SecretSphere
Member
I'm not sure how it is in Germany, but in the Netherlands I think it's more about race/ethnicity + bad adjective (genitals, diseases, excrement) that makes it insulting. Dutch ethnic slurs against Turks, Jews or Moroccans for example mostly includes the normal word of the ethnicity. I don't now any Dutch slur for a Turk of a Jew that doesn't use the word 'Turk' or 'Jood' (Jew). The same happened in the case of black people with 'neger', where the 'neger' part was a neutral, non insulting word, but the insult came from the use of the adjectives. It has become more taboo in it self, but I would still argue that the word 'neger' in Germanic languages doesn't come close to the connotation of 'nigger' , mainly because most of the time it is used with adjectives to make it stronger, while 'nigger' can be one of the most terrible insults without the need of an adjective.Don't agree at all from my background of living 28 years in Berlin/Germany, knowing a lot of poc's here who would tell you the same, including my father.Nobody of them would also say that Bimbo is way worse. Did i get called Bimbo in my life? sure, but Neger was and is Nr.1 slur in my view. From Negerkind to "oller" Kackneger etc.
Even if you have some empircal data or deep FORSA researches undermining your claim, it would not change my view that "neger" = is just the german "nigger" in terms of slur nowadays no matter how inoffensive it was in the past in Germany/Switzerland/Austria.
Edit: 'Bimbo' in Dutch is a slur for a woman by the way, a bit like 'slut'.