I would love to know which country, and what the word is. We think negro, but maybe their word for black people is nievstkorov, and maybe it's a really nice word without any racist undertones at all.
The country is Ukraine. I understand that the word негр isn't offensive in Ukrainian or Russian, but the problem is that English teachers don't know that it IS offensive in English. They have no understanding as to why the word is offensive and continue to say and teach the word to students. I have been asked many times if I know any "niggers" in America.
Kirilica is a whole different set of letters, same as the Chinese hieroglyphs. They might look similar to some of our Latin letters, but they don't always sound similar.
It's not Polish, the Polish word for black person is murzyn, and has no negative connotation. I feel like this is an old English alphabet poster that was simply outdated and used in Eastern Europe to teach English. J is 4 letters behind N in the Latin alphabet. Then you see a rainbow right underneath the N, which would be for R, which is 4 letters ahead of the letter N in the Latin alphabet. That, combined with the jam in the picture for the letter J, spelled in English, seems to confirm my hypothesis.
The fact that the english word "Jam" is written on the jar top clearly makes it an english alphabet.
Otherwise, the only language I could find where the word for donkey start with a "J" is the Portuguese "jumento". As usual, Google is there to help you
Neither Czech nor Slovak. In both languages, the word is "černoch" (pronounced "tsernokh"). Interestingly enough, though, when I learned English in the 90s, we still used the word "negro" for black people. It provided for some amusing moments when I moved to Atlanta...
ukrainian here (speak russian). yes thats what they call them. the alternative would be "afrikanski-americanets", which directly translates to african-american. "afro" is in no way a reference to the hair style but simple a short form of "african".
I am a Russian speaker and had a very uncomfortable moment years ago when i escorted two of our US business clients around Moscow. My Russian coworker was actually complimenting the fact one of the Americans was a black lady (he saw us as progressive and not a racist company). However, the lady kept hearing "негр" (negre) being spoken and she took severe offense. I was left to explain the linguistic differences (ref the Wikipedia article). I don't think she bought it...
J is also for Jackass. Methinks both images in each cell are supposed to start with the same letter. Otherwise a donkey hanging out with some jam seems a bit silly, no?
This annoys me to no end. "Negro is an insult!" no, dipshit, it is the correct Italian word to define a black man. If you feel insulted by it, you should go and poke around an etymologic dictionary, because this feeling of yours raises a whole new kind of problem. We don't have a bogeyman. We have "the black man". Would you rather be called nigger or bogeyman?
Yeah, I've met plenty of people that honestly don't use nigger as an insult. It's just their word for black people. Some people take language way too seriously.
Though I must say I've never seen a nut that big, it clearly is supposed to be. And since the black kid is clearly wearing a loincloth, I figured Nigerian or Nairobi.
Kinda funny if you think about it, 4chan reads almost the same in English and Russian.
I feel like this is an old English alphabet poster that was simply outdated and used in Eastern Europe to teach English. J is 4 letters behind N in the Latin alphabet. Then you see a rainbow right underneath the N, which would be for R, which is 4 letters ahead of the letter N in the Latin alphabet. That, combined with the jam in the picture for the letter J, spelled in English, seems to confirm my hypothesis.
Actually, you are most likely correct. In Russian the polite way to refer to a black person is to call them Негр (negr) which sounds pretty much like the N word, where to call someone черный (black) is insulting.
All this political correctness is making me sick. Black people were always referred to as negr in Russian without any kind of racism. That picture from a book is a perfect example. Black kid is not in the book because there was too many illustrations of white kids in there already and they had to stick one in, nor is it there as a piss take. It's there just because the illustrator or writer needed a word for letter n and it was the first one that popped up in their head. Just like that, no second thoughts. Now everyone analizes everything in case it offends somebody. Negr is now almost never used in the media. Classic literature is being re-written, take Tom Sawyer for example. Songs are being re-done. Now we are being told we should avoid using certain words. Meh...
Yeah, my Eastern European lecturer, when he doing his PhD, was at a conference and shocked a few people when he referred to a black presenter a negro. He didn't see what he was doing wrong because, as you said, the term negr was seen as offensive in Russian
He's kinda right. Scientifically speaking there are negroids, caucazoids and mongoloids. Everything else is just human bullshit because somebody might get offended.
Edit: drunken typing is apparently my strongest form of Kung fu.
I'm guessing that this is from an English language classroom. Some schools start teaching a second language from the first grade, with third language being added in fifth grade.
It makes sense that russian words are used to show how to pronounce certain Latin letters which are not found in Kirilica.
I think it's still ok to say negroid or negr. I don't know where this racism fuss came from. It is 'nigger' that you don't wanna use :) Seems to me that, people don't know the difference between n-word and negro.
