Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Ethnic slurs

I was browsing a site today which brought up the subject of ethnic
slurs, and it got me thinking about Italian. In English, there is one
for almost every ethnic group, but I have never run across any in the
Italian language. Am I just naïve, or do these exist in Italian?
I have a book of slang by Daniela Gobetti which has some  very coarse
terms listed, but the only slurs are towards meridionali or possibly
Africans, but nothing very harsh. In (at least American) English there
are some terms that are considered very insulting. 
Are Italians just more enlightened, or more timid about this? Or are
Americans (my point of view, don't know about England) just coarser?
If you don't know what I'm talking about see:
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs
I hope this doesn't offend anyone, it's just something that I wonder
about. 

Give it a couple of hundred years of immigration and I am sure you will
have plenty of ethnic jokes and slurs even in Italy.
ari

 have plenty of ethnic jokes and slurs even in Italy.
"Vu' cumpra" was popular for quite a while. 
-- 
Mary

"Mary Cassidy" <ma...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:41EDA191...@invalid.invalid...

I still see it in the newspapers all the time, at least in those of
the Northeast.
Also, "fare il portoghese" is very common in news stories, when
referring to those who attempt to get free rides on busses or trains.
http://www.prontoconsumatore.it/detail.asp?idsezione=16&idn=2798
Here is an interesting note about the origin of the phrase.
http://www.newsclick.it/site/it-IT/Menudestra/why/whyTesto/portoghese.html
Joe from Massachusetts

 Italian language. Am I just naïve, or do these exist in Italian?
Non ne abbiamo tanti, anzi, ne abbiamo proprio pochi.
Oltre a quelli già detti abbiamo "crucco", per tedesco.
Il termine "slavo" può essere usato in senso dispregiativo. Abbiamo
"terrone", per le persone del sud Italia, e "polentone", per le persone del
nord Italia. Alcuni direbbero "mangia ranocchie", per i francesi.
Non me ne vengono in mente altri, al momento. C'è da dire che son quasi le
quattro del mattino, potrebbe esser questa la causa. ;)
Sebastiano

Giò
A man has dreams of walking with giants,
to carve his niche in the edifice of time.
Before the mortar of his zeal
has a chance to congeal
the cup is dashed from his lips,
the flame is snuffed aborning.

Giņ



Mai sentito se non nei film americani come traduzione letterale di 
frog-eater. Non mi pare ci sia un termine gergale italiano diffuso per 
indicare i francesi. Oltretutto, almeno qui da me a Milano, rane e lumache 
le abbiamo sempre mangiate anche noi (mai provato il risotto con le rane?)
ciao, Lorenzo 

 le abbiamo sempre mangiate anche noi (mai provato il risotto con le rane?)
Io sono anche andato a caccia di rane. :) Le rane fritte sono molto buone.
Non ho mai avuto l'occasione di provare le lumache. O meglio, l'ho avuto
quando ero più piccino, ed ero ancora nella fase "cibo strano, non lo
mangio".
Sebastiano

 "civilized" countries.
[...]
You're right. I know somebody who hires a Peruvian cleaning lady. Well,
I've been told that an acquaintance of mine once said that "una così non la
prenderebbe in casa". I wish I'd been there to ask "Una così come?".
I don't think it is especially common here in Brianza, at least against the
people from Southern Italy, basically because they're everywhere...
Then you have to distinguish between racism and an understandable
discontent.
Bye, FB
-- 
"The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live, that is what I mean—so
Bunbury died."
"He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians."
("The Importance of Being Earnest", Oscar Wilde)

Giň


Giò


racism.
Don't the women receive free entrance in the discos? And why? Just
because they've got boobs, legs and asses? That's discrimination
boundaring with racism :). 
But don't the foreigners find troublesome to rent an apartmen, since
only a few happen to trust them? that's too discrimination?
well, even the gas chambers were just "discrimination". They just
"discriminated" people into those who were entitled to go there and
those who were not :-))) 


 dangerous, nazist or whatever.
When you generalize a behaviour to an entire group of 
people you are racist.
"i brianzoli non pagano le tasse" is a racist statement.
"molti brianzoli non pagano le tasse" is not.
-- 
Today no, tomorrow yes.

