[QUOTE=Malacandra]
That’s a subtlety that would be lost on me, what with not knowing how an Afrikaner should be pronouncing “Englesman” in the first place. 
(An Afrikaans insult that’s too subtle. Now I’ve heard everything. :D)
[/QUOTE]
Well, again to be fair, the Afrikaner, generally speaking, is in fact a very courteous and polite individual. Mandela commented on this point when he was spirited out of Victor Verster prison to meet PW Botha in 1989. He expected a “grim, cantankerous figure”, but was instead met by “a charming man indeed…unfailingly courteous and friendly”. (The State of Africa - Meredith)
As for the pronunciation, the first e in “Engelsman” is pronounced “eh” like in “eh, what?” or “eh” as in “dead”. The second e is pronounced as the i in “tin”. In “Ingilsman” both the first and second i is pronounced as in “tin”.
Maybe calling it an “insult” is too harsh. It’s more like an “impolite” term, the same as the word Boer. Technically a boer is a farmer, but it is also a word describing the Afrikaners in the Anglo-Boer era. It is from this same era that the Ingilsman term seems to have originated.
To call an Afrikaner a Boer is considered impolite, so too an Afrikaner calling an Englishman an Ingilsman. Both are a tad loaded.
[QUOTE=Mellivora capensis]
Well, again to be fair, the Afrikaner, generally speaking, is in fact a very courteous and polite individual. Mandela commented on this point when he was spirited out of Victor Verster prison to meet PW Botha in 1989. He expected a “grim, cantankerous figure”, but was instead met by “a charming man indeed…unfailingly courteous and friendly”. (The State of Africa - Meredith)
As for the pronunciation, the first e in “Engelsman” is pronounced “eh” like in “eh, what?” or “eh” as in “dead”. The second e is pronounced as the i in “tin”. In “Ingilsman” both the first and second i is pronounced as in “tin”.
Maybe calling it an “insult” is too harsh. It’s more like an “impolite” term, the same as the word Boer. Technically a boer is a farmer, but it is also a word describing the Afrikaners in the Anglo-Boer era. It is from this same era that the Ingilsman term seems to have originated.
To call an Afrikaner a Boer is considered impolite, so too an Afrikaner calling an Englishman an Ingilsman. Both are a tad loaded.
[/QUOTE]
Fair enough. One of the children Mrs M minds is South African, and her grandad Cecil is extremely amiable. I’ll bear in mind that the B-word would be… boorish.
Mandela’s impression of Botha is a surprising one for the time, though, I must admit. Considering what each man represented at the time, and all that.