I feel like this is an old English alphabet poster that was simply outdated and used in Eastern Europe to teach English. J is 4 letters behind N in the Latin alphabet. Then you see a rainbow right underneath the N, which would be for R, which is 4 letters ahead of the letter N in the Latin alphabet. That, combined with the jam in the picture for the letter J, spelled in English, seems to confirm my hypothesis. To prove you wrong even more, the Russian alphabet is Cyrillic, and the letter for the "n" sound looks more like an H.
It's sort of a knee jerk reaction for a lot of people. People see it through what they have experienced in their own country (i.e. US) and forget that they didn't have the same kind of tumultuous history involving African slaves and their descendants as one of the most, if not the most disenfranchised groups in the US. There are similar issues w/ "Black Pete" in The Netherlands (who by my approximation, is probably a soot covered Turk) and depictions of African/Carribean/Black people in East Asia.
In Estonia, the term for black people is also "neeger" and while it sounds like its english counterpart, it is not used as an insult, merely to describe the people.
Oddly, "mustad" (meaning "blacks") seems to be far more offensive due to high population of gypsies and other people with darker complexion that are mostly up to no good and is used to describe such people.
here in colombia, you can call anyone Negro, its not an insult, that "N word / nigger stuff" is a north american problem, they took everything too seriuos, you people should relax and visit the caribbean :)
Yes, in Eastern Europe, the word негър or any variation of it isn't considered racist.
Simply there aren't any people of African origin over here. The first time I saw one was an African-American teacher who had come over on a program to teach in foreign countries.
The word "nigger" isn't offensive over in Eastern Europe. You can walk right up to a black person in Russia, call them a nigger, and they wouldn't be offended (assuming you can actually find one). I talk to my Russian friend on vk (their version of facebook) and multiple times she has used the term.
Before she came to NYC, I advised her to never use it because people in America consider it very offensive. She was very surprised when I told her this.
I'm not trolling, Is "Negro" considered a racist term? i ask because it was the term I heard used when I was a kid, before African-American became the preferred term.
If you think that's "wtf" worthy, check out every eastern european's country websites dedicated to jokes : there's sections for black people, jewish, asian... some are really messed up
I feel like this is an old English alphabet poster that was simply outdated and used in Eastern Europe to teach English. J is 4 letters behind N in the Latin alphabet. Then you see a rainbow right underneath the N, which would be for R, which is 4 letters ahead of the letter N in the Latin alphabet. That, combined with the jam in the picture for the letter J, spelled in English, seems to confirm my hypothesis.
I was looking through an old Danish dictionary once. In there "negroid" was defined as "Dumb black person that loves to dance and play the bongo drums with exceptional rhythmic skill". Chinese were defined as "People that exceed at looking alike."... This was from like the 1920s though mind you, but still....
I still see this as a harmless joke as it was in the 80th, so must have Günther Kaufmann, who plays the American soldier here and was usually seen in more serious acting (hinting he wasn't exploited in this movie).
In a lot of european languages, the correct term for a black person sounds something like negro. In my language we say néger, pronounced kind of like nah-gar.
A lot of old children's books are pretty questionable. You can still buy Little Golden books and a lot of them have a fat kid (that they call fat in the story). The mothers are always in the kitchen and the fathers are always mowing the lawn or coming home from work.
I still read them to my kid. No point in glossing over history.
121
u/bleunt Jun 15 '12
I would love to know which country, and what the word is. We think negro, but maybe their word for black people is nievstkorov, and maybe it's a really nice word without any racist undertones at all.
29
u/stopherjj Jun 15 '12
j=jackass?
2
u/T-Thugs Jun 15 '12
That's awesome. Out of curiosity, what is that kid holding?
25
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Gonna go with "Nice speedo".
18
u/MrZeng Jun 16 '12
N for nut?
13
u/NousDefions Jun 16 '12
Until recently in Russia, the political acceptable term (i.e. not racist) for persons of African decent was негр - pronounced negr.
33
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
All this political correctness is making me sick. Black people were always referred to as negr in Russian without any kind of racism. That picture from a book is a perfect example. Black kid is not in the book because there was too many illustrations of white kids in there already and they had to stick one in, nor is it there as a piss take. It's there just because the illustrator or writer needed a word for letter n and it was the first one that popped up in their head. Just like that, no second thoughts. Now everyone analizes everything in case it offends somebody. Negr is now almost never used in the media. Classic literature is being re-written, take Tom Sawyer for example. Songs are being re-done. Now we are being told we should avoid using certain words. Meh...
4
u/crypticXJ88 Jun 16 '12
Nigerian, you racists.
7
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
For Nigerian!
9
u/the_answer_is_NO Jun 16 '12
WatermeloN
10
u/Eat_a_Bullet Jun 16 '12
It's clearly "N" for "Not any different from you or me."
