Moor

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Mohr is an outdated German-language term for Africans Historically (old- and middle-high-German) they initially called the Moors as inhabitants of ancient and medieval North Africa; already in the Middle Ages but also already generalizing people with dark skin color, from the 16. century increasingly in this extended meaning.

The word is still rarely used, and if so, then in the historical or literary context or as part of designations, for example as a coat of arms figure in heraldry. The name and image of the “mohren” were also included in numerous subsequent names, for example in the field of fauna and flora. Pictures of the Mohren served as a company logo and in the advertising of certain products, but also in the context of different customs. In the 21st century, several companies have changed their figures.

Since about 1960, the ambiguity of the word between historical development and use as a stereotypical appellation has been pointed out, awakening a certain notion of a black man, leading to discussions about his racially discriminatory character.

Language history

The word is in Old High German of the 8. century in the form occupied in Middle High German as or . It initially referred to a “inhabitant of Mauritania (Morocco), Ethiopia”, then also a person of dark skin color, and is a borrowed from “inhabitant of the North African province of Mauritania, Moors, Northwest Africans”.

The Latin name “Maure” goes back to “Inhabitant of Mauritania”; The ancient kingdom has nothing in common with the present West African state of Mauritania. The initial word is controversial. It is attributed on the one hand to a borrowing from the Phoenician or from a Berber language, on the other hand in Greek “brown, black”. This could be “dark, indistinct, hard to see; blind, helpless.” But this can also be a secondary education to the ethnic name, because word and meaning are only proven in later Greek.

Both the simple and (“hell bog”) were used as a synonym for the devil, who was then imagined with black skin color. Thus Walther von der Vogelweide wrote in the 13th century: “Now teach him his black book, which hell gave him Mohr, and from it they now read.” In Central High German, a distinction was also made between ("Maure with dark skin color") and ("Maure"). From the 16th century onwards, “Moor” was considered exclusively synonymous with a person with dark skin, while the Moor was henceforth referred to as such. English, mediated since 1390 by French more, Italian and Spanish as well as French, however, preserved the ethnic or geographical attribution.

As in the 18th century the expression “mohr” was increasingly replaced by “Negro”