
It’s unclear why Irish speakers should be expected to adjust their language in response to the different connotations of literally equivalent phrases in English (or Afrikaans) in a particular historical and national context. And I suspect that when a native Irish speaker hears the phrase “duine gorm”, even today, they don’t think primarily of Avatar. Likewise in Morocco, the primary connotation of (the Arabic / Berber equivalent of) “blue person” is not that third-rate science fiction film, but rather, the Tuareg minority, who traditionally wore clothes dyed with indigo.
It intrigues me that Ola Majekodunmi is happy to use duine dubh (black person), despite its historic connotations with the devil, but unhappy with duine gorm (blue person), despite her agreement that it’s not meant offensively by native Irish speakers. To me this again suggests that while she speaks Irish, she is thinking in English.
Besides, while Ms Majekodunmi states that she is not “blue”, she isn’t literally “black” either. The term “black” is also a metaphor; people of African descent actually have dark brown skin. I, a “white” person, actually have pink skin. (Indeed, I wonder if the use of the terms “black” and “white”, with their implication of binary opposition, is itself part of the problem).
Incidentally, proto-Celtic “gurmos” meant “dark” as well as “blue” and the cognate words “gorm” (in Cornish) and “gwrm” (formerly used in Welsh) meant “dark brown”. That is clearly the root of the present use of “gorm” in Irish with reference to skin colour.
The post that was quoted here has been removedI suspect that Ola Majekodunmi's first language was not Irish.
She outlines her background in some detail in this article:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/haigh-i-m-a-black-woman-and-i-happen-to-speak-irish-1.4286427
Her parents, still then fairly recent immigrants to Ireland, made the unusual choice to send her to Irish-medium schools. So although it's not her native tongue, her formal education was entirely in Irish.
The implication of the original article that worried me was the idea that there's a kind of one-on-one correspondence between terms in different languages. It assumes that we can uncomplicatedly declare that "gorm" means "blue", and that therefore it's inappropriate to use it of ethnic groups that certainly don't have literally blue skin. But at least one online dictionary defines it as meaning both "blue" (of objects) and "black" (of people or their skin colour).
Similarly, when a student of Japanese learns the word "ao / aoi" (青 or 青い), s/he will usually find it defined as "blue". The student will be told that the word for "green" is "midori" (緑). But in fact, a number of things that most Western languages consider "green" are referred to as "ao" in Japanese - traffic lights, for instance, change from red / "aka" to "ao". Leaves in summer are "midori", but the fresh leaves of early spring are "ao". So accurately speaking, "ao" means both "blue" and "green", in different contexts.
Apparently in Persian, dark-skinned people can be described as "green" (سبز sabz)!
I have noticed that some white people (who are eager to demonize the Chinese as much more racist than white people) like to seize upon literal translations (if they were even possible) of some Chinese idioms and argue that they are extremely racist.
Did you see this priceless article on a similar topic?
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/06/chinese-characters-phrenology-orientalism/
According to this interesting Wikipedia survey,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_distinction_in_language
Scandinavian languages similarly conflated blue and black at one stage, and thus used the term now meaning "blue" to refer to people of African heritage:
"In Old Norse, the word blár "blue" (from proto-Germanic blēwaz) was also used to describe black (and the common word for people of African descent was thus blámenn 'blue/black men' ). In Swedish, blå, the modern word for blue, was used this way until the early 20th century, and it still is to a limited extent in modern Faroese."
The post that was quoted here has been removedI accept your point with two important reservations (not necessarily about China - I refer to the general question of foreign analyses of a particular country or culture).
Firstly, cultures are not monolithic, and therefore it should not be assumed that every person who is a member of a particular culture understands every aspect better than every person who is not. For instance, in my field (arts of Japan), William Malm, an American now 93 years old, has devoted his life to the study of the indigenous forms of classical music (most notably gagaku), of which many modern Japanese are largely ignorant. I think it is fair to say that William Malm knows more about Japanese classical music than do the vast majority of living Japanese people!
Secondly, there might be an argument that in some specific circumstances, a foreigner may, while knowing less, may be less biased, at least on particular topics, than some natives. I'm not sure this applies to China, since at the moment relations between China and the West are unpleasantly charged, and one suspects that many Western interpreters of China start out with slanted convictions and ideological perspectives. But to give one example of what I mean, my uncle is long resident in Northern Spain (Asturias) and married to a Spaniard; and is strongly opposed to Catalan independence. When I last saw him, he complained at the pro-Catalan sentiments expressed by the Spain correspondent of The Guardian (Sam Jones, a Briton), and claimed that Mr Jones was ignorant of the real Spanish situation. He questioned whether it was necessary for British newspapers to maintain their own correspondents in Spain when the leading journalists in Madrid these days invariably speak English and would furnish a more informed understanding.
I replied that while one of these Madrid-based Spanish journalists presumably would have a fuller understanding of Spain than Sam Jones, I couldn't help feeling that Sam Jones, precisely by virtue of not being a Spaniard, is more likely to be neutral on the subject of Catalan independence!
The post that was quoted here has been removedYou really love making references that cannot be followed up on because you don't give specifics don't you?
Many Chinese people who claim to be intellectuals like to do this. I remember one Chinese woman who made up all kinds of stories for propaganda purposes. Privately she told me they were all lies and that she was given detailed instructions by the government of the PRC about what she was allowed to say and how she was allowed to say it.
Given that I did not grow up inheriting any prejudices about the historical conflicts
among Asians, I may find it easier to be more objective about Asian history.
