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ccprog
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An answer can be either simple or complicated.

The simple interpretation is: Marx was trying to describe the ethnical makeup of the complete population of Jerusalem. So, when he writes about "Mussulmans...consisting of Turks, Arabs and Moors", the Moors must be all Muslims that are neither Turks nor Arabs.

The complicated way to interpret the text has to take into account that for Karl Marx, English (the original language of the text) was a foreign language, and one he learned (to my knowledge) only as an adult (in contrast to German, his mother toungue and French, learned as a schoolchild). It is known that until 1853 he employed Wilhelm Pieper as a private secretary and for English translations. Whether he still used the help of a translator in 1854 is unclear to me, it seems that these "private" translations have not been documented. Anyway, it is possible that he thought of a German term before the English one was written down for the manuscript sent to the Herald.

That gives a bit of a problem, as there are two German words that are based on the originally spanish "moro".

  • Maure is and was mostly used to describe the Muslims of el-Andalus and northwestern Africa (Berbers). It is the closest one to the English use of "Moor".

  • Mohr has been a term that was used in multiple ways across the centuries. Its most colloquial usage since middle ages designates a person with dark skin, and it was used to translate the greek aithiops, burned skin. Martin Luther consequently used the term "Mohrenland" for Ethiopia, and until the 19th century there is a tradition to use it specifically for people from northeastern Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Abessinia, Eritrea, Nubia), while others used it for all sub-saharan Africans. At the time of Marx, the term "Neger" had become much more common, based on the contemporary theories of "race". "Mohr" started to become an outdated, literary or heraldic term. Today it is considered to be stereotypical and degrading. If pronounced the German way, "Moor" and "Mohr" sound the same.

The re-translation into German for Marx-Engels-Werke uses the term "Maure". But since this edition is not based on historical-critical methodology, that is only a weak hint. The detailed circumstances of the word usage could possibly be found in MEGA, which I don't have available.

Here are some German word usage statistics for Maure, Mohr and Neger.

An answer can be either simple or complicated.

The simple interpretation is: Marx was trying to describe the ethnical makeup of the complete population of Jerusalem. So, when he writes about "Mussulmans...consisting of Turks, Arabs and Moors", the Moors must be all Muslims that are neither Turks nor Arabs.

The complicated way to interpret the text has to take into account that for Karl Marx, English (the original language of the text) was a foreign language, and one he learned (to my knowledge) only as an adult (in contrast to German, his mother toungue and French, learned as a schoolchild). It is known that until 1853 he employed Wilhelm Pieper as a private secretary and for English translations. Whether he still used the help of a translator in 1854 is unclear to me, it seems that these "private" translations have not been documented. Anyway, it is possible that he thought of a German term before the English one was written down for the manuscript sent to the Herald.

That gives a bit of a problem, as there are two German words that are based on the originally spanish "moro".

  • Maure is and was mostly used to describe the Muslims of el-Andalus and northwestern Africa (Berbers). It is the closest one to the English use of "Moor".

  • Mohr has been a term that was used in multiple ways across the centuries. Its most colloquial usage since middle ages designates a person with dark skin, and it was used to translate the greek aithiops, burned skin. Martin Luther consequently used the term "Mohrenland" for Ethiopia, and until the 19th century there is a tradition to use it specifically for people from northeastern Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Abessinia, Eritrea, Nubia), while others used it for all sub-saharan Africans. At the time of Marx, the term "Neger" had become much more common, based on the contemporary theories of "race". "Mohr" started to become an outdated, literary or heraldic term. Today it is considered to be stereotypical and degrading. If pronounced the German way, "Moor" and "Mohr" sound the same.

The re-translation into German for Marx-Engels-Werke uses the term "Maure". But since this edition is not based on historical-critical methodology, that is only a weak hint. The detailed circumstances of the word usage could possibly be found in MEGA, which I don't have available.

An answer can be either simple or complicated.

