Kanake

Kanaka or Kanaker is a dirty word for people with " southern " appearance.

Word origin

Kannakermann was in the late 19th century among German sailors a common term for comrades from Polynesia or Oceania. Since these had a reputation for being particularly capable and loyal comrades, this term was used both for this group usually in a positive way and often referred to as "honorary title " for particularly good comrades of European origin. This was common practice for example, as an old Kanaker in the same sense as the North German name old Swede before the Second World War in southern Germany and Austria.

Borrowed the word is probably from the Polynesian kanaka for 'man', the Hawaiian name for the Kanak of New Caledonia. However, it could also originate from the language of Indonesian and Malay Bahasa Indonesia or Bahasa Melayu, however, where kanak, child means '.

Kanake as an insult

Kanaka is recently in Germany a name for immigrants with a Mediterranean look. In the early phase of the recruitment of guest workers in the 1970s often used against Italians, Spaniards and Greeks, the term today usually aimed at people of Arab, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish and South and Southeast European descent. The word is not Ethnophaulismus, ie a disparaging popular name in the strict sense, as it is applied to any non-specific ethnicities.

Kanaka was also a name for the Slovenes settled in Moravia (see also the article on Schlawiner ). The term has negative connotations against the minorities of the Czech tribes because of the cultural demarcation of German Bohemia. It is believed, therefore, the similarity between the words Kanake and Hanake and the negative connotation of the word Kanaka comes.

Kanake as a self-designation

The term is increasingly used in Germany since the 1990s as a conscious self-designation of mostly young migrants. This causes the curse word is translated, in which it loses its pejorative character by " appropriation " and should be the expression of a private, positive understanding of identity. As a foreign designation, the designation is still understood as Kanaka as clearly offensive.

Kanaksprak

Derived from the word Kanaka is the name Kanak Sprak or Kanakisch, also called " Turks German " or " Kiez German " consistently for a German sociolect, which has been formed in front of all in urban centers of the adolescent successor generations mostly of Turkish migrant workers and themselves and by their own language structures - stile distinguished.

While the term Kanaksprak originally in 1995 by Feridun Zaimoğlu with the book Kanaksprak - was created 24 discordant notes from the margins of society in awareness of discrimination and the integration problems of sociolect is by the comedian Kaya Yanar (What are you looking at ?) And Erkan and Stefan ( Bullyparade, headnut.tv, movies ) have been thwarted to quite come the year 2000 in fashion, and is about the German Rap - used - in the sense of ethnic pride ( ethnic pride ).