# Kaffir - do you use this word?



## audiolaik

Hello,

When leafing through a dictionary, I came across the word _Kaffir_. I looked it up, and I found out that it is used as _an offensive term for any Black African _(source). 

Are you familiar with the word in question? Is it in widespread use among BrE and AmE speakers?

Thank you!


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## curlyboy20

Personally, I haven't heard that word before.


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## JamesM

I've never heard it.  I thought you might be asking about kefir, a kind of liquid yoghurt that is relatively new to the U.S.


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## audiolaik

JamesM said:


> I've never heard it. I thought you might be asking about kefir, a kind of liquid yoghurt that is relatively new to the U.S.


 
No, JamesM. I'm not that drunk.


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## Cagey

Like JamesM, I have never heard it.  I know it only from having read older British novels.  As I understood it to be offensive, I would never use it.


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## Wilma_Sweden

audiolaik said:


> Are you familiar with the word in question? Is it in widespread use among BrE and AmE speakers?


I've heard about it, a friend of mine told me that it was mainly used in South Africa, so probably not very widespread in the US/UK. 

I agree with the Longman dictionary: Do Not Use It!
"Kaffir: _taboo_    a very offensive word for a black person, used by white people in South Africa. Do not use this word"

/Wilma


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## curlyboy20

Wow, thanks Wilma!


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## Aserolf

I have heard this word in African theme movies and I know is very offensive for black Africans. 
I particularly remember _The Color of Friendship_, a Disney movie where I first heard this word.


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## journeys

Definitely a pejorative expression mainly used in South Africa (not sure if it's still current).


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## TriglavNationalPark

I've only encountered this word in books about South Africa.


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## Loob

I've just consulted a South African who's staying with me.

She says it's the South African equivalent of _nigger_. Not acceptable in the present-day "Rainbow Nation".
________

EDIT: oh, and to answer your question, audio: no, I've never used it, and can't imagine a situation in which I might.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Loob said:


> I've just consulted a South African who's staying with me.


Useful resource! 

Apparently, the word has had some legitimate uses in historic context, if one is to believe Wikipedia.

/Wilma


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## panjandrum

I use kaffir from time to time, and come across it written and spoken ...
... in a completely different context.
From Wiki:


> The *kaffir lime* (_Citrus hystrix DC._, Rutaceae), also known as *kieffer lime* and *limau purut* is a type of lime native to Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, commonly used in Southeast Asian cuisine, and widely grown worldwide as a backyard shrub.
> The kaffir lime is a rough, bumpy green fruit that grows on very thorny bush with aromatic and distinctively shaped "double" leaves. It is well suited to container growing. The green lime fruit is distinguished by its bumpy exterior and its small size (approx. 4 cm wide).


I know this is not the meaning that audio has asked about, but it is a meaning that is in routine current usage, apparently without any sense of the connection with the other usage.


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## ewie

There's a pidgin language (formerly?) spoken in South Africa, called Fanakalo, which *used to be called* (back in colonial days) _Kitchen Kaffir_, a name indicative of something-or-other.
I know the term but have never used it.  Apart from being offensive, it would be pretty pointless using it in the UK, I reckon.


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## cuchuflete

I know it from books and movies about South Africa in the bad old days.  I've never heard it spoken by any AE or BE speaker other than in movies.


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## audiolaik

Wilma_Sweden said:


> _taboo_ a very offensive word for a black person, used by white people in South Africa."
> 
> /Wilma


 


Loob said:


> I've just consulted a South African who's staying with me.
> 
> She says it's the South African equivalent of _nigger_.


 
As far as I remember, the word _nigger _is sometimes used by black people in reference to other_ "blacks"_, and then it's not considered offensive. Is it the same with _kaffir_?


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## sound shift

A white Zimbabwean of my acquaintance used this word, but said he was mimicking others and claimed that the word was not part of his vocabulary.


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## Loob

audiolaik said:


> As far as I remember, the word _nigger _is sometimes used by black people in reference to other_ "blacks"_, and then it's not considered offensive. Is it the same with _kaffir_?


My informant tells me that _kaffir_ is not used by black South Africans.


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## audiolaik

Loob said:


> My informant tells me that _kaffir_ is not used by black South Africans.