Giò


 gipsies are addicted to stealing" is not.
It definitely is not.
Bye, FB
-- 
L'importante è che risplenda tu, sola primadonna e immarcescibile leggenda
del tuo pianerottolo.
(Lucangel su it.cultura.libri)

 It definitely is not.
I'm sorry. "Most gipsies", I certainly didn't mean *that*. "Some of the
gipsies who live in this area (Brianza, Lombardy) are prone to stealing"
probably reflects my personal thought, based on experience, not race or...
physiognomy.
Bye, FB
-- 
"Golden orb... The golden orb... The golden orb..."
(Cold Comfort Farm, the film)

It definitely is not.
So the magic word is "most". And so I have always been right to
underline that very thing. It is soooo reassuring to be felt for once
understood by the world, and not alone in this cold universe (I'm
getting lyric, I know).


Giņ


Giņ


 Non ho capito qui che vuoi dire.
[...]
I must have been absent-minded when I read your message. Of course I didn't
mean that *most* gipsies are thieves, so I involuntarily made a racist
statement. I actually meant that there's a certain amount of truth in the
belief that some of the gipsies who live in this area mean some kind of
harm. It would make no difference if they were an identifiable group of
Italian people.
It has nothing to do with stealing jobs: most people would be very happy if
all immigrants were like Chinese, who most likely are threatening our jobs
the most.
Bye, FB
-- 
"Is this Miss Prism a female of repellent aspect, remotely connected with
education?" "She is the most cultivated of ladies, and the very picture of
respectability" "It is obviously the same person".


 mangio".
Cavolo, io ho 23 anni e sono ancora in quella fase! :-)

 mangio".
What if I keep hating spiders and not eating frogs and escargots?
Bye, FB
-- 
In any case, if you say 'I gotta go' at an important job interview you're
contributing to being allowed just that privilege.
(Tony the ice man on it.cultura.linguistica.inglese)

 group of Italian people.
The more common American spelling is Gypsies. Although they aren't a large
minority in the US, they've inspired a racist verb "to gyp," meaning 'to
swindle'. Perhaps this prejudice was brought to the US by European
immigrants, such as the Italians who would call African-Americans a dialect
form of 'melanzana'.

 What if I keep hating spiders and not eating frogs and escargots?
Oh, c'mon! Be a man! Just do it!
Sebastiano

 Cavolo, io ho 23 anni e sono ancora in quella fase! :-)
No, no,  io assaggio sempre di tutto. :)
Sebastiano

Giò


 ha
scritto:

a 21 anni ho cambiato, ho iniziato a frequentare di più altra gente,
altre case, in cui non potevo proprio fare lo schizzinoso.
così ora, a 25 anni e mezzo, mangio quasi tutto. naturalmente non mi
piace *quasi tutto*, però non precludendomi delle possibilità, ho
potuto ampliare lo spettro di ciò che mi piace.
ps ancora non mangio le verdure, comunque, però almeno non le rifiuto
quando sono "in piccoli pezzettini" dentro altri piatti. prima o
ricapavo con santa pazienza, o proprio snobbavo il piatto
ora mi piace la cucina messicana, quella indiana, quella etiope,
quella romanesca (un po' di meno), quella bavarese...


 form of 'melanzana'.
Well, Italian immigrants might not have had a precise notion of diplomacy
and tact, but that metaphor didn't need to be derogative, did it?
Bye, FB
-- 
If you knock on my door and I call out "Who is it?", you, as a normal
person, knowing that I would recognize your voice, would say "It's me". If
you said "It is I", I would not be nearly so inclined to let you in.
(Geoffrey K. Pullum - 
http://snipurl.com/bhtu
)



Non assaggiare il paté di foie gras: stamattina alla tv ho visto come viene
prodotto...
Ciao, FB
-- 
Nasalization is just a part of life.
(Joey DoWop Dee on it.cultura.linguistica.inglese)

 and tact, but that metaphor didn't need to be derogative, did it?
Certo, e quando ti dico che sei una baccalà, non intendo qualcosa 
dispregiativa ma invece che non mangi tu abbastanza della melanzana.


