[komali2]

> The word master been a word longer than it has been associated with slavery.

Hah, what? Slavery is as old as language, so I find this an interesting suggestion.

Edit: good points about the origin of language below. Another interesting question: if there had been more black computer scientists in early day MIT, Stanford, etc, would these terms have been adapted to the new technologies?

[bonzini]

Latin used dominus for the master of a slave, and magister for someone who mastered or taught something.

[allan_s]

master -> maetre (old french) -> magister latin

magister in latin, as far as I remember is the term used for the teacher (which is the same meaning in modern french, maître is how you call a teacher of primary school)