different between quli vs coolie

English

Noun

quli (plural qulis)

1. Archaic spelling of coolie.

Usage notes

• Generally italicised as a foreign word.

English

Alternative forms

• cooly, kuli, quli, koelie, etc.

Etymology

From Hindi ????? (qul?) and Urdu ???? (qul?, “hired laborer”), possibly from Ottoman Turkish ???? (kul, “servant”). Another theory says that it is named after a Gujarati tribe or caste of that name. Other forms occur in Bengali ???? (kuli) and Tamil ???? (k?li, “daily hire”). Possibly also influenced by Hindi ???? (kol?, “weaver; low-class”).

Mandarin ?? (k?lì, “hard labor”) may have been influenced by cognates of the above Hindi word in other languages and may have further influenced English.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ku?li/
• Rhymes: -u?li

Noun

coolie (plural coolies)

1. (offensive) An unskilled Asian worker, usually of Chinese or Indian descent; a labourer; a porter. Coolies were frequently transported to other countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries as indentured labourers.
   • 1992, Jan Breman, E. Valentine Daniel, Conclusion: The Maiking of a Coolie, E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bernstein, Tom Brass (editors), Plantations, Proletarians, and Peasants in Colonial Asia, Frank Cass & Co., page 268,

     Coolie-identity is as much the product of self-perception as it is the construction of a category by those who did not belong to it. It is these constructions that historically constituted a coolie in the matrix of power relations which this essay seeks to partially comprehend.

   • 2008, Lisa Yun, The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba, Temple University Press, page xix,

     Community histories did not necessarily feature the coolie, partly due to the fact that “coolie” is a classed term. Asian coolies were regarded as lowly laborers.

2. (offensive, Trinidad and Tobago, Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaican, South Africa and other parts of Africa) An Indian or a person of Indian descent.

Derived terms

• Coolie Christmas
• coolie hat
• coolie orange

Translations

Descendants

• ? Romanian: culi

References

• Yule, Henry and Burnell, A. C. (1886): Hobson-Jobson The Anglo-Indian Dictionary. Reprint: Ware, Hertfordshire. Wordsworth Editions Limited. 1996.

• Le grand dictionnaire Ricci de la langue chinoise, (2001), Vol. III, p. 833.