The University of Manchester Student Council proposed restrictions on the word "black" after some minority students complained about what they perceived as controversial phrases.

Like black sheep ("black sheep") and blackmail ("blackmail").

In principle, pejorative (that is, with a negative meaning) epithets are found in the language.

For example, "Russian work", that is, careless, low-quality.

So they can call the screwing of screws with a hammer, which in some places in our country sometimes really occurs and can be regarded as incitement.

However, British students went further and in their scholarship found that it was colonialism and racism that gave rise to such pejoratives.

Obviously, due to the conspiracy of the colonialists, dictionaries were not available to the scientific youth.

Otherwise, they might find out that the word "black" has negative connotations in many languages, not just English.

For example, fr.

humeur noire - "gloomy mood", noire destinée - "woeful fate", regarder qch d'un oeil noir - "to look at something with a black eye", that is, "dissatisfied, with irritation", and even noir, i.e. That is, "drunk in a splash".

Similarly in Italian: pensieri neri - "dark thoughts", giorni neri - "hard days", in German es war ein schwarzer Tag - "it was a fateful day", etc.

In order to produce all these turns of European languages ​​from colonialism and racism, one must suffer from severe monomania.

As well as severe illiteracy.

Moreover, in golden Latin, that is, in the language of the times of Cicero and Sallust, the same picture is observed.

The word niger, in addition to the primary - color, has the following figurative meanings: "gloomy, ominous, terrible", "mournful, immersed in sorrow", "evil, spiteful".

Although 20 centuries ago in Rome, colonialism and racism in the modern sense were absent.

And the slaves were both black (Nubians) and purely white (Gauls, Germans), and the color of their skin did not affect their status in any way.

So the origin of this peiorative is easy to explain by the fact that in language as a system of poetic views of different tribes on nature, “black” is associated with darkness, the absence of light, and darkness - with various bad phenomena.

Not only and not so much with colonialism.

How did the Russian peasants know about colonialism, for whom the word "black" also had negative connotations?

Although before there were attempts to radically censor the dictionary, not only in writing, but also in oral speech.

Emperor Paul I, wishing to suppress the influence of the French Revolution, not only banned Parisian fashions, but also lustrated the Russian lexicon.

Instead of "guards" it was prescribed to use "guard", instead of "doctor" - "doctor", instead of "detachment" - "detachement", instead of "citizens" - "residents" or "inhabitants", instead of "fatherland" - "state" , and the word "society" in general was ordered not to use.

Still, the names of the colors of the spectrum were ignored by the emperor, and the language reform did not last long.

With the apoplectic stroke of 1801, it also ended.

The main thing: in the liberal consciousness, Paul I enjoys the reputation of a tyrannical ruler, and the students, on the contrary, are considered the embodiment of freedom.

Although the tyrant Paul would envy the innovations of British students.

Although the immanent freedom of the students is nothing more than a liberal myth.

Students are very different.

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, the students of Western Europe were not distinguished by any struggle for freedom, while in Germany, on the contrary, they were distinguished by conservative-nationalist sentiments.

To what extent the Soviet students of the 1920s and 1930s should be considered freedom-loving is also a big question.

Is it liberty to write ideological denunciations against teachers, or is it quite the opposite?

There is nothing to say about the Red Guards of the times of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a considerable part of whom were student youth (“And these kids chopped a lot of them into cutlets”).

Liberal love of freedom and perlo.

And the revolting European students of 1968 were on the same line, only less determined.

It can only be noted that the active student body loves the movement, as well as the overthrow of old men, and in what ideological form this movement is clothed is the tenth thing.

There would be ignorance and pressure, and the rest will follow.

The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.