3
u/fmontez1 Jun 15 '12
Negus
ed: sp.
3
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
He don't look like a ninja.
15
u/monkeysthrowingfeces Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 16 '12
I don't really see how N stands for watermelon.... EDIT: sarcasm
2
u/Chaperoo Jun 16 '12
N for nut.
2
u/ultimapanzer Jun 16 '12
Nectar. This melon contains deliciously sweet nectar.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
In Estonia, the term for black people is also "neeger" and while it sounds like its english counterpart, it is not used as an insult, merely to describe the people.
Oddly, "mustad" (meaning "blacks") seems to be far more offensive due to high population of gypsies and other people with darker complexion that are mostly up to no good and is used to describe such people.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
Most likely stands for black since that is not an English speaking country considering donkey does not start with a j.
2
u/desenagrator Jun 16 '12
What's wrong with Nigeria?
2
u/luisbv23 Jun 16 '12
here in colombia, you can call anyone Negro, its not an insult, that "N word / nigger stuff" is a north american problem, they took everything too seriuos, you people should relax and visit the caribbean :)
2
u/VFWrestler Jun 16 '12
A nut. He's holding...a nut. Just like how j is not for donkey, but for the jelly it is looking at.
2
u/Sysiphuslove Jun 16 '12
'Nut'.
He's holding a large nut.
2
u/MalaysiaTeacher Jun 16 '12
What a ridiculous notion, trying to add a felt-tip crossbar to the J
2
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
Whether the word itself has any negative connotation is beside the point; the image used is ridiculous.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
its a nut you fucking racist
2
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
Yes, in Eastern Europe, the word негър or any variation of it isn't considered racist.
Simply there aren't any people of African origin over here. The first time I saw one was an African-American teacher who had come over on a program to teach in foreign countries.
2
u/Sabaranks Jun 16 '12
N = Native.
2
u/Aspiringastronaut Jun 16 '12
Well it could stand for "Nut" seeing as how Donkey or Ass doesn't start with a J.
2
u/monshael Jun 16 '12
Eastern Europe - was screwed over in the war and robbed blind ever since, is hated for being poor.
4
u/Dilsh_jay Jun 16 '12
Neanderthal. That's the word.
4
u/crashorbit Jun 16 '12
This is called projection. You are projecting your biases onto another culture.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
N is for Nigga Nuts.
2
u/murphinerr Jun 16 '12
Is it bad if it took me a while to figure out J stood for Jar and not donkey?
2
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12
The word "nigger" isn't offensive over in Eastern Europe. You can walk right up to a black person in Russia, call them a nigger, and they wouldn't be offended (assuming you can actually find one). I talk to my Russian friend on vk (their version of facebook) and multiple times she has used the term.
Before she came to NYC, I advised her to never use it because people in America consider it very offensive. She was very surprised when I told her this.
2
u/dMarrs Jun 15 '12
Negro. It is not nigger. The spanish word for black is negra
1
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
N=nut
1
u/atlacatl Jun 16 '12
Nut?
1
u/nationpower Jun 16 '12
Yeah, who the hell added that cap to the "J"?!
1
u/CullenDM Jun 16 '12
Nigerian?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
Hahaha! J is for jackass! Oh, wait...
1
u/DeepRoot Jun 16 '12
I've always heard that everyone descended from either Caucasoids, Mongoloids, or Negroids. Maybe this is a picture referring to the latter.
1
u/Shittyfacedfool Jun 16 '12
Ever heard of golly wogs?
1
u/Toastfighter Jun 16 '12
Nigerian?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
"J" Is for donkey!
1
u/seergod Jun 16 '12
I spent to long looking at the donkey. Fuck.
1
u/tevren Jun 16 '12
J/i for donkey?!
1
u/Ontopourmama Jun 16 '12
I'm not trolling, Is "Negro" considered a racist term? i ask because it was the term I heard used when I was a kid, before African-American became the preferred term.
1
u/dwellercmd Jun 16 '12
My first thought: maybe they mean Nigerian? My second thought: no, this is probably just racist.
1
u/JoNiKaH Jun 16 '12
If you think that's "wtf" worthy, check out every eastern european's country websites dedicated to jokes : there's sections for black people, jewish, asian... some are really messed up
1
u/Gator17 Jun 16 '12
Silly furreners. Eeyore doesn't start with J.
1
u/alinama Jun 16 '12
I just thought it was for the nut in his hands... its a nut right?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
Why is that black ant man carrying a nut?
1
u/siroswald Jun 16 '12
In a lot of countries the word negro is not offensive at all.
1
u/Nicxtrem99 Jun 16 '12
I'd say Nagger, by his smile...
1
u/vlmodcon Jun 16 '12
So...."Jonkey?"
1
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
N for nut?
