Toubab


Toubab or Toubabou is a Central and West African name for a person of European descent. Used most frequently in The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea, and Mali, and also in Ivory Coast, the term can be derogatory by itself, but it is also frequently associated with "wealthy traveler". The word can also be applied to any perceived traveler, even those of black African descent with a different phenotype, up to foreign-raised locals or visiting expatriates. In Alex Haley's book , the word is spelled "toubob", and the phrase "toubob fa" is used several times.
In God's Bits of Wood, authored by Senegalese Sembene Ousmane, the natives call the French colonizers toubab or toubabs.
In the fourth episode of the miniseries ROOTS, Kizzy refers to her slave masters as "toubab," or white.
A verb in the Wolof language means "to convert". The word could have derived from the two bob coin of pre-decimalization United Kingdom.

Related

In Ghana the word used for a white person or foreigner is Obroni in the local languages, of the Akan family.
In Nigeria, the word used for a 'white' person is Oyibo.
In Togo and Benin, the word used for a white person is 'yovo'.
In Burkina Faso, the word for a white person is 'nassara’ in moore, the most spoken native tongue. Otherwise “toubabou” is the word for a white person in Dioula, bambara or mandinka spoken mostly in the West of the country.
In East Africa and Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the word used for a white or foreign person is "muzungu".
In both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo, the word used for a white person is "mondele" or "mundele".