Bigotry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For people named Bigot and other meanings, see Bigot (disambiguation).

A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own. The origin of the word in English dates back to at least 1598, via Middle French, and started with the sense of religious hypocrite, especially a woman.

Bigot is often used as a pejorative term against a person who is obstinately devoted to their prejudices even when these views are challenged or proven to be false. Forms of bigotry may have a related ideology or world views.

1 Etymology
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Etymology

The exact origin of the term is unknown, but may have come from the German bei and gott, or the English by God. William Camden wrote that the Normans were first called bigots, when their Duke Rollo, who receiving Gisla, daughter of King Charles, in marriage, and with her the investiture of the dukedom, refused to kiss the king's foot in token of subjection, unless the king would hold it out for that purpose. And being urged to it by those present, Rollo answered hastily, "No by God", whereupon the King turning about, called him bigot; which name passed from him to his people ^[1]. This is likely fictional, however, as Gisla is unknown in Frankish sources. It is true that the French used the term bigot as an abuse for the Normans.^[2]

The 12th century Anglo-Norman author Wace claimed that bigot was an insult that the French used against the Normans, but it is unclear whether it entered the English language via this route.^[3]

According to Egon Friedell, "bigot" is of the same root as "visigoth". In Vulgar Latin the initial v transformed into b (phenomenon today encountered in Iberian languages, such as Spanish language and Portuguese language; visi had truncated into bi in Vulgar Latin (phenomenon common in French and Portuguese). Certainly the Visigoths did behave in a manner which might have given birth to the expression; they were very race-conscious and intolerant; they loathed Roman civilization which they saw as effete and degenerated; they professed Arianism while their subjects were Catholics, they enforced very strict anti-Jewish laws in Spain, and they treated their Roman subjects as their inferiors and gave the birth to expression "blue-blooded" because of their fairer skin (where veins were more translucent and bluish than that of their Roman subjects). The Spanish word bigote means moustache, probably because Visigoths had moustaches. Since both Normans and Goths were Germanic peoples, the Franks as a Romance nation might well have referred the Normans as "Visigoths" with the expression bigot. This claim is also supported by the fact that the word bigoth for Visigoths appear in Medieval Latin language.

Barbara Walker in her book "Womens Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" claims the term was coined by German Pagans in reference to the intolerant Catholic missionaries and priests by the term "bei gott" or bigot. As "be got" was a term commonly used by the priests and missionaries. The Catholic priests and missionaries who first converted were, according to her, notoriously close minded and intolerant of all other religions. History doesn't necessarily support this view, see St. Boniface. According to Walker, they saw them also as hypocritical in that they claimed Jesus Christ the "Prince of Peace" and went about converting people through tortorous means, and murdered those who would not accept Jesus Christ the "Prince of Peace" as lord and savior. This explanation is not likely to be true, however, as German bei is not pronounced with hard i as in English "bee", but as English "bye", and would have produced a word not unlike byegot or baigot. Likewise, the history does not support Walker's view, as the Germans and Franks adopted Christianity fairly peacefully in the Dark Ages.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^{^} This article incorporates content from the 1728 Cyclopaedia, a publication in the public domain. [1]
^{^} Word Histories And Mysteries: From Abracadabra to Zeus. Houghton Mifflin Company. 2004. ISBN 0-618-45450-0. p 24.
^{^} Ayto, John. Dictionary of Word Origins: The Histories of More Than 8,000 English-Language Words. New York: Arcade Publishing. 1990.