I am imploring the mods/site admin to place a permanent BAN on the use of the word ''tribe'' to describe our illustrious ethnic groups and nationalities.

It is an inappropriate, insulting, and degrading term coined by British colonialists to describe our great peoples, and we should have no business whatsoever, using that word in our discourse.

Incredibly, some of the ethnicities we thoughtlessly label as ''tribes'' number up to 45 million, large enough to form several countries!

The term itself is borderline racist - one of those terms westerners use on others, never themselves. The Croatian conflict and its atrocities were variously described as ''ethnic cleansing'', ''ethnic conflict'' etc etc, yet the Croats and Serbs combined don't number up to half the population of Igbos, not to mention Yorubas or Hausas.

So please, please, let us end this insult to our people, this insult to African civilization, by consigning the use of that word to the dustbin of colonial history where it belongs!!!

Thank you. 


Journalistic article:

How the use of the word 'tribe' distorts African reality:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3409

I am in total agreement. I have said it repeatedly that the word, tribe refers to packs of monkeys, but the average person would rather remain ignorant.
The only word I use with tribe in it is tribalism, and that is for the simple fact that it is primitive behaviour more akin to animals.

@Op
Briliant!!! Pls immediate action should be taken by the mods. God bless you

Definition:

tribe (trīb)

noun

1.esp. among preliterate peoples, a group of persons, families, or clans believed to be descended from a common ancestor and forming a close community under a leader, or chief.


Why would rational people gladly address themselves by a term which implies the above? 

Are we preliterate people 

Our ranks are filled with world class scientists, business tycoons, engineers, physicists, Nobel Prize winners!

We have no business identifying ourselves as ''tribes''. It's patently ridiculous. Like a man who calls himself a child.

^
Also:

A group of monkeys may be referred to as a mission or a tribe.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Monkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey

Good heavens!

Beaf, I had no idea monkeys were also known as tribes.

No wonder the racist British couldn't wait to slap the label on us.

@ROSSIKE

Thats what they thought of us!
Have you ever heard workmen trying to lift something heavy to the chant, "eshobe! Eee!" "eshobe! Eee!"
It is a fallback to the white foreman goning, "apes obey!" to which the harpless labourers would lift and answer in unison, "eee!"

We have truly been bastardised.

Lawd 'ave mercy!

Chei, but these people dealt with us sha!

Agreed. No more tribe, use ethnicity, ethnic group or the equivalents instead.

but they are tribes in nigeria

ain't they

we have the urhobo tribe

ijebu tribe

anioma tribe etc

alj harem:

we have the urhobo tribe

ijebu tribe

anioma tribe etc

Dude, seriously tho, I'm concerned about you

@Poster

No, tribe is here to stay
Why dont we try banning the "abuse" of it?

Beaf:

I am in total agreement. I have said it repeatedly that the word, tribe refers to packs of monkeys, but the average person would rather remain ignorant.
The only word I use with tribe in it is tribalism, and that is for the simple fact that it is primitive behaviour more akin to animals.

The word is too ambiguous, though. People should be more explicit and use "racism"/"bigotry" when necessary. "Tribalism" is also used to attack people who simply seek good for their people. That imo is wrong.

Beaf:

@ROSSIKE

Thats what they thought of us!
Have you ever heard workmen trying to lift something heavy to the chant, "eshobe! Eee!" "eshobe! Eee!"
It is a fallback to the white foreman goning, "apes obey!" to which the harpless labourers would lift and answer in unison, "eee!"

We have truly been bastardised.

Chai. Truly we have been bastardised

I support the ban. Italian Americans, Irish Americans, even native americans do not consider themselves as tribes.

The use of other words are prohibited, why not prohibit the use of this one if it would raise the standard of the forum.

Thank God we do not have to indicate our tribes when completing forms. I am convinced it was the case when the British were here.

Tired of telling people this!

Mods, please do your duty on this pls.

The other day I tried to enter the word r-a-p-e into my post, and found I couldn't.

Instead ''despoil'' came up.

Likewise when any mugu wants to type ''tribe'' into his computer, let Ethnic Group come up!! 

Or E.G.!!

Why don't we pioneer the term, E.G.?

So instead of asking someone ''what is your tribe?'', you ask, ''what's your E.G.?''

It sounds crisp and modern, LIKE Naija or 9ja!!

So please let's stop embarrassing ourselves by using these archaic, colonial terms to describe our people.

And many thanks to all the progressive-minded folks here who've supported the call!!! 

Good Suggestion and good responses. Let the 'T' word be removed from the Nairaland dictionaryn as soon as possible.

@ topic

“tribe” and it’s derivatives are words that should be censored from Nairaland. “Tribe” basically means a pack of monkeys or baboons. And it is rarely and is unlikely to be used in this context on Nairaland i.e. to refer to a group of monkeys in the bush or in Yankari National Park, Bauchi. 

