These adjectives are applied to countries, areas or peoples that need to advance economically if they are to compete in the modern world. Backward is a purely negative word, expressing an unfavourable comparison. A backward land is one that lags far behind other nations in its development. Its failure to progress stems from what it lacks ?adequate income, education, industry, technology: the impoverished, illiterate people of a backward mountain region. At best backward is bluntly descriptive. At worst, it is pejorative, implying inferiority as well as ignorance and suggesting a blameworthy lack of initiative. Backward can also refer to persons, usually children, who lack ability compared with their fellows, generally as a result of low intelligence. Primitive , by contrast, simply indicates an early stage in the development of civilization, a stage prior to industrialization. A primitive society has no written language and no advanced technology or system of production. Its economy and material culture are simple and unsophisticated: a primitive land of huntsmen and food gatherers. Primitive may also refer to anything that is crude and simple because it is in a rudimentary stage or form: primitive agriculture.

Depressed designates an area that is economically underprivileged ?a place of unequal opportunity, marked by widespread unemployment and a low standard of living. It implies a contrast with previous or surrounding conditions, often indicating a severe economic decline or a pocket of poverty in a prosperous land: a once-thriving mining region that is now a depressed area full of ghost towns; volunteers teaching preschool children in depressed districts.

Underdeveloped marks a changes in emphasis, focusing on potential. It may be used as a euphemism for backward , since it stresses the presence of untapped resources. Or it may be used in conjunction with backward , describing a land that is backward in some respects or to some degree.

• The most backward of the underdeveloped countries are those that have the fewest outside contacts with the modern world.

The fact that a country or region is underdeveloped may be due to insufficient investment capital, technical backwardness , or a deep-rooted resistance to progress and changes. A developing country, by contrast, is committed to progress, trying to catch up with the prosperous nations so as to share in the world’s wealth: technical aid for the developing countries; the developing nations of Africa and Latin America. But a developing country may be subject to growing pains ?the problems arising during a period of rapid growth or change: developing nations that are saddled with heavy debts, their resources taxed by a burgeoning population.

Emerging and emergent are the most positive of all these words. Emerging implies a national self-consciousness that propels a land towards political as well as economic independence. An emerging country is typically moving from the subordinate status of a colony, protectorate, or dependency to the status of a nation among nations: nationalist movements in the emerging countries. Emergent is a more pretentious word than emerging , smacking of bureaucratic jargon. Nevertheless, it has favourable connotations, being applied to newly independent nations that are coming forth to take their place on the international scene: emergent African nations joining the U.N.