Nile Valley racial vocabulary preceded colonialism in market and slave trade contexts

Evidence

Within the literature of Egyptian nationalism, especially the literature of writers of colloquial Arabic who paid particular attention to nuances, such words were immensely controversial. Moreover, these words were not simple impositions by Egyptians on Sudanese. As Anders Bjorkelo shows, such words could also be found in the language of Sudanese traders and religious leaders, people as sensitive to difference and community as the nationalists of Egypt. These were words of the market and the slave trade, and were of grave importance in identifying who could be sold and who could not. One Sudanese tribe could identify another with such words and could reveal a kinship based on shared religion or trade networks. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 100

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains that racial categories like abid, barbari, nubi arose from trade and slavery, not merely colonial imposition - a useful clarification of the terms’ origins.