The roots of the word genocide, the author who coined it to describe Nazis’ extermination of Jews, and the language used to incite it
- Words to describe killing such as homicide, matricide and suicide, derived from Latin via old French, entered the English language from the 13th century onwards
- When a Polish-born US jurist sought a word to describe Nazi Germany’s attempt to eliminate the Jews in Europe, he similarly looked to Latin, and to Greek
From the Latin -cida, meaning “cutter, killer, slayer”, and the related form -cidium, “a cutting, a killing”, from the Latin caedere “to kill, to cut down”, English has the word-forming element -cide, for a kind of killer or killing.
An early example is “homicide”, first used in English in the early 13th century, coming from the Old French homicide, from the Latin homicidium “manslaughter”. This is formed from homo, “man”, plus -cidium “act of killing”. Its meaning as a person who kills another is also borrowed from French, a little later, in the late 14th century.
Terms that combine this killing element with specific members of a family entered English from the late 16th century.
Patricide and matricide, referring (from the 1590s) to a person who kills their father or mother, respectively, or (from the 1620s) the act of killing one’s father or mother, come from the French patricide and matricide, which come from the Latin patricida and mātricida for the murderer of a father or mother, and patricidium and mātricidium for the murder of a father or mother. These clearly are formed from combining the Latin pater “father” and māter “mother” with -cida and -cidium.
Soon after, the 1650s saw the term “infanticide” in English, for the killing of infants, especially the killing of newborns or the unborn, and from the 1670s also meaning “one who kills an infant”, from the French infanticide.
The act of suicide – the deliberate killing of oneself – entered English in the 1650s from the Modern Latin suicidium, formed with the Latin sui, meaning “of oneself”. The meaning of a person who kills oneself appears a little later, in the early 18th century.
A more lighthearted phrase, “suicide blonde”, was coined in the 1920s – for someone who had dyed their own hair, especially if they had done so in an amateurish fashion.
Much more recent – within the past century – is the term “genocide”, from the Greek genos “race, kind” – from the Proto-Indo-European root *gene-, meaning “give birth, beget” – and -cide. This is believed to have been coined by Polish-born United States jurist Raphael Lemkin in his 1944 work Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, in reference to the Nazi extermination of Jews.
It is also with language – via strategic rhetoric – that past and contemporary cases of genocide have been successfully executed.
These include engendering a strong cohesive national identity, the amplifying of sectarian rhetoric – inflammatory rhetoric aimed at heightening ethnic and religious divides – the framing of actions in internationally palatable rhetoric, such as with terms based on encouraging re-education and countering extremism, the dehumanising of people – as animals, cockroaches, vermin, cancer – and the generalising of guilt.
