Wabenzi is an Anglicization of the pejorative

Pejorative

Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...

 Bantu

Bantu languages

The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...

 colloquialism

Colloquialism

A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...

 WaBenzi, originally used in Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

 to refer to members of the new ruling class

Ruling class

The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that society's political policy - assuming there is one such particular class in the given society....

 that superseded the colonial

Colonial

Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony* Colonial history of the United States, the period of American history from the 17th century to 1776, under the rule of Great Britain, France and Spain...

 regime, that has come to refer to the new ruling class in any post-colonial African country. The term usually refers to a corrupt

Corruption

Corruption usually refers to spiritual or moral impurity.Corruption may also refer to:* Corruption , an American crime film* Corruption , a British horror film...

 government official, or family member of one, and derives from their being seen as driving an imported car. "Wa" is a prefix

Prefix

A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...

 that refers to people in some Bantu languages; "benzi" comes from Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...

, a car perceived as prestigious. The Anglicized form is more common than the original Bantu WaBenzi.

External links

• http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561539700/wabenzi.html