One only gets “tribes” of humans in Asia, and Africa but never in Europe where there are small communities (countries as they are called in Europe) of several thousand peoples like Montenegro, Malta, and Andorra (Andorra is a country with a population of 80 000).

In Africa and Asia, the word colonial settlers selected to describe small communities of people, of which there was and still are many in Europe, was “Tribe”.

You now hear people say they are from so and so tribe many of whom don’t know the self disparagement that comes with addressing oneself or others as belonging to a “tribe”.

This word because of its roots ranks alongside (and is possibly worse than) other derogatory terms used as ethnic slurs. To help enlighten unwitting Nairalanders that this word is just wrong, the word should be filtered out.

If person want some serious wahala, ask Kenyan person "Which tribe him from". Those who know the origins and true meaning of the word just don't use it.

Please filter "tribe" and it's derivatives off nairaland.

on a lighter note trust Seun bots to suggest replacements such as Cannibals, Natives [/b]and [b]Locals

But your ancestors probably had tribal marks. Or are these now to be euphemized as "ethnic marks" when they didn't serve the purpose of distinguishing between different ethnicities but of distinguishing between different subgroups of ethnicities.


There are sub-groups within ethnicities that were called tribes such as Celtic tribes, Gaulish tribes, etc, it has nothing to do with ethnicity or race, it's about the level of development of a group. And that story from Beaf sounds like bullshit, If you're going to tell tall tales at least make them believable,

PhysicsQED:

But your ancestors probably had tribal marks. Or are these now to be euphemized as "ethnic marks" when they didn't serve the purpose of distinguishing between different ethnicities but of distinguishing between different subgroups of ethnicities.


There are sub-groups within ethnicities that were called tribes such as Celtic tribes, Gaulish tribes, etc, it has nothing to do with ethnicity or race, it's about the level of development of a group. And that story from Beaf sounds like bullshit, If you're going to tell tall tales at least make them believable,

Dude, if you have a better interpretation to "Apes obey! Aye!" then I'm willing to hear it, otherwise please be quiet. The very least you could have done was employ google and come out more informed.

If you wish to belong to a tribe, its fine by me, but I surely do not belong to a tribe. Thats for monkeys.

^^^^

I had already googled it before I responded and it still sounded like bullshit in those articles. And when and where and in how many places were white overlords working Africans like slaves in Nigeria? Or is all of Nigeria and all of Africa suddenly the Congo?

I never claimed to belong to a tribe, but I reject fantastical notions of some sort of conspiracy to degrade Africans in every aspect of the English language. There were very real attempts to degrade Africans in various ways but I can't see how tribe is one of them. At the level of development and structural organization which many Africans were at they were no different than the Gaulish tribes that later became the French nation or the Celtic tribes, so how would a colonialist calling them tribesmen be like calling them monkeys? Or are the British and French, who colonized much of Africa, by calling their Celtic and Gaulish ancestors different tribes saying that their ancestors were no better than monkeys compared to groups like the Romans?

I don't think there was an Edo "tribe" but there are other groups in Africa for which the word tribe seems slightly more appropriate than to make what is clearly a sub-group into a full-fledged ethnicity. That is the purpose of the word tribe, demarcation, not necessarily degradation. It is not a fitting term in the 21st century for most ethnic groups but it didn't necessarily come into use as part of some effort to dehumanize every single group of non-white people.

^
Your reason is "it sounded like bullshit?" Incredible. Critical thinking is an art you desperately need to learn. Your googling never told you the word applies to monkeys? Unbelievable!
Your googling couldn't provide an explanation for the phrase, "Apes obey!" and its echo, "Aye!" Shocking!

You simply cannot walk up to any European today and identify him as belonging a tribe, whether gaulish, celtic or other crap. Have you identified any French man that claims he is a Gaulish tribesman? Have you ever met a Briton that identified themselves to you as Celtic tribes people?
Dude, stop providing braindead examples, it makes you come across as a dim bulb.
I find your input to be rather closed minded for the simple facts above. Have you ever spoken with a European? How can you be so ignorant? Dude its crass.

There are a group of Nigerians who imagine that they can make declarations of wisdom without proof. They all end up looking foolish, because their declarations turn out empty and no more than holding positions based on animal instinct and testosteronal ego's.

If you claim to belong to a tribe, its really your choice. To me a tribe and other thinking people, tribe is defined as a troop of monkeys.

I agree the word "Tribe" should be banned. Some of us have even discussed the usuage of that word on various thread. It is a word used by Europeans to describe people who think they are subordinates. For instance, African "tribes", Native-American(Indian) "tribes", Arab "tribes". Why is the English, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, Irish not considered or called tribes since by all actuality they should be according to the definition given by Europeans?

