Monday, August 22, 2011

haitian men usually call themselves neg, but is it offensive when foreigners use that word while addressing haitian?

Question taken from comments from 8/17/2011  10:01 AM post.

No, it's not.
Although the Haitian Creole word "nèg" literally comes from the French "nègre" which means "black or negro", it is used as a general term for "man" in Haitian Creole.

So "nèg" could be a white or black man in Haitian Creole.

Sometimes, you will hear Haitians say: "Yon nèg blan" which means "a white man".

Haitians will use "nèg" to mean "a friend, a comrade, a confidant, a guy".


You will often hear the following terms:

nèg pa m → my buddy, my pal

nèg save → a clever, smart, or polished individual

nèg sòt → someone who's not so smart

nèg mòn → a country boy, a hillbilly

nèg fèy → people with no etiquette

nèg ginen → people (especially of African origin) who don't forget where they came from, remain true to their roots.

The feminine equivalent of "nèg" is "nègès". "nègès" really means "a beautiful native
Did that help?

4 comments:

  1. IS neg mon something similar like abitan, gwayil, abitan dekore?

    ReplyDelete
  2. yes, it is! Nice spelling friend!

    gwayil, abitan dekore, abitan are synonyms of nèg mòn.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for going into detail with your explanation. This is good to know about.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dakò Dory.

    A lot of foreigners are cautious about using the word "nèg".

    ReplyDelete