Moor Westmoreland England Family Crest
Etymology of Black and Moor
The word ‘Black’ can be traced back to its proto Indo-European origins through the word ‘blac’ which meant pale, wan, colourless, or albino.
‘Blac’ was incorporated into Old French as Blanc, Italian and Spanish as Blanco, Bianca, Bianco, Bianchi.
In Old English “blac” person meant fair; someone devoid of colour, similar to the word “blanc” which still means white or fair person.
In Middle English the word was spelt as “blaec” same thing as the modern word “black”, only at that time, around 1051 AD, it still meant a fair skin, or so-called white person. The words “blacca” an Old/Middle English word still resonates with “blanke” the Dutch-Germanic term for white people of today.
Black in Old and Middle English
Thus, we can see that the Old English ‘blæc’ was relative to its ‘blac’ origin as it was predominantly used as an adjective to describe ‘colour pertaining to matter that was colourless’. Other cognates of ‘blac’ include examples like: Bleak, Blake, Bleach, Blanch.
Good examples of the use of “blac” as something that meant blond or fair can be seen in Old English literature such as K. Ælfred’s ‘Bæda’ from c.890 where the following phrase can be found: “hæfde blæc feax” meaning “have blond hair”.
Black’s Semantic Shifts
It was not till the sixteenth century that the semantic broadening of black occured- both figurative connotations as well as literal.
From ‘blac, blake, bleaken, blaccen’ and their literal meaning ‘to bleach out or make white, blond or pale’ came the figurative meaning ‘to stain someones reputation, or defame’ or darken. Literally “blac” by that time came to mean night-like colour, dark. One can say a very dramatic shift indeed. It was also the era, when the Vandals and the Goths were busy writing themselves into history and writing out the European Mauros (melan-chros or melanin people) out of history.
These additional meanings however was purely negative and as their influence broadened, the semantic shift of black began to mean having malignant or deadly purposes and even pertaining to or involving death- ‘black curse’(1583), and from previous centuries ‘The Black Death’.
Blac underwent a final shift as a K was added to the end of the word and it became a new insulting manner to address the Moors (today’s so-called Blacks) a people that had lived for thousands of years in Europe and around, but were now hated and hounded. They were called the Queen’s Black enemies, the blacca moors and finally just the adjective used as a noun, blacks.
It should be noted for the records that word used to describe the colour black in historical and classical Europe was the word Moor (also Melas). First used in Europe by the Greeks, as Mauros. Its cognates are found in every European language even if variant spellings are used. Thus you have Mohr (German), Maure, Mire, (French), Moor (English), Moros (Italian/Spanish), Mor (Old and Middle English). All those variants meant the same thing, the colour today known as black.
The Europeans took away our names, called us niggers, coloureds, blacks, negros, Africans, subsaharans, etc. All those are insulting names. We are none of those. Not Jamaicans, not Nigerians, nor Americans.
We are Moors, from the most ancient time. Umoros, Umorus, Muurs, Mawus, the children of light, the bearers of civilization and compassion, the golden ones, the first people, Ethiopians, Mauritanians and Mauritians.
Check ancient history, you will hear of the Moors, but you will not hear about negros. The pale ones (the blanks) stole our names, and pretended it referenced only some Arab Muslim conquest of Spain.
Nooooo! The Greeks knew the Muurs, the Romans knew the Muuros, the ancient Indians and the Chinese too. Because ancient Egyptians called their land Ta-Meri, or Ta-Muri, the land of the Muurs. They were the sea-men who navigated the globe and brought the light to all.
We are those Muurs. We are their descendants. We are not the blacks. The blancho people, the so-called white people of today, they are the blaccas.
