Should We Stop Using the Word ‘Pariah’?

My mom wrote to Webster’s Dictionary asking them to remove the word pariah. The origin of the word has always troubled her, how the British had taken a caste-based practice of exclusion and incorporated it into the English language, hardening its meaning and hindering social mobility for a community. Her letter comes as no surprise to me. Some years ago my mom sent Noam Chomsky an envelope filled with news articles and her own personal commentary about the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka after he voiced his unfamiliarity with the situation on that island-nation during a talk. Because Chomsky is a true revolutionary, he wrote back to my mom.

I know my mom has no expectation that the word will be removed from the dictionary. If anything, she wants the history of the word to be known. She wants to raise the question: What do we do with language that is steeped in colonial history?

In ancient Tamil literature like the Love poems, which explores human emotions in relation to landscapes, Paraiyar was the name of those who worked as messengers and drummers. Parai means drum, and the messengers would often spread news while beating the drum. According to scholars like Dr. V. S. Rajam, the sangam period (300 BC to 300 AD) was a time before caste entered the discourse of Tamil society, and intermarriage between different professions was common. Eventually with religious orthodoxy, it was the animal skinner and the messenger, occupations that touched and relayed death, who were shunned.

The British first encountered the word paraiyar in this hierarchical structure where certain professions and individuals were deemed “untouchable.” The British carried this word back to England with them, where it lost context but retained its meaning. Paraiyar, a caste name derived from an occupation, has become synonymous with one who is despised or rejected. In Merriam Webster’s dictionary, that definition is secondary to the primary one: “a member of a low caste of southern India.” For most of the English-speaking world, it’s known only as a denunciation, husked of its history. If it’s your family name, do you come to embody that condemnation?

Language usage reflects shifts in social norms. In Webster’s dictionary, the word gay is given three possible usages. The third meaning of “awkward, stupid, or bad; lame” is provided with the caveat that it is “often disparaging and offensive.” The decline in this usage can speak to changing perceptions of non-conforming identities and relationships. I was struck by how certain words were given parentheticals referring to their offensiveness while other words, like retarded, weren’t. It reminds me that the dictionary is a human creation, made by panelists and editors, who provide their own opinions of how the language is changing, and what might be considered objectionable usage. Pariah might not be on their radar.

The English language is full of colonial exploits. Chipmunk has Ojibwa origins. Hurricane comes from the Taíno word hurakan, and canoe from kanowa. These are bloodied words, stolen from people fighting against colonial rule. They are bounty after the pillage. With the extinction of the Taíno language, does hurricane become an invocation, an ember of what was lost?

The Associate Editor of Webster’s Dictionary wrote back to my mom. He said: “While we understand your argument for removing the word due to the misguided association of actual pariahs of India as outcasts, the simple fact is that the word has come to refer in English to one despised or rejected since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Removing this established sense of the word from the dictionary will do nothing to erase it from the memory of English speakers’ vocabularies. It would only leave a hole in our effort to cover the language with accuracy . . .”

I imagine taking a scissor and cutting out all the words I find problematic. But the dictionary is a living archive of the past and the present that is trying desperately to capture our future. Mansplain and cryptocurrency, among others, were recently added to Webster’s Dictionary. It is unlikely that words will be removed, though it does happen for certain obsolete language.

Pariah is not in danger of leaving the English-speaking consciousness. Removing it wouldn’t stop anyone from saying it, and maybe we need this ugly record of the language so we remember how our words shape us. Perhaps all one can hope for is a pause before the utterance, for history to swell before the breath.

• 0