Kanake (or Kanacke, Kanaa(c)k; pl. ''Kanacken'' or ''Kanaks/Kanax'') is a German

ethnic slur The following is a list of ethnic slurs, ethnophaulisms, or ethnic epithets that are, or have been, used as insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnic, national, or racial group or to refer to them in a derogatory, pej ...

for people with roots from

Southeast Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe is a geographical sub-region of Europe, consisting primarily of the region of the Balkans, as well as adjacent regions and Archipelago, archipelagos. There are overlapping and conflicting definitions of t ...

(the

Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

), the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, and

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

. It is also used to designate

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

and rural people, who are referred to as "Ruhrpottkanaken". Many use it as a derogatory word, but also as a self-denomination.

History of the word

The word is originally derived from the Hawaiian word ''kanaka'' meaning “person, human being” (from Proto-Polynesian * taŋata).Se
entry *taŋata
in the ''Polynesian Lexicon Project''. Towards the end of the 19th century, the word ''Kanaka'' was used on the plantations of British colonies in the Pacific, referring to the workers who originated from various islands of Oceania. German borrowed the term as ''Kanake'', and assigned it a derogatory meaning referring to a broader array of populations. In the 1960s, the word was transferred with more ambiguous connotations to

Southern Europe Southern Europe is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, C ...

an immigrants and the working class, it is now used with a strong derogatory connotation against people with roots in the "

Orient The Orient is a term referring to the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of the term ''Occident'', which refers to the Western world. In English, it is largely a meto ...

" (including North Africa, the Middle East and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

). The word has undergone some

reappropriation In linguistics, reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of a semantic change (i. ...

since the 1990s, see e.g. Kanak Sprak.

References

{{Ethnic slurs Ethnic and religious slurs German words and phrases Hawaiian words and phrases Racism in Germany

History of the word

See also

References