![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stevenehrbarIf you read the modern academic literature, the Hottentots and Bushmen are not referred to by those "colonialist" terms. In an attempt to be ethnically correct, they are instead called the Khoi and San peoples.
Well, Khoi is the Hottentot/Khoi word for "the (true) people". That's consistent with the tendency of academics to use the local word for people to refer to ethnic group, even if the term itself has connotations of racial/tribal superiority. Like, say, when Hitler referred to the Volk. But at least it isn't an insult to the Khoi.
But San is a different story. San is not the Bushman word for Bushman -- it's the Khoi word for "Bushman", with the connotation of "nigger". The Bushmen have no word for Bushmen as a group, and have expressed a marked preference for Bushman over San.
Yet, in an effort to be "correct", San's become the default academic term for these people, and those who use the proper term are patronizingly corrected by the ignorant.
Well, Khoi is the Hottentot/Khoi word for "the (true) people". That's consistent with the tendency of academics to use the local word for people to refer to ethnic group, even if the term itself has connotations of racial/tribal superiority. Like, say, when Hitler referred to the Volk. But at least it isn't an insult to the Khoi.
But San is a different story. San is not the Bushman word for Bushman -- it's the Khoi word for "Bushman", with the connotation of "nigger". The Bushmen have no word for Bushmen as a group, and have expressed a marked preference for Bushman over San.
Yet, in an effort to be "correct", San's become the default academic term for these people, and those who use the proper term are patronizingly corrected by the ignorant.