Oguejiofo Annu
Sources
The Origin of the Word ‘Black’: How Black Entered the English Language | Suite101.com
http://suite101.com/article/the-origin-of-the-word-black-a50079#ixzz1wJ950Gey
Negro Law of South Carolina 1848: SECTION 4 The term Negro is confined to slave Africans (The ancient Berbers) and their descendants. It does not embrace the free inhabitants of Africa, such as the Egyptians, Moors, or the Negro Asiatics, such as Lascars. Negro law
http://genealogytrails.com/scar/negro_law.htm
shukran to brother oguijiofo annu word is bond this is as powerfully put as it can be ,we give thanks to brother annu
Thank you for this indepth report on our true culture, identity, as well as correcting misrepresentation of our true ethnic identity; I have studied the history of the Moors, since age 13, on the 5th of April of 2018, I turned 67. I’m the author of an independent feature film screenplay about the Moor conquest of Spain in the 8th century(711 A.D. – 713 A.D.), entitled; “Tarik”, aka (The Rock Of Gibraltar), the Moor calvary general who was the commander or supreme general of the Sultan Whalid I, massive army, called the tip of his spear, while tracing the history of the Moor back to Egypy, Abyssinia, and biblical time, up to their conquest of Spain, Portugal and the South of France.
This is a wonderful article.
Best Regards,
Michael
I second that! Ndugu Annu, asante to you. My head is just reeling and I guess I need some space to absorb the full implications of this. Its so profound.
The more is revealed about eurocentric fabrications, the more I am comming to the conclusion that what is recieved truth is literally THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THE FACTS.
Then again why would one be surprised?
The only way to conquer and keep subdued a great people, is to DESTORT THINGS COMPLETELY BEYOND RECOGNITION.
Thus through time (over 2500 years since Ta-Meri fell) and space (worldwide conquering), many Afrikans reading the above facts will dismiss it as just rabid afro-centric nuance.
Its not “mainstream” they would bleat in one way or the other. Just like most europeans anyway.
Such Afrikans (actually Muurs!) would rather a source from europe to school them on things!
This is lobotomy at its most evil manifestation: A complete memory erasure.
We have some way to go, but we are getting there. The Universe is with us.
Thanks for the above article, Rasta. That article has uplifted my spirit. Although i still use the world black when referring to africans, i add people at the end because i know when whites say “blacks” they are using it to mean animals, something not human. And when whites say “blacks” it is another way of saying nigger. Thats always been my feelings whenever whites use the world blacks.
“The only way to conquer and keep subdued a great people, is to DESTORT THINGS
COMPLETELY BEYOND RECOGNITION” The blueprint for whites conquering the world is in the prince by machiavelli. Something similar to the above quotation is written in The Prince by Machiavelli.
Peace… I wouldn’t even refer to the people as “black people” at all. The word “black” is a descriptive word. It doesn’t denote a person, place, or thing. People groups can’t be a color. We are Moors and need to refer to us as Moors/Muurs. If we are calling ourselves by these slaves codes such as black, negro, African-american, Afro-portegues, Indian, colored, etc.. then we consent to being under the jurisdiction of the oppressor who put these codes in place. This articles talks about the entomology of the word black. We must understand that we are not black and should never refer to each other as such.
ISLAM!!!!
ASE’!!!!!
TRUTH!!!!!
Rite on?? The spells they out on our culture has to identified first then cast out reversed We are not B)Lack WE are Earth ? people original
My maternal family are Germans with the surname Mohr. There are to this day some members who have dark good looks. Black hair, brown eyes, and a nice tan when they expose themselves to the sun. So, these articles ring true for me. I don’t resemble these relatives. Because my dad s family are Nordics and I am tall ,blond and blue eyed in appearance. I do ,however hold a deep respect towards African peoples. My kinfolk too.
moran variant of moor.
Mar / Mor – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moran_%28Syriac%29
Moir / Moors – http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/Moir.html
Moran meaning – Descendant of the great one
black is derived and transliterated from the Norse/Icelandic: blekk meaning ink, spcefically (black ink) if blak or blaek was used in old english to describe a person it was because they had complexion similar to ink, not because they were white, blank is derived from the Frankish word for negative space, emptiness void of physical matter, white is derived from the Norse/Sanskrit, hiviti, blanc and black are two different words with different etymological origins stemming from different languages.
Moor is derived from the Hellenic word Mauros which the Mediterraneans used to identify the black skinned North Africans, similar to the way the Spaniards used Negro as an adjective for Sephardic Jews, Moors and black west Africans (Negro in its original context was not a pejorative term), Moor is an adjective which denotes complexion not ethnicity, there was no race Moors because even to this day North Africans are still known by their tribal names not Muurs as the ancient Egyptians were referred to themselves as Kam-au not Muurs. (Ta Meri) was ancient Meroe, also once the name of Egypt, it is not a Cognate of Moor, you are confounding names and their definitions simply because they sound familiar, as far as not being Jamaican or nigerian if you were born in those countries what then are you supposed to be called, if they are geographical terms denoting country lands birth, Nationality and tribal origins are two different things.