 
Thank you, Loob!

PS I can smell MI6....


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## roxcyn

This word I believe is Africaans if I remember correctly & it was used as an insult to blacks during apartheid .  

Correction: Wikipedia states it comes from Arabic but it was used in southern Africa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_(ethnic_slur)

Pablo


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## roxcyn

Loob said:


> My informant tells me that _kaffir_ is not used by black South Africans.


 

No, from my studies I remember it was the whites who used it.  Wikipedia confirms that.  See the link I posted above.


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## Thomas Tompion

I have a new neighbour who comes from Birmingham.  He tells me that he was born in Birmingham and that when his parents died he was the only person remaining in his house, and that over time his house became the only house in the street not occupied by Muslims.

He also tells me that the Muslims would sometimes call him 'a Kaffir' or, in its shortened form, 'a Kaff' which is their derogatory term for non-Muslim people.  My neighbour expressed surprise that I was unfamiliar with the word in this use, but this thread suggests I am not alone.

I don't think the forum has many members from, or with much access to, the Muslim urban population of modern Britain, but I suspect that this word, 'Kaffir', is used in this way among them, in the cities where they are numerous, like Bradford, Luton, and Blackburn.

My neighbour speaks tellingly of how offensive he found it.

Here's an old Guardian article on the topic - It is good manners, not political correctness, to reject the word 'kaffir' | Nesrine Malik


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## DonnyB

I definitely remember it, having grown up as a teenager in the era of Apartheid, but it was used pretty much exclusively in the context of South Africa: it wasn't one of the many racial insults otherwise in common circulation at the time in the UK.

Like all or most such terms it's nowadays fallen into disuse - although interestingly I see Lexico (Oxford Dictionaries) also include the definition:  _[offensive]__ An insulting term used by some Muslims for non-Muslims. _


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## Keith Bradford

Like other members, I learnt this at the same time as_ kraal, kopje, veldt _and other Afrikaans words in the 1950s from schoolboy adventure stories, probably in the _Boy's Own Annual _or the_ Monster Book for Boys_.  It never formed part of my active vocabulary though I didn't realise it was offensive.

It appears that the Muslim usage pre-dates that by far - _caffre _dates in English from 1599, derived from the Arabic word _kafara_, to deny. The South African kaffirs were Xhosa, a sub-group of the Bantu, living in Kaffraria or Caffraria, part of the Eastern Cape. Perhaps the two words are not related?

The only place I would expect to hear it today is referring to the *kaffir lily* (Clivia Miniata), a tropical houseplant. See Kaffir Lily Plant - Clivia Miniata - Description And Care Information. Is somebody now going to tell me that's offensive, I wonder?


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## Thomas Tompion

DonnyB said:


> {...}
> Like all or most such terms it's nowadays fallen into disuse


This is just false, I fear. I've just given you evidence that it's now in common everyday use in Muslim communities in Britain.

The Guardian article confirms this fact.

_"For last week's instalment of Channel 4's Dispatches, Lessons in Hate and Violence, teachers and preachers at certain Muslim faith schools in the UK were filmed using the word "kaffir" frequently in reference to non-Muslims." _ Is this likely if the term has 'nowadays fallen into disuse'?


Keith Bradford said:


> The only place I would expect to hear it today is referring to the *kaffir lily* (Clivia Miniata), a tropical houseplant.


Try going to Blackburn, or Luton, or Bradford, or the Sparkhill area of Birmingham.

I'm quite surprised that members seem reluctant to believe what they are told is happening in modern Britain.

Was I unclear? or didn't you believe me?


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## Myridon

Thomas Tompion said:


> But I've just given you evidence that it's now in common everyday use in Muslim communities in Britain.
> 
> The Guardian article confirms this fact.


The 2011 article proves it's in use in 2020?


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## DonnyB

Thomas Tompion said:


> This is just false, I fear. I've just given you evidence that it's now in common everyday use in Muslim communities in Britain.


Well my comment about it having "nowadays fallen into disuse" was specifically in reference to the usage the OP had asked us about and which I was replying to, hence my prefacing remark  "Like all or most such terms ..."  I'm sorry if I apparently didn't make that clear.