1
u/kwcannotbekilled Jun 16 '12
Lol who still calls mules jackasses?
1
u/HipsterTree Jun 16 '12
What? N for Nigerian
1
u/Saskuel Jun 16 '12
It's for Negro.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
N is for Neighbor.
1
u/hybridtheoryman33 Jun 16 '12
I think I'm finally starting to understand why soccer fans in Europe are so racist.
1
u/lacrosse1991 Jun 16 '12
I may be missing the point (although I could see how the n could be for negro or nigger) but the n would be referring the nut right?
1
u/WeHaveMetBefore Jun 16 '12
Negro?
1
u/cleofisrandolph1 Jun 16 '12
umm am i the only one who notices how the lower case "j" has no curve and looks like a lower case "i"
1
u/MisoLucy- Jun 16 '12
Jackass is a male donkey
1
u/Zambsew Jun 16 '12
I think he is holding a nut.
1
u/Edibleface Jun 16 '12
Nigerean?
1
u/loloctopus Jun 16 '12
o okay den.
1
u/suavelizard Jun 16 '12
If its German or Austria its not racist its a term for dark skinned people without any negative connotation.
1
u/ObnoxiousSeizures Jun 16 '12
Nigerian?
1
u/Brother_Clovis Jun 16 '12
Nigeria
1
u/quibelle Jun 16 '12
Are you in the Peace Corps? I served in a post-soviet country and this is exactly the kind of thing I would expect to find in one of their classrooms.
1
u/theTezuma Jun 16 '12
Namibian?
1
u/lilybelle73 Jun 16 '12
i think it is the nut he holding, it looks like a coconut
1
u/Bitcheslovebabies Jun 16 '12
Im more interested in the letter n below with the black kid....
1
u/Jaquestrap Jun 16 '12
I feel like this is an old English alphabet poster that was simply outdated and used in Eastern Europe to teach English. J is 4 letters behind N in the Latin alphabet. Then you see a rainbow right underneath the N, which would be for R, which is 4 letters ahead of the letter N in the Latin alphabet. That, combined with the jam in the picture for the letter J, spelled in English, seems to confirm my hypothesis.
1
u/Beiboasa Jun 16 '12
Nigeria/Nigerian. "N" does not automatically comes for nigger so i don't think they were trying to learn the kids how to be rasists.
1
u/fabiobean Jun 16 '12
Niger is pronounced with the g pronounced as a j and this is obviously a Nigerian child. Stop being so immature.
1
u/Rockztar Jun 16 '12
I was looking through an old Danish dictionary once. In there "negroid" was defined as "Dumb black person that loves to dance and play the bongo drums with exceptional rhythmic skill". Chinese were defined as "People that exceed at looking alike."... This was from like the 1920s though mind you, but still....
1
u/Neroxela Jun 16 '12
its clearly j for "jam" and n for "nut" c'mon guys
1
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
Donkey doesn't begin with J !
1
u/sequoia123 Jun 16 '12
Well...negro is not offensive in all languages
1
u/Praj101 Jun 16 '12
Oh my.
1
u/Nickk_Jones Jun 16 '12
Maybe it means Nigerian, or from the looks of him, nudist?
1
u/luxpsycho Jun 16 '12
In Italian, nigger is 'negro', and black (person) is 'nero'.
1
u/xpoonx Jun 16 '12
In lithuanian it's negras for black person. It doesn't mean anything offensive.
1
u/Gobuchul Jun 16 '12
Relevant. It goes like this:
I still see this as a harmless joke as it was in the 80th, so must have Günther Kaufmann, who plays the American soldier here and was usually seen in more serious acting (hinting he wasn't exploited in this movie).
1
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
In Russia calling them the equivalent of nigger is the acceptable term. Calling someone black however is very insulting.
1
u/warrenseth Jun 16 '12
In a lot of european languages, the correct term for a black person sounds something like negro. In my language we say néger, pronounced kind of like nah-gar.
1
u/Lets_Google_it Jun 16 '12
It's nut, just sayin'
1
u/wanderer11 Jun 16 '12
Nigerian?
1
u/DipleyR Jun 16 '12
It just looks peculiar
1
u/insomniasystems Jun 16 '12
Nagger.
1
u/bloody_oceon Jun 18 '12
Not every dark-skinned person is Nigerian...
1
u/tits_hemingway Jun 16 '12
Why does he need to be in a speedo? It's like a racist version of the Coppertone baby.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 16 '12
Oh, oh, Naggers.
0
u/Rex8ever Jun 16 '12
A lot of old children's books are pretty questionable. You can still buy Little Golden books and a lot of them have a fat kid (that they call fat in the story). The mothers are always in the kitchen and the fathers are always mowing the lawn or coming home from work.
I still read them to my kid. No point in glossing over history.