You refuse to be labled by European names but Identify yourselves as Moors and Ethiopians, Latin and Anglicized words of Greek origins
Peace
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography of Sir William Smith states of the ancient Mauretania
“From the earliest times it was occupied by a people whom the ancients distinguished by the name MAURUSII (?????????, Strab. i. p.5, iii. pp. 131, 137, xvii. pp. 825, 827; Liv. 24.49; Verg. A. 4.206; ??????????, Ptol. 4.1.11) or MAURI, “Blacks,” in the Alexandrian dialect, Paus. i, 33 § 5, 8.43. [2.297] § 3; Sal. Jug. 19; Pomp. Mela, 1.4.3; Liv. 21.22, 28.17; Hor. Carm. 1.22. 2, 2.6. 3, 3.10. 18; Tac. Ann. 2.52, 4.523, 14.28, Hist. 1.78, 2.58, 4.50; Lucan 4.678; Juv. 5.53, 6.337; Flor. 3.1, 4.2); hence the name MAURETANIA (the proper form as it appears in inscriptions, Orelli, Inscr. 485, 3570, 3672; and on coins, Eckhel, vol. vi. p. 48…”
I see what you are trying to express here. We are all Moors because the first woman was the Afrikan Moabite woman. We have all sucked from the same mother’s nipple. We must recognize and realize that tribal names are nothing more than Moorish family names. Just because we come from a different tribe, or have different tribal surnames, doesn’t mean we’re not a part of the same family. We are the mighty Moors that navigated all the seven seas and brought civilization to it’s highest point of being.
Islam, yes you are right we are moors. The problem right now is how ower own people still embrace those European slave names with pride and will run from the truths.
Temu, you’re completely right on the etymology of “black” – the similarity to “blank” is coincidental, the two are not cognate. While I appreciate and support the political drive of the original post, these are wild suppositions and not supported by true scholarship or evidence.
I’m late on this , but thank you for your break down of this word “Black” much appreciated..peace.
Are you on Social Media? Or any other outlet that we could communicate thru?
ISLAM….
Muurs, Mauers, Moors/Moabites are of nations/tribal indentities, NOT referred to ethnicity/race, which do NOT exist, except in sociological engineered concepts. Race and ethnicities are labels given by social engineers dividing the human family by subspecies.
Moors, Muurs, Mauers NATION/TRIBE Canaanites, Moabites, Hitites, Cushites, Hammites.
Moor is NOT an adjective (adj)
Moor is a NOUN/even used as a VERB.
PEACE
Maurusi is merely an extented form of Mauros, it may have originally been pronounced and transcribed: (Mauros’oi), the Latins abridged it to Mauri. Mauros is still the Hellenic word for (black).
it was an appellation used by foreigners and not the indigenous people, it was later erroneously idenitified as an ethnic title similar to the usage of Nigritian, Negro, African, Arab and Jew. All terms once used to describe unfamiliar Homogeneous and heterogeneous people, because they shared phenotypes or cultures, some as Temu stated are geographical terms
Can you provide me with citations for your statements? I provided you with citations attesting that the ancients knew the inhabitants of West Africa as Maurisi. The Black Africans are the ancients. Pink-whites are relatively new people.
I do not have to accept your empty words. Please back it up with some respectable peer reviewed research work. Thanks Temu.
I am waiting….
To Jahdey
I do not understand what you mean by empty words, the truth is self evident it needs no creedence, wether you chose to believe or not is insignificant. Find me a North African Tribe who identify themselves as Maurisi.
These (ancients) whose works you cite visited north Africa in different periods of time, after the earliest outsiders, the Mediterranean or Hellenic Ionion Greeks used the term (Mauros) which was borrowed by later explorers. Similar to the Portuguese and Spanish explorers of West Africa who first used Negro as an adjective for the Inhabitants, a word which became common amongst later English and Dutch Explorers to the region.
