Adding variant subtags 'aluku' and 'nduyka' and 'pamaka' for dialects

Doug Ewell doug at ewellic.org
Sun Aug 23 22:09:43 CEST 2009


Kent Karlsson <kent dot karlsson14 at comhem dot se> wrote:

>> a little bit outfashioned these last decades because they actually 
>> are more ethnies names than language names. "Bushi nenge tongo", 
>> literally "the language [tongue] of the bush negroes" (short: 
>> "Nenge"), is the way those people would refer to what they would 
>> agree they are all having in common.
>
> One possible worry here is that this designation **may** be considered 
> derogative. Not that I know that it is. I'm just worried that it might 
> be.
>
> Ethnologue lists:
> Alternate?names
> ?? Aukaans, ?Djoeka? , ?Djuka? , Ndjuk?, Ndyuka, Njuk?, Okanisi
> Even though ISO 639-3 lists only Aukan.
>
> Ethnologue also comments: "Spelling of Ndyuka without the initial 
> nasal is considered derogatory." (this is also indicated by the quote 
> marks for these entries in the alternate names list quoted above).

Pascal said "Bushi nenge tongo" or "Nenge" were the names used by the 
speakers themselves.  And he did not propose using the spelling "Djoeka" 
or "Djuka," which are the ones called out by Ethnologue as being 
derogatory.  So I'm not sure where the concerns about "derogatory" come 
from.  The current English-language disfavor for the word "negroes" 
should be completely irrelevant here.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Thornton, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
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