As regards its use by Muslims to refer to non-Muslims, I've never been to Blackburn, Luton, Bradford or Sparkhill, and I don't know any Muslims personally well enough to ask them whether that's how they commonly refer to non-Muslims.  But reading the article you've linked to, I _suspect_ the answer could well be be "some do, some don't".  Whether that amounts to the term being "in common everyday use" amongst British Muslims seems to me debatable.


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## Thomas Tompion

DonnyB said:


> [...]
> Whether that amounts to the term being "in common everyday use" amongst British Muslims seems to me debatable.


If you are thinking of debating it, you should pay a short visit to the Somali community in Sparkhill.

I was in a position of complete ignorance like you until my neighbour told me of his experience, which led me to investigate the matter.

I was responding to the question in the OP -_ Is it_ (the word _Kaffir_)_ in widespread use among BrE and AmE speakers?_

The answer seems to me to be that many people are completely ignorant of the word and its use, but among some communities in Britain is in very widespread and common and offensive use.  That's why some moderate community leaders are trying to stamp it out.

Maybe I should have started a new thread, but it seemed to me that the OP  here was general enough to cover the point I wished to make.


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## Andygc

Myridon said:


> The 2011 article proves it's in use in 2020?


Is this recent enough?

From a Crown Prosecution Service press release - 3 July 2020.





> Shaikh was prosecuted by the Counter Terrorism Division of the CPS which presented evidence of Shaikh’s contact with the undercover officers from 20 August last year. On that day she told them, “…I rather die young and get Jannah [paradise] quickest way possible…we love death they love life…I always knows [sic] I wanted do something big…killing one *kafir* [unbeliever] is not enough for me.”


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## Loob

Your posts sent me a-googling, TT, and I found, inter alia:
The term has its etymological roots in the Arabic word (Arabic: كافرkāfir) that is usually translated into English as "disbeliever" or "non-believer" to describe "one without religion" or by a Muslim to describe a non-Muslim.[8] The word is non-racial and applied to non-Muslims in general, and therefore in the past to non-Muslims who were encountered along the Swahili coast by Arab traders. {...}​​The term acquired a distinctly derogatory meaning in the context of South African history, especially during the Apartheid era.​source Kaffir (racial term) - Wikipedia​
I wonder, then, if it's as offensive in the context of Muslims in Britain as it is in the context of South Africa.


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## Thomas Tompion

Loob said:


> [...]
> I wonder, then, if it's as offensive in the context of Muslims in Britain as it is in the context of South Africa.


I'm in no position to draw such comparisons, of course.  I've not been a black South African sworn at by a white one, and I haven't been to the Muslim district of Luton.

If you don't believe that it's offensive, Loob, I'll give you my neighbour's telephone number.  Up to now, I've been trying to get people to take my word for it.  If you ring my neighbour, who is a gentle Brummy in his early 70s given to quiet pleasures like playing the guitar and an occasional round of golf, and ask about the word, you will find he quickly descends into a gibbering vituperative wreck.

Some online conversations I have had the displeasure to read on the subject support the view expressed by my neighbour, and the violence of the language - talk of Kaffirs on one side and of Drinkers of Camels' piss on the other - would make you glad to be living on the less salubrious side of Basingstoke.


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## Barque

Loob said:


> The term has its etymological roots in the Arabic word (Arabic: كافرkāfir) that is usually translated into English as "disbeliever" or "non-believer" to describe "one without religion" or by a Muslim to describe a non-Muslim.


This, I believe, is the original meaning of the word - a word used by Muslims to describe someone who didn't believe in the holy prophet and all that, and then it came to be used by white South Africans.


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## Thomas Tompion

Barque said:


> This, I believe, is the original meaning of the word - a word used by Muslims to describe someone who didn't believe in the holy prophet and all that, and then it came to be used by white South Africans.


Yes, indeed, I think we are all agreed on this.  The word occurs in the Quran in this sense.

What I am trying to explain is the emotive power that this word has acquired on the lips of certain urbanised Muslims in the UK, and we all know that words etymologically as white as snow can acquire deeply offensive overtones with usage.