Na wa O I don learn something today! So tribe refers to a collection of monkeys

Unbelievable!

chyz:

I agree the word "Tribe" should be banned. Some of us have even discussed the usuage of that word on various thread. It is a word used by Europeans to describe people who think they are subordinates. For instance, African "tribes", Native-American(Indian) "tribes", Arab "tribes". Why is the English, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, Irish not considered or called tribes since by all actuality they should be according to the definition given by Europeans?

Precisely! Even East European shitholes like Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova etc are not described as having tribes, cos there can't be tribes among caucasians. No, tribal lands start in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan etc where the people aren't caucasian. Lets note that the examples, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are at about the same developmental level as their caucasian neighbours.

Beaf:

^
Your reason is "it sounded like bullshit?" Incredible. Critical thinking is an art you desperately need to learn. Your googling never told you the word applies to monkeys? Unbelievable!
Your googling couldn't provide an explanation for the phrase, "Apes obey!" and its echo, "Aye!" Shocking!

You simply cannot walk up to any European today and identify him as belonging a tribe, whether gaulish, celtic or other crap. Have you identified any French man that claims he is a Gaulish tribesman? Have you ever met a Briton that identified themselves to you as Celtic tribes people?
Dude, stop providing braindead examples, it makes you come across as a dim bulb.
I find your input to be rather closed minded for the simple facts above. Have you ever spoken with a European? How can you be so ignorant? Dude its crass.

There are a group of Nigerians who imagine that they can make declarations of wisdom without proof. They all end up looking foolish, because their declarations turn out empty and no more than holding positions based on animal instinct and testosteronal ego's.

If you claim to belong to a tribe, its really your choice. To me a tribe and other thinking people, tribe is defined as a troop of monkeys.

How is blindly accepting some fairly tale that some workers chant sounds like "apes obey" evidence of your critical thinking? Please don't even insinuate that you have some sort of greater inclination to critical thinking over me or that you and the rest of the sheep that just accept anything they hear that fits in with their prejudices and assumptions have somehow employed some sort of deep analysis that is somehow beyond my grasp. As I said before, when and where and in how many areas in Nigeria and in all of black Africa were white colonial masters acting like overseers and working us as though it were the Belgian Congo? Or does your supposed critical thinking and wisdom suddenly end when asked to actually think?


I'm well aware that the word tribe applies to monkey that's why I brought up that fact when I asked you a simple question, when British and French refer to their ancestors as tribesmen are they calling them monkeys? Are the Danes called a Northern Germanic tribe because the rest of Europe is conspiring to reduce the ancestors of the Danish to monkeys? What I was trying to get across to you, and what you obviously didn't grasp, is that they refer to even their own ancestors that way because they wanted to demarcate nations and ethnic groups from subgroups with a low level of development and organization. I think you know very well that a lot of groups of Africans and Asians simply fit the definition, just as some other groups do or once did.

For example, the Sami are a people, but within that people are subgroups who speak variations of the same "linguistic theme," so to speak (their languages are closely related). Upon meeting some of these subgroups and seeing that they all had similarities to each other, but were not organized into a large formal state nor were a large single group, an explorer would be fully justified in calling one such subgroup a tribe. And in fact they were called such, but was it with the intention to call them monkeys? The Sami are not African or Asian. Now if an explorer met hundreds of such groups upon exploring just a fraction of Africa, obviously the tendency would arise to just start calling every group a tribe. But is this evidence of trying to necessarily put down another group or is it an accurate description of the state of a group of people compared with groups that could be considered nations or whole ethnic groups? These are questions people who actually think would ask.

Must a group of hunter-gatherers speaking one of the 800+ distinct languages in Papua New Guinea necessarily be considered an ethnic group?

Are the Twelve Tribes of Israel the Twelve "Monkey-Groups" of Israel? Are there Twelve "Distinct Ethnic Groups" of Israel? Let's be sensible here.

The word tribe originates from the Latin word for three, and was used to distinguish the three ethnic groups within Rome. In its original usage it was equivalent to ethnicity, race, etc. . .and was used to demarcate ethnicity within the Roman nation, later it was used by Europeans to demarcate between sub-ethnicities of larger groups or small isolated groups, and then it was applied to monkeys, NOT the other way around as has been insinuated here.

If anything, for groups  of monkeys to be called tribes was one of many attempts by Europeans to measure monkeys' social organization and behavior (a topic of constant interest to scientists, anthropologists, etc.) from the standpoint of humans and almost humanize them by acting as if each clan of monkeys (yes, I just said "clan of monkeys," will you now never refer to your extended family as a clan and the oldest male as the patriarch of the Beaf clan? Whether or not you ever did, the point I'm illustrating is that I can take almost any group word and start applying it to monkeys if I don't want to create some new word just to talk about monkeys) were really so distinct from another. Calling somebody a herd member or part of a flock could be an attempt to compare that human being to an animal. Tribe on the other hand, was used for millenia before anybody ever even thought of applying it to monkeys, contrary to the insinuations here.


