Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Bit of both. It's a dialect spelling, and use of that pronunciation showed either low-class/rural origins/poor education on the part of the speaker (or an attempt to emulate one of those), or a deliberate slur implying something like "those people aren't worth the effort of accurate speech" or "there are no decent, polite words to describe them."
Today, it's an insult, on par with "Paki;" the preferred terms include Native Americans, Native Peoples, or First Nations. (First Nations is common in Canada, less so in the US.)
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I would say you are 99% right. "Injun" would be considered a dialect spelling, not so much an insult. The insult would be "redskin" or "red" in the south. I can assume that someone can and will be offended by "injun" if they happen to hear it, but if they hear it in the south, 9 times out of 10 the speaker was saying "Indian" (in their own way).