Nigga is a colloquial and vulgar term used in African-American Vernacular English that began as a dialect form of the word nigger, an ethnic slur against black people. The word is commonly associated with hip hop music and African-American gang culture. In dialects of English ( standard British English) that have non-rhotic speech, nigger and nigga are often pronounced the same.
The use of nigger non-pejoratively within the black community was documented in the 1912 book The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson, in which he recounted a scene in New York City around the turn of the century.
I noticed that among this class of colored men the word “nigger” was freely used in about the same sense as the word “fellow,” and sometimes as a term of almost endearment; but I soon learned that its use was positively and absolutely prohibited to white men.
There is conflicting popular opinion on whether there is any meaningful difference between nigga and nigger as a spoken term.Many people consider the terms to be equally pejorative, and the use of nigga both in and outside black communities remains controversial.H. Lewis Smith, author of Bury That Sucka: A Scandalous Love Affair with the N-word, believes that “replacing the ‘er’ with an ‘a’ changes nothing other than the pronunciation” and the African American Registry notes, “Brother (Brotha) and Sister (Sistah or Sista) are terms of endearment. Nigger was and still is a word of disrespect.”The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights group, condemns use of both nigga and nigger.
Some African-Americans only consider nigga offensive when used by people of other races, seeing its use outside a defined social group as an unwelcome cultural appropriation. Used by black people, the term may indicate “solidarity or affection”, similar to the usage of the words dude, homeboy, and bro. Others consider nigga non-offensive except when directed from a non-African-American towards an African-American. Yet others have derided this as hypocritical and harmful, enabling white racists to use the word and confusing the issue over nigger.Conversely, nigga has been used an example of cultural assimilation, whereby members of other ethnicities (particularly younger people) will use the word in a positive way, similar to the previously mentioned bro or dude.
In practice, its use and meaning are heavily dependent on context.As of 2007, the word nigga was used more liberally among younger members of all races and ethnicities in the United States.In addition to African-Americans, other ethnic groups have adopted the term as part of their vernacular, although this usage is very controversial.
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