Your parochial view of history has you thinking that Greek is synonymous with White.
Search the definition of black on Google in Greek translate from English to Greek,
See: definitions of Moor p.614 Johnson’s English Dictionary, by Samuel Johnson, John Walker.
Herodotus in his Histories also wrote about the Arrival the first Mediterraneans to North Africa
Note that Mauros and Melas may just be Cognates of one another with the Alveolar trill in Mau(r)os becoming the the Coronal (L) in Me(l)as, and only a small changes in Vowels.
See Charles Duke Younge’s Greek-English Lexicon p.49, for the Term Melas
Temu
You changed the question I asked you, then answered a question I did not ask you. I showed you ancient authors, talking about even more ancient people. They claimed that from ancient time, the West Africans have been known as Muurs. I asked you for a citiation that supports your argument. You ignore my request, pulled out a very irrelevant question (which African tribe today calls itself Moor?), then proceed to post an even more irrelevant citation, about Melas and Muuros.
First answer my question, if you have no answer then own up.
Please cite some credible authorites that support your claim that Muuro is a word foreigners called Africans. I gave you my authorities already showing that from ancient time the so-called Black people have been known as Muuros.
Oh, by the way, did you know that 50% of the words in ancient Greek came from another more ancient language? Egyptian!!! See Martin Bernal.
Did you know that today’s Ethiopians trace the origin of their name from Ethiops, their mythical ancestor. It was not the Greeks who named them Ethiopians. Ethiopians have a 3000 year old written records, and since the most ancient times, they have known themselves as Ethiopians. See Kebra Negast.
you already cited the fact that Moor was term used by Greek and roman travellers, you listed Strabo, Virgill and Lucian.
Please properly reread what I wrote to find the references that I have listed, since you repudiate the facts give me the etymology of the word Muur, where did it originate.
It is true that the Ancient Egyptian vocabulary contributed to the Greek Language but the ancient Egyptian word for black was neither Melas nor Mauros it was Kam or Khek
Eithiop derived from the Greek Aith (burnt, scorched) and Ops (face), countentance. Aithiops was used as a reference to different tribes and nations in different geographical regions one of which were the Kushites of the Sudan and Meroe not modern Ethiopia, neither Homer, HerodOtus nor Diodorus ventered that far into Africa, The Kushites did not refer to them selves as Ethiopians, and since the Kebra Negest (which is not three thousand years old) was Written by men who claimed descent from Shem and the ancient Israelites, who were not Kushites, a people which the mighty Kushites preceeded as a Nation, them claiming a mythical ancestor called Ethiops does not fit into actual history. This also shows the influence of Greek scholarship
You are confusing yourself first you claim ancient Africans were known as Muurs, Know you are saying they were Ethiopians.
I’m still waiting for you give me the etymological origin of Muur from which language did it stem
Temu
You still have not posted any authority for your empty claims.
Meanwhile after I have cited you many authorities, you resort to the logical fallacy of “poisoning the well”.
If you want an honest discussion, then start being honest. If you don’t then go look for some Negro like yourself to play with.
You asked for a tribe in Africa that call themselves Muurs, search no Muur! IN North Africa, there is a country called Mauretania, land of the Muurs. Was this country named by Greeks?
WE have Muuro cco. Was it named by the Romans?
Muurish Ethiopians like us do not need distraction from Negros with low self esteem. here read this line from the article above:
“We are Moors, from the most ancient time. Umoros, Umorus, Muurs, Mawus, the children of light, the bearers of civilization and compassion, the golden ones, the first people, Ethiopians, Mauritanians and Mauritians.”
Now you know why we mentioned Ethiopia in our response.
When you have found an authority, come back and we will discuss. I will fill up your head with hot facts and back them up with solid authorities like I have been doing so far.
In the meantime, do your studies. Familiarize yourself again with the article above to discover the etymological roots of the word Muurs. Hint… Egypt was call Ta-Muri, land of the Moors.
Welcome to Rasta Livewire, where we shock out ignorance with true knowledge.
Jahdey
I believe the origin of the term “Muurs” comes from the civilization of the Lemurians. Which would be out ancient ancient ancestors.