Language desk
< January 26	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 28 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 27

"Politically correct" Words in Non-English Languages

In English, there are many politically-correct words. They change from year to year. In my life, the word for "black" went from "negro" to "colored" to "African" to "Afro" to "Afro-American" to "African-American." I'm sure it isn't done changing. But, it can be silly at times. When I was teaching, our weekly training once told us to avoid using the word "Monday" because it was a trigger word. What I am looking for is how this shows up in other languages. I don't actually know any other languages, but consider Israel. In the United States, I often get mail for "Current Occupant." Would that be a major offense in Israel? Is the word "occupant" a trigger word? Is there a politically coreect version, such as "person who is in this specific location while legally living on this land"? I fully understand that the word carries two meanings, as many words do, but it is easy to understand which meaning is being used in junk mail. If I can see that this persists through other languages, I won't see it as American idiocy. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 17:48, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The changes in names of Black people are an example of what is referred to as the "Euphemism treadmill" (many of the changes happened before political correctness in the modern sense existed). Most of your other examples don't seem very relevant to me... AnonMoos (talk) 18:31, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, if you want an example of the euphemism treadmill in Hebrew, the word Cushi originally referred to people from the Land of Kush and had a fine Biblical sound, but then it was frequently used as a name for pet dogs, and underwent an evolution where it's no longer a neutral term for Black people in the modern Israeli Hebrew language... AnonMoos (talk) 18:43, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Did you mean to write "illegally living on this land"? --Viennese Waltz 18:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Illegal according to international law, but legal according to the laws of Eretz Yisrael. --Lambiam 19:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, so illegal then. --Viennese Waltz 20:18, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't the actual phenomenon the "political correctness"-tag itself, which deliberately lumps genuinely non-abusive, non-discriminatory language with pre-emptive euphemisms, in order to make the former look as silly as the latter? To answer the question from this viewpoint: yes, other languages have borrowed the "political correctness"-tag (e.g., German has the loan translation politisch korrekt), and the discourse surrounding it isn't much different from the one in the US. -Austronesier (talk) 19:25, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In what circumstances is "Monday" a "trigger word"? <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 19:46, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Boomtown Rats? -- AnonMoos (talk) 19:54, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and before that was "Manic Monday", and before that was "Monday, Monday". OGIM vs. TGIF. That's about dreading Mondays, as per Jack, below. Nothing to do with racial minorities. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:15, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I asked and I was told (from memory): People don't like Mondays. People don't like minorities. So, if you use the word "Monday" you are insulting minoroties. (That didn't actually make sense to me) 97.82.165.112 (talk) 20:01, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When I was working, "Sunday afternoon" - the anticipation of Monday - was far worse than Monday itself, as bad as that was. But at least I practised what I preach: three times I resigned from permanent jobs because they were no good for my health and I was powerless to change them. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Part of the festivities of King's Day in the Netherlands are the so-called free markets held in the cities. Kids stake out a piece of public real estate in advance, a spot for putting their tables out on the day itself, exhibiting the wares for offer, much of which comes from the attic or a garage. To make their claims apparent, they place the term BEZET on the ground, with waterproof chalk or spelled out with pieces of tape, as can be seen here. Dutch bezet means "occupied", and its use still leaves a bitter taste to the dwindling part of the population who remember the German occupation during World War II. --Lambiam 19:55, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe not linguistic PC, but another Netherlands example is Zwarte Piet or "Black Peter", a blackface Christmas character, and the recent campaign to Kick Out Zwarte Piet. Alansplodge (talk) 18:55, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see that German is an example. I wonder if France has the silliness that occurs in English because I know that they have a government body of some sort that controls changes to the language. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 19:59, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Language academies do not generally "control" languages in any meaningful sense. They often attempt to substitute natively coined words for recently borrowed words (like "fernsprecher" for "telefon" in German), and are sometimes succesful... AnonMoos (talk) 20:10, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article says that the French loan-term, le politiquement correct, is usually used in France to refer to foreign political trends and when used in domestic contexts, lacks the gravity attached to it in the Anglosphere. I also found this about a move towards Écriture Inclusive, or gender neutral language, which has provoked a furious backlash. I haven't found anything yet on language which might be perceived as racist in France, but note that one trigger for the 2005 French riots was the habit of the Paris police of addressing youths from immigrant communities as "tu", the form used to speak to children and animals, rather than "vous". Alansplodge (talk) 12:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Two more French examples: the French wiki article on Euphémisme mentions the recent switch in French from speaking of immigrants (immigré) to speaking of migrants (same word in French). Another change is one that has happened in English too: blind (aveugle) has now become visually impaired (malvoyant). 70.67.193.176 (talk) 17:50, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That English change rather puzzles me. I'm sure that when I was a child, people would be generally refered to as immigrants (or emigrants, depending on which way they moved), while "migrant" was mainly used for swallows and wildebeast and other animals. As such, it seems strange that the latter term is becoming normal (or even "politically correct") to use for people. Iapetus (talk) 17:30, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In Turkey, textbooks in Turkish used in educational institutions must conform to the vocabulary sanctioned by the Turkish Language Association. This has had a tremendous influence on the language. Most present-day Turks simply do not understand Atatürks slogan Yurtta sulh, cihanda sulh, pronounced in 1931; to make it comprehensible, it has to be translated in words they know: Yurtta barış, dünyada barış. I think that the Académie française has a similar grip on language use, but I am not sure how strong it is. --Lambiam 13:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like the questioner is unhappy with certain language evolution, perhaps in proxy for cultural changes, and is looking for references to other hypothetical axes to grind. My answer would be that someone with this mindset will find plenty of things to get pissed off at right here at home, and if they've run out of them, maybe that's fine. Temerarius (talk) 22:16, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]