The simple interpretation is: Marx was trying to describe the ethnical makeup of the complete population of Jerusalem. So, when he writes about "Mussulmans...consisting of Turks, Arabs and Moors", the Moors must be all Muslims that are neither Turks nor Arabs.

The complicated way to interpret the text has to take into account that for Karl Marx, English (the original language of the text) was a foreign language, and one he learned (to my knowledge) only as an adult (in contrast to German, his mother toungue and French, learned as a schoolchild). It is known that until 1853 he employed Wilhelm Pieper as a private secretary and for English translations. Whether he still used the help of a translator in 1854 is unclear to me, it seems that these "private" translations have not been documented. Anyway, it is possible that he thought of a German term before the English one was written down for the manuscript sent to the Herald.

That gives a bit of a problem, as there are two German words that are based on the originally spanish "moro".

  • Maure is and was mostly used to describe the Muslims of el-Andalus and northwestern Africa (Berbers). It is the closest one to the English use of "Moor".

  • Mohr has been a term that was used in multiple ways across the centuries. Its most colloquial usage since middle ages designates a person with dark skin, and it was used to translate the greek aithiops, burned skin. Martin Luther consequently used the term "Mohrenland" for Ethiopia, and until the 19th century there is a tradition to use it specifically for people from northeastern Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Abessinia, Eritrea, Nubia), while others used it for all sub-saharan Africans. At the time of Marx, the term "Neger" had become much more common, based on the contemporary theories of "race". "Mohr" started to become an outdated, literary or heraldic term. Today it is considered to be stereotypical and degrading. If pronounced the German way, "Moor" and "Mohr" sound the same.

The re-translation into German for Marx-Engels-Werke uses the term "Maure". But since this edition is not based on historical-critical methodology, that is only a weak hint. The detailed circumstances of the word usage could possibly be found in MEGA, which I don't have available.

Here are some German word usage statistics for Maure, Mohr and Neger.

Source Link
ccprog
ccprog
  • 7.1k
  • 1
  • 22
  • 36

An answer can be either simple or complicated.

The simple interpretation is: Marx was trying to describe the ethnical makeup of the complete population of Jerusalem. So, when he writes about "Mussulmans...consisting of Turks, Arabs and Moors", the Moors must be all Muslims that are neither Turks nor Arabs.

The complicated way to interpret the text has to take into account that for Karl Marx, English (the original language of the text) was a foreign language, and one he learned (to my knowledge) only as an adult (in contrast to German, his mother toungue and French, learned as a schoolchild). It is known that until 1853 he employed Wilhelm Pieper as a private secretary and for English translations. Whether he still used the help of a translator in 1854 is unclear to me, it seems that these "private" translations have not been documented. Anyway, it is possible that he thought of a German term before the English one was written down for the manuscript sent to the Herald.

That gives a bit of a problem, as there are two German words that are based on the originally spanish "moro".

  • Maure is and was mostly used to describe the Muslims of el-Andalus and northwestern Africa (Berbers). It is the closest one to the English use of "Moor".

  • Mohr has been a term that was used in multiple ways across the centuries. Its most colloquial usage since middle ages designates a person with dark skin, and it was used to translate the greek aithiops, burned skin. Martin Luther consequently used the term "Mohrenland" for Ethiopia, and until the 19th century there is a tradition to use it specifically for people from northeastern Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Abessinia, Eritrea, Nubia), while others used it for all sub-saharan Africans. At the time of Marx, the term "Neger" had become much more common, based on the contemporary theories of "race". "Mohr" started to become an outdated, literary or heraldic term. Today it is considered to be stereotypical and degrading. If pronounced the German way, "Moor" and "Mohr" sound the same.

The re-translation into German for Marx-Engels-Werke uses the term "Maure". But since this edition is not based on historical-critical methodology, that is only a weak hint. The detailed circumstances of the word usage could possibly be found in MEGA, which I don't have available.