LOL
Anna

 former is frequently findable in the latter.
You stole my words from my mouth.
:-)


 sentence, "most gipsies are addicted to stealing" is not.
I wrote "many", not "most", in my example.


Giň


Giò


 wrote:
[This is a general contribution to the thread, rather than a reply to
ADPUF; I am coming in late. This Pastaman stuff (
www.pastaman.co.uk
) is
bloody hard work. OT, and for those who're interested, we sold out
totally at Sunday's market. But it cuts into my UseNet time]
This will be a long post, and almost all in English.
On Italian racism and racist slurs:
Agreed that there seem to fewer racist slurs embedded in the language,
unlike American English (and to a lesser, but not that much lesser,
extent British English). But I recall in 1980s Italy extraordinary
levels of racist attitudes, as usual especially towards people of a
different skin colour. My son (born and educated in Italy, now
pretending to study at the University of Florence) reports no great
change in the late '90s and early 21st century. Indeed, he and my
daughter were often at the receiving end of it (in mild form) as the
only "stranieri" in their local schools. I do stress "mild form":
teasing, not abuse. But when my daughter spent a term at school here in
London, she remarked "It's really nice not to be the minority."
The essential thing is that until very recently, Italy was a country of
emigration, not immigration; the same is true of Ireland, and there are
interesting parallels. Black Londoners of my acquaintance have been
shocked, appalled and hurt by the crap that hits them on visits to
Dublin (on one occasion, the "crap" was a broken bottle, and it really
did hit; Irish police little help), and on holidays in Italy. The same
could happen on holidays to France, but serious French racism is mostly
directed against Arab Muslims; it's better to be black than brown in
Paris.
Now, here in Britain we have made immense strides in dealing with the
problem. I'd go so far as to say that London is the most successfully
multi-racial city in the world (at least as far as I have seen, and I
have been around a bit) but London is not Britain, and there are
certainly ugly exceptions, some of them very ugly.  [Aside: isn't
"ugly" a wonderfully "ugly" word? We had a thread about this, no? Beats
"brutto" any day, and "brutto" is quite good.]
These aside, we have a far better record than the US, mainly because we
lack the legacy of slavery. London and New York (the most open and
cosmopolitan of American cities, although Americans may disagree) both
have teenage gangs: London gangs are just as much a nuisance, but they
tend to be racially integrated. That's because there's no segregation
in education (I know there is no "official" segregation in the US, but
it sure happens). I have never seen blacks and whites drinking amicably
together in a working-class NYC bar; it's absolutely normal in London.
Mind you, it's easier to make "Londoners" -- cf Rome and Romans -- than
it is to make "Brits.
Britain, until the "Empire Windrush" in 1948
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/multicultural/windrush_01.s
html
was not a country of immigration either. Thanks to old Empire rules,
there were a fair number of Indians around (although you had to be
pretty wealthy to move around the Empire, and there was no question of
mass numbers.) There were two Indians elected as MPs in the *1890s*,
one of them a Tory. An excellent book review that covers the subject
can be found here:
http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=8077
The great achievement here since the 1960s has been in making racism
*not respectable*. In 1965, middle-class white people would quite
casually use ethnic slur-words. By 1985, these were considered shameful
in polite society.  Consider the word "darkie". Now this wasn't
deliberately abusive, although it could certainly be used abusively.
"That nice darkie at the market"
