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The English word squaw is an ethnic and sexual slur,[1][2][3][4] historically used for Indigenous North American women.[1][5] Contemporary use of the term, especially by non-Natives, is considered derogatory, misogynist, and racist.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
While squaw (or a close variant) is found in several Eastern and Central Algonquian languages, primarily spoken in the northeastern United States and in eastern and central Canada,[8][9] these languages only make up a small minority of the Indigenous languages of North America. The word "squaw" is not used among Native American, First Nations, Inuit, or Métis peoples.[2][3][4][5] Even in Algonquian, the words used are not the English-language word.[8]
DOI-Nov2021
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Let's just agree the following words are never okay to call Indigenous peoples: savage, red Indian, redskin, primitive, half-breed, squaw/brave/papoose.
Through communication and education American Indian people have come to understand the derogatory meaning of the word. American Indian women claim the right to define ourselves as women and we reject the offensive term squaw.
The proposed name change comes at the request of Native Americans, who say the word "squaw" is a racist, sexist term
Pelletier
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).When people argue that the word originates in American Indian language point out that: Although scholarship traces the word to the Massachusset Indians back in the 1650s, the word has different meanings (or may not exist at all) in hundreds of other American Indian languages. This claim also assumes that a European correctly translated the Massachusset language to English—that he understood the nuances of Indian speech.