` and sounding similar to the English word nigger are used without the disparaging connotation the word holds in English. The French cognate , however, commonly used during the colonial period, is similarly considered offensive, whereas  (literally, ``black``) is the standard word, with the Anglicism black being a common slang term.  Interestingly, in some places these words refer to people with an only slightly darker appearance than those native to Northern Europe, i.e. people who might be said to have a typically Mediterranean, Southern European/Eastern European appearance without any facial or hair-texture characteristics associated with black people. There are also socio-economic reasons behind this as southern Europeans but particularly eastern Europeans are stereotypically deemed more backwards and less well off than their northern European cousins.  Forms ultimately derived from Latin  have been borrowed into various non-Romance languages, and may be used to refer to people without negative connotation; The Hungarian  referred to black Africans without any negative connotations until the 1990s when its meaning changed under English influence. In Latvian, ``nēģeris`` is still referred to black Africans without any derogatory meaning. The word nigger, typically with the same spelling and more or less similar pronunciation, also appears as a loanword in languages other than English and has the same racist connotations as the English word. In Nazi propaganda, the German compound niggerjazz was used as a derogatory term for jazz music, which Nazi ideology held was a degenerate form of music. In Yiddish, ``shvartzer``, meaning 'black' is considered offensive while ``neger`` is the standard word.  ===Non-human uses=== In the past, nigger was sometimes used as a synonym for ``defect``, deriving from the phrase ``nigger in the woodpile``, which originally referred to escaping slaves hiding among woodpiles being transported on trains. It came to mean some unseen problem.Definition of nigger in the woodpile For example, the May 1886 issue of Scientific American, page 308 said, ``The consequence of neglect might be that what the workmen call ‘a nigger’ would get into the armature, and burn it so as to destroy its service.``  The term nigger was used in lumber mills until the mid-point of the 20th century. It refers to a device that turns a log while it is being stripped of its bark. This may be an off-hand reference to the prejudicial use of the word, as until the machine was invented, this was considered a job too dangerous for anyone other than a black man.  ===Literary uses=== Nigger has a long history of controversy in literature. Carl Van Vechten, a white photographer and writer famous as a supporter of the Harlem Renaissance, provoked debate and some protest from the African American community by titling his 1926 novel Nigger Heaven. The controversy centered on the use of the word in the title and fueled the sales of the hit novel. Of the controversy, Langston Hughes wrote:    The poem Little Topsy's SongLittle Topsy's Song: Sung by the Hutchinson family A modern recording. Music by Asa B. Hutchinson(1823–1884), Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1853Little Topsy's Song: Text and Sources Music by Asa Hutchinson and also by Henry Russell (1801–1900) written in about 1845 by Eliza Cook has the first stanza 'Topsy neber was born, / Neber had a moder; / Specks I growed a nigger brat, / Just like any oder.  The famous controversy over Mark Twain's novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), a classic frequently taught in American schools, revolves largely around the novel's 215 uses of the word, often referring to Jim, Huck's raft mate. Advocates of the book point out that use of the word is not intended to spread racist stereotypes but simply reflects the situation at the time of writing, and that Jim is clearly depicted as a sympathetic character.  Nigger in the Window is a book written by a young black girl who describes the world from her window.  Slaves often pandered to racist assumptions by using the word nigger to their advantage in the self-deprecatory artifice of Tomming. Implicit was an unspoken reminder that a presumably inferior person or subhuman could not reasonably be held responsible for work performed incorrectly, a fire in the kitchen, or any similar offense. It was a means of deflecting responsibility in the hope of escaping the wrath of an overseer or master. Its use as a self-referential term was also a way to avoid suspicion and put whites at ease. A slave who referred to himself or another black as a ``nigger`` presumably accepted his subordinate role and posed no threat to white authority.   by Agatha Christie]]  An example of this historical use in American literature occurs in Edgar Allan Poe's short story ``The Gold-Bug`` (1843). The narrator and a white character in the story use negro to refer to a black servant, Jupiter, while Jupiter himself uses nigger.   Ian Fleming makes use of the term in his 1954 novel Live and Let Die. One of the chapters is called ``Nigger Heaven`` and two of the main characters, James Bond and Felix Leiter, make regular use of the word.  Bram Stoker, the Irish author best known for Dracula, makes use of the word 46 times in his 1911 novel, The Lair of the White Worm. Edgar Caswall's African servant, Oolanga, is often referred to as a ``nigger`` throughout the book.   Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None, also known as Ten Little Indians, originally appeared as Ten Little Niggers. Among the classic novels of Joseph Conrad (famous for his use of the word in Heart of Darkness) is The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' (1897).  Harper Lee's 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, also uses the term nigger throughout showing the widespread use during the 1930s.  Flannery O'Connor wrote a short story named ``The Artificial Nigger``, a term one of the characters uses when he sees a lawn jockey.  Other examples of literary usage in the United Kingdom during the late 19th and early 20th centuries suggest a more neutral usage of the term, which can cause a problem when reading such books today when the word has such an offensive meaning.  The Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado uses the word nigger'' twice. The executioner Ko-ko, in his song ``I have a little list``, sings of executing ``the nigger serenader and the others of his race`` (Gilbert meant white performers performing minstrel songs in blackface, a popular Victorian entertainment). The Mikado, in his song “Let the Punishmen