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## Andygc

Thomas Tompion said:


> What I am trying to explain is the emotive power that this word has acquired on the lips of certain urbanised Muslims in the UK


TT, I don't think there's any doubt. When Safiyya Shaikh referred to a "kafir" during her police interview she wasn't using a friendly term for non-believers. She was referring to people she wished to kill. The term has been used often enough by so-called Islamic fundamentalists in their hate-filled diatribes picked up by the media's microphones. I'd be pretty unhappy to be addressed as a _kafir _or _kaffir_, just as much as would my atheist brother-in-law of Muslim heritage - who lives in Birmingham.


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## Thomas Tompion

Andygc said:


> [...]
> TT, I don't think there's any doubt.


Bless you, Andy.  Thank you, but look at one or two of the things that some other people are saying.


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## lentulax

Thomas Tompion said:


> but among some communities in Britain it is in very widespread and common and offensive use. That's why some moderate community leaders are trying to stamp it out.



Yes, I've come across it too. Whilst in the past (and for some people now) the word, used for non-Muslims,  may have had no offensive intention, it *is* used offensively now;  to varying degrees, where we think it's justified, many of us English-speakers have modified our own use of language as some words in the context of race, gender etc. have been recognised as unacceptably aggressive or demeaning, and I think 'kaffir' can be said to be in that category, as some Muslim leaders, as Thomas Tompion says, now realise.


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## natkretep

In the press around here, the Arabic term for infidel is often spelt _qafir_. This is part of the reason I didn't recognise it first, and associated _kaffir _with the kaffir lime (mentioned by panj, post 13), especially as I had a kaffir lime tree in my garden.   

There is some tension between Muslims and non-Muslims in South-east Asia, and so the word is used in the context of this tension, and is meant to be offensive. So this accords with what TT, Andy and lentulax said.


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## kentix

Infidel sounds rather problematic in this day and age, too, in our society, even though it's a totally normal dictionary word. So it's not just the words that are at issue, but the conception that those ideas even need expressing, whatever word is used.


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## Barque

lentulax said:


> Whilst in the past (and for some people now) the word, used for non-Muslims, may have had no offensive intention


I think it's always had offensive undertones--used for an unbeliever, it means something like a heathen and suggests that person is inferior to a true Muslim.


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## natkretep

To me it feels stronger than 'heathen' or 'pagan' which I think can be used neutrally or exotically, and some might even use those labels for themselves. Sometimes kafir can be used to label other Muslims because they are considered heretics or apostates.


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## Thomas Tompion

natkretep said:


> To me it feels stronger than 'heathen' or 'pagan' which I think can be used neutrally or exotically, and some might even use those labels for themselves. Sometimes kafir can be used to label other Muslims because they are considered heretics or apostates.


Yes, there's an interesting article here by Aditya Satsangi* -* Kafir, the most racist term - PGurus

His last two recommendations are interesting:

*Ensure* that all Muslim children are taught respect for all non-Muslims
*Regulate* the course curriculum in Mosques especially related to the term ‘kafir’


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## Keith Bradford

_I said "The only place I would expect to hear it today is referring to the *kaffir lily* (Clivia Miniata), a tropical houseplant.                   
Thomas Tompion replied: "Try going to Blackburn, or Luton, or Bradford, or the Sparkhill area of Birmingham."_

Well, yes, TT, I surely would do that if I was claiming to be a researcher into broad usage across the country.  But I haven't lived near Birmingham for 50 years, and never lived in Bradford despite my name.  All any of us can do is tell the truth as we see it, and my truth is in the first line above.  I asked my wife (a better plantsperson than me) and she'd heard of _kaffir lime (Citrus hystrix)_ but not _kaffir lily_.

(By the way, I worked in race relations in Muslim areas of the English North and Midlands between 1970 and 1990 and didn't come across the word then either.  Is this a generational thing, I wonder?)


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## Thomas Tompion

Keith Bradford said:


> [...]
> (By the way, I worked in race relations in Muslim areas of the English North and Midlands between 1970 and 1990 and didn't come across the word then either. Is this a generational thing, I wonder?)


That's interesting, Keith.

I'm surprised, and not competent to hazard a view.

Modern urbanised Muslims in Britain who use the word offensively aren't much given to writing novels, I suspect, so ngrams aren't going to be much help.


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