What I tried to get across is that contrary to the assumptions being bandied around here like facts, tribe was used as a neutral, rather than derogatory term. Later it was applied to monkeys in one of many silly attempts by Europeans to over humanize them and cast them as human-like because of the way they group together and organize. That it is still being used to refer to monkeys and also still being used by Africans about Africans and by Europeans about Africans, is unfortunate, and problematic and that alone is a good rationale to stop using it but as things now stand there are many subgroups in Africa that do not constitute whole nations and whole ethnic groups like Dutch, British, French and have not forgotten (or learned to forget) that their small distinct group within a larger group or small isolated group within a country still has a name. This is how different European tribes became nations, ethnic groups, etc. There are some groups in Africa, Asia, South America, etc. who, simply put, who still fit what was historically considered a tribe. To concoct stories of some sort of master conspiracy to call us monkeys and get us calling each other monkeys when facts about the word and its actual history and usage are plain to see (even by the same google that you mentioned) is just spreading ignorance, and possibly even unearned resentment.

When confronted with a rumor/tall tale, I applied critical thinking and reached a reasonable conclusion. I hope in the future you can do the same.

Beaf:

Precisely! Even East European shitholes like Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova etc are not described as having tribes, cos there can't be tribes among caucasians. No, tribal lands start in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan etc where the people aren't caucasian. Lets note that the examples, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are at about the same developmental level as their caucasian neighbours.

Most of the Eastern European "shitholes" you mentioned have a higher GDP per capita and probably a higher standard of living (plus electricity) than Nigeria. Let's not degrade and insult unnecessarily.


From my experience, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, etc. are mostly only called tribes within Nigeria by Nigerians or by older or occasionally recent British writers writing about Nigeria or those groups. Outside of Nigeria I usually here them referred to as ethnic groups or linguistic groups, though I can't speak for Europe, I'm talking about in America. There are subgroups within those groups however, and you can bet that all and sundry, near and far, black and white, might call those groups tribes. Not to demean the subgroups or anything. It just so happened that that's the one of most fitting words in the English language for what that kind of extra, unnecessary distinction between sub-units of an larger ethnicity represents. Most of the Europeans overcame their tribal mentality long ago. I can't say the same for somebody who wants to see himself as an Egba man and has problems with his Ijebu or Ekiti neighbors when they are really all the same ethnicity the way all Scottish are Scottish and all English are English.-

I am in total agreement with this. How can the Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa be considered a tribe when we each have 25+ million populations? While the Welsh in the UK are barely 600,000, but they are considered an ethnic group? It is a racist term used against Africans.

Igbos = Ethnic Group
Mbaise, Ngwa, Nri-Igbo, Ibeku = Igbo tribes

Many of my American professors would ask what tribe am I from? I would correct them by saying I am not from a tribe, I am from an ethnic group.

PhysicsQED:

How is blindly accepting some fairly tale that some workers chant sounds like "apes obey" evidence of your critical thinking? Please don't even insinuate that you have some sort of greater inclination to critical thinking over me or that you and the rest of the sheep that just accept anything they hear that fits in with their prejudices and assumptions have somehow employed some sort of deep analysis that is somehow beyond my grasp. As I said before, when and where and in how many areas in Nigeria and in all of black Africa were white colonial masters acting like overseers and working us as though it were the Belgian Congo? Or does your supposed critical thinking and wisdom suddenly end when asked to actually think?
. . .

Seriously dude, the chances are 99.99% that I do.
I can cope with everything your lil brain can throw at me, from math to fine art, from physics to biology, from history to inventions, from scientific papers to patents. To you, I am like a living encyclopedia, I can draw better than you and freeze you with abstract math.

Dude, I'm fcking red hot!

The rest of your post is simply a long winded way of throwing in the towel, so it isn't worth a pinch of salt. But why start a rude argument only to throw in the towel?

PS: If you had started out in a civil way, we would never have headed down this route

Beaf:

Seriously dude, the chances are 99.99% that I do.
I can cope with everything your lil brain can throw at me, from math to fine art, from physics to biology, from history to inventions, from scientific papers to patents. To you, I am like a living encyclopedia, I can draw better than you and freeze you with abstract math.

Dude, I'm fcking red hot!

The rest of your post is simply a long winded way of throwing in the towel, so it isn't worth a pinch of salt. But why start a rude argument only to throw in the towel?

PS: If you had started out in a civil way, we would never have headed down this route

mumu

jonathan is already asleep, i think u should go to bed tooo