"You never know with darkies"
The word is extinct now.
Back to Italy. Racism is still respectable. The example someone gave
upthread about the Peruvian cleaner: wouldn't happen in Britain. It
really wouldn't.
A story from, hmm, 1998 or thereabouts. An excellent Scuola Media in a
small town, let's preserve anonymity, not too far from Borgo San
Sepulcro in the high Tiber valley. Mio figliolo ci fa la terza. A
Pakistani family (father some kind of serious professional, God knows
what they were doing in the Altatiberina) arrives. Two children, aged
12 and 13, Urdu-speaking, are sent to the school. 
The head teacher summons my son to his office. "Tom, sei il nostro
straniero" "Signor Preside, son nato a Cortona." "Si, si, ma sai bene
cosa dico io. Tocca a te aiutare questi due neri." "Ma come? Non
parlano inglese, ne italiano." "Tocca a te. Sai com'e' essere lo
straniero."
The two Pakistani kids suffered endless racist abuse. The whole
experience was quite formative for my son, though, who is now a really
passionate and well-informed anti-racist. "Dad, I'm sick of it. All
this crap. 'They come over here and live off the state, steal our women
and take our jobs.' The illogical is impenetrable. Bastards."
My apologies for going on at such length. I inherited anti-racism from
my father, who at the age of around 17.5 years had just survived his
second trip on an oil tanker across an Atlantic Ocean infested with
German U-boats (he'd already been torpedoed once). The ship docked at
Galveston in Texas. 
The crew, of course, wanted to get ashore, get drunk and get laid. The
crew included "Sambo" a black sea-cook. Note that "Sambo" is a somewhat
spregiudicativo name for any black. They all wanted to get drunk
together. Alas, impossible. A tram [US streetcar] ran from the dock to
the town centre. It had two carriages: one for the whites, one for the
blacks. Sambo was not admitted into the white carriage. The crew of SS
San Felix were not prepared to be separated from their shipmate. "The
black bastard is one of ours, mate." So they all tried to get into the
"black" carriage of the streetcar, where the seats and fittings were
noticeably inferior. The blacks in the Jim Crow [google for it if Jim
Crow means nothing to you] carriage were immediately frightened,
thinking (probably quite rightly) that they'd be the ones who'd suffer
from this exercise in liberal anti racism. 
The crew of the SS San Felix got the message, and decided to stand in
front of the streetcar.They weren't going, it wasn't going. "What are
you going to do? Put us in jail instead of filling our tanker with
100-octane aviation fuel and sending us out through all those U-boats?
Go right ahead. You think we think jail is frightening? Get out into
the Atlantic and find out what's really frightening."
At this point the local sheriff arrived. Now, I doubt I would agree
much with that sheriff's racial attitudes, but he behaved with great
wisdom. "Boys, our laws ain't your laws, and I appreciate how you feel
about your shipmate. It'd be my pleasure to walk with you guys into
town and buy you all a drink."  Situation defused, although poor Sambo
had a pretty hard time.
It left my father with a lifelong anti-Americanism, except for NYC,
where I may well have an unacknowledged sibling. But that's another
story.
Oh, and the Lothian anti-racism actually goes back another generation.
My grandfather, sending his only child off to war (and he knew what war
was, having spent Big Mistake One in Brindisi and the Adriatic, but
that, too, is another story), told him: "Ye'll meet all kinds out
there. Mind, son, we're a' Jock Tamson's bairns."
I hope the semi-Scots is comprehensible. Effetivamente" "Siamo tutti
figli di Dio."
sorry to have gone on so long
-- 
"The past resembles the future as water resembles water"  Ibn Khaldun
My .
mac.com
 address is a spam sink.
If you wish to email me, try atlothian at blueyonder dot co dot uk

 different skin colour.
I asked my students at "La Sapienza" how many people in their classes
at school weren't white Catholic Italians, and they mostly thought
it was a stupid question since of course the answer was "none". 
I'm not claiming Stevenage is a model of racial harmony, but any number
of people in my school were black or Chinese or Arab or Jewish or
recently arrived from Bangladesh or whatever.
-- 
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - 
http://www.Mailgate.ORG

sorry to have gone on so long
I enjoyed it - thanks!

 said to come from a song.
[...]
Heh, it does come from a song. It's not racist in itself, bot in the least
vulgar, either, but I certainly would't say "bingo bongo" to refer to a
human being. Here's the song:
Un giorno un grande esplorator la' nell'equator
intorno radunate le tribu'
ai negri disse cosi'
soli soli che ci fate qua
molto meglio e' la citta'
seguitemi su
ma il vecchio negro disse allor
Oh bongo bongo bongo
stare bene solo al Congo
non mi muovo no no
bingo bango bengo
molte scuse ma non vengo
io rimango qui
no bono scarpe strette saponette
treni e tassi'
ma con questa sveglia al collo
star bene qui
ma sempre il grande esplorator
ad ognun parlo'
dei quadri futuristi dello swing
la nostra moda spiego'
soli soli che ci fate qui
io vi portero' a Paris
seguitemi su
ma il vecchio negro disse ancor
Oh bongo bongo bongo
stare bene solo al Congo
non mi muovo no no
bingo bango bengo
molte scuse ma non vengo
io rimango qui
no bono radio e cine signorine
magre cosi'
molto meglio anello al naso
ma stare qui
bongo bongo bongo
stare bene solo al Congo
non mi muovo no no
bingo bango bengo
molte scuse ma non vengo
io rimango qui
no bono scarpe strette saponette
treni e tassi'
ma con questa sveglia al collo
star bene qui
ma con questa sveglia al collo
star bene qui
ma con questa sveglia al collo
star bene qui
Bear in mind that nobody had yet decided that "negro" was derogative. I
guess so, anyway.
Bye, FB
-- 
"Come, dear, we have already missed five, if not six, trains. To miss any
more might expose us to comment on the platform."


 song:
[zac]
Da ragazzo ho sentito un distico con "bingo bongo" molto 
più sporcaccione:
"Io mi chiamo Bingo Bongo e nel [Q] te lo pongo,
io mi chiamo Bongo Bingo e nel [Q] te lo spingo."


 wrote in message 
news:1s6wf8ulr0ac5.1iasouxrg0e98$.dlg@40tude.net...

Hey, that's a translation of 'Bongo, bongo, bongo' (aka 'Civilization') from 
the 1947 American musical 'Angel in the Wings' ; it used to be a Danny kaye 
number.
Mike 

 recently arrived from Bangladesh or whatever.
Mostly it's good for the children. Although if you are among the 5%
white English children at what amounts to a Bangladeshi school in
Bradford, hmmm.  I never said Britain was perfect.


 it was a stupid question since of course the answer was "none". 
[...]
It's not racism, per se. It so happened that there were no foreigners in
their schools. In my school there were some Chinese and, I think, two or
three black students. No-one would ever dream of teasing them for their not
being Italian. We used to say "terrone" to a mate of ours, sometimes,
though, but it's the kind of thing you can say to a friend. It can also be
derogative, mind you. 
Here people don't mind very much if a person is not Catholic. As you
probably know, young people are not so very concerned about religion.
Bye, FB
-- 
"Something to take to the country." (holding out a bunch of flowers)
"Flowers come _from_ the country, Charles."
(Cold Comfort Farm, the film)

 their schools. In my school there were some Chinese and, I think,
two or
When I was with the US Army in the province of Vicenza , the only
"foreign" faces there were those of the American soldiers from the
Caserma Ederle. There were no Chinese, or North Africans, or Black
Africans, or Arabs. Italians were still "guest workers" in
Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and the rest of Europe.
I was often asked by my Italian friends, who usually spoke with a
certain moral superiority, why blacks in the US were treated so badly.
I would answer that it was unfortunate and a very complicated problem,
and that Italians would be more understanding of the problem if they
had a large minority population living in Italy.
Now the Province of Vicenza is home to thousands of Chinese, North
African, Black African, and Arab immigrants. A friend tells me that
immigrants are 35% of the population of the city of Vicenza.
Mr. Bossi's "bingo-bongo" remark cannot be taken as anything but
intentionally racist. Such a remark by a public official in the US
would lead to
his ostracization from the political mainstream.
I think that now my old Italian friends in Vicenza would not be as
openly critical of the treatment of blacks in America, and perhaps now
they understand how complex the problem of racism is.
Joe from Massachusetts

 Such a remark by a public official in the US would lead to his ostracization from the political mainstream.
In Italy, politicians tend to forget things about their opponents, because
they're afraid to be accused of something themselves.
[...]
Bye, FB
-- 
"The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live, that is what I mean—so
Bunbury died."
"He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians."


 I suppose so.
I think that's just intentionally racist; if not intentional, it is
still racism and this racism would be originated by ignorance.
I can remember a similar, offensive sentence from the mayor of some town
in northern Italy (can't remember exactly which one).
He said "we don't need people who can run away from lions or chase
gazelles, we need workers" (not his actual words but the lions/gazelles
stuff it's original).
Now, imagine a US mayor addressing to black people as "rappers"...
:-((((
Nebo