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Golbez posted:My favorite exonym is Madagascar - Marco Polo got it mixed up with Mogadishu. No, really, it's that simple. That's... actually kinda an understandable screw up?
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Dec 23, 2020 01:22
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OddObserver posted:That's... actually kinda an understandable screw up? I mean, whole people were called Indians and there's now the west and east Indies because of a mixup. I feel like this is very common in names.
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Dec 23, 2020 02:54
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Tolkien explained a lot that "elf" and "elves" were not in any way proper terms for the stupid immortals that he wrote about. His "Lord of the Rings" is supposedly only some lovely 20th century dude translating the ancient and sacred Red Book of Westmarch. And he's really really apologetic about the whole thing:quote:Elves has been used to translate both Quendi, ‘the speakers’, the High-elven name of all their kind, and Eldar, the name of the Three Kindreds that sought for the Undying Realm and came there at the beginning of Days (save the Sindar only). This old word was indeed the only one available, and was once fitted to apply to such memories of this people as Men preserved, or to the makings of Men’s minds not wholly dissimilar. But it has been diminished, and to many it may now suggest fancies either pretty or silly, as unlike to the Quendi of old as are butterflies to the swift falcon - not that any of the Quendi ever possessed wings of the body, as unnatural to them as to Men. They were a race high and beautiful, the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin; 1 and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard. They were valiant, but the history of those that returned to Middle-earth in exile was grievous; and though it was in far-off days crossed by the fate of the Fathers, their fate is not that of Men. Their dominion passed long ago, and they dwell now beyond the circles of the world, and do not return.
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Dec 23, 2020 04:13
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All this talk is reminding me about how California was named after a fictional country in a 16th century novel.
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Dec 23, 2020 04:30
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“california” shares a root with “caliphate”
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Dec 23, 2020 04:38
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Also reminds me of the word "serendipity," which despite sounding Latinate actually comes from the archaic Persian name for Sri Lanka. It comes from an 18th c. English interpretation of a fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, which was ultimately derived through many translations from a Persian tale about Serendip. The characters in the story were apparently always accidentally discovering things, hence the word.
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Dec 23, 2020 05:01
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The_Other posted:All this talk is reminding me about how California was named after a fictional country in a 16th century novel. Wikipedia posted:The character of Calafia is used by Rodríguez de Montalvo to portray the superiority of chivalry in which the attractive virgin queen is conquered, converted to Christian beliefs, and married off. OG spanish neckbeard fanfic 
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Dec 23, 2020 10:03
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Golbez posted:My favorite exonym is Madagascar - Marco Polo got it mixed up with Mogadishu. No, really, it's that simple. Not only the exonym but the endonym as well. The island was split up into a load of small polities with no overarching term for the whole thing, so they just accepted the gently caress up as correct.
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Dec 23, 2020 10:15
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The_Other posted:All this talk is reminding me about how California was named after a fictional country in a 16th century novel. The biggest pull for america colonizacion by spain was when stories where told about topless indians. A lof of people where like "gently caress spain, lets go for america titties" Historians don't highlight this fact enough, imo.
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Dec 23, 2020 13:22
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To be fair, if I was given the choice between Spain and tits, Spain would be in trouble.
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Dec 23, 2020 13:38
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It's a tough choice, tits don't have El Caminito del Rey.
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Dec 23, 2020 13:45
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There are plenty of tits in Barcelona these days
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Dec 23, 2020 14:16
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The_Other posted:All this talk is reminding me about how California was named after a fictional country in a 16th century novel.
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Dec 23, 2020 18:00
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The state of Wyoming is named for a valley in northeastern Pennsylvania, home to what is today the hundred‐and‐first most populous metropolitan area in the United States (Scranton and Wilkes‐Barre).
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Dec 23, 2020 18:15
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Ironically, the City/County of Miami and the Miami Valley in Ohio are not related to each other and just have the same name due to a completely unrelated group of Indians with a similar name (Miami in Ohio, Mayaimi in Florida)
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Dec 23, 2020 19:41
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Platystemon posted:The state of Wyoming is named for a valley in northeastern Pennsylvania, home to what is today the hundred‐and‐first most populous metropolitan area in the United States (Scranton and Wilkes‐Barre). Do you think anybody has actually arrived to their first semester at the Miami University with only a duffelbag of beachwear and tanning oil? (I know a guy who actually applied to, was accepted by, and attended University of [City], the Catholic school, thinking it was [City] State University.)
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Dec 23, 2020 19:42
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My grandad actually was from Miami, Oklahoma, named after the tribe from Ohio after their forced removal.
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Dec 23, 2020 19:50
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Golbez posted:My favorite exonym is Madagascar - Marco Polo got it mixed up with Mogadishu. No, really, it's that simple. funny enough, Mogadishu isn’t the Somali name for Mogadishu either. It’s a Persian exonym meaning Kings Seat (Maqadas-Shah), though folk etymology claims that its Somali for Blinds-you-with-beauty (muqal-disho). The Somali name is Xamar-Cadde (pronounced Hamar-Adde) meaning white tamarind town. PawParole fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Dec 24, 2020 |
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Dec 24, 2020 00:17
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Greg12 posted:Do you think anybody has actually arrived to their first semester at the Miami University with only a duffelbag of beachwear and tanning oil? Probably the same kind of people who end up at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
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Dec 24, 2020 00:22
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Bird in a Blender posted:Probably the same kind of people who end up at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. No, those would be the ones who ended up at the California University of Pennsylvania.
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Dec 24, 2020 00:35
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System Metternich posted:The German word for ivory is Elfenbein (lit. "elf‘s bone") which makes Côte d'Ivoire ("Elfenbeinküste") super tolkienesque if you think about it In Finnish its "Perseensulkijalihas" which just rolls off your tongue.
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Dec 24, 2020 00:45
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3D Megadoodoo posted:In Finnish its "Perseensulkijalihas" which just rolls off your tongue. I know you meant this as irony, but in the one year of Finnish I took as an optional course at uni, I found Finnish spelling to be incredibly easy to get into vis à vis pronunciation. So yeah, it does. To be honest, that was the easiest part of it all, though. Grammar rules I can remember, but it's very hard to learn vocabulary that's in no way related to any other (Indo-European) language you already know.
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Dec 24, 2020 00:54
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Pope Hilarius II posted:I know you meant this as irony Yeah, "Perseensulkijalihas" means irony, not ivory.
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Dec 24, 2020 00:56
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Xelkelvos posted:Ironically, the City/County of Miami and the Miami Valley in Ohio are not related to each other and just have the same name due to a completely unrelated group of Indians with a similar name (Miami in Ohio, Mayaimi in Florida) Jamaica, the sovereign nation and Jamaica, Queens have no relation. They are descriptions of the places in different Indian languages.
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Dec 24, 2020 03:05
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Jewish Ethnic Divisions by country  This shows the ethnic background of the majority of Jews in each country. Besides the familiar Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi groups the map identifies several "special" Jewish ethnicities in several countries, including some quite small groups. Most of these special communities are gone from their historic countries, either by emigration to the US or Israel (especially in the wake of the 1948 war) or from the Holocaust in Italy and Greece. Some of these isolated groups practiced traditional Judaism seen as archaic today, but there's some offshoots like Karaites not covered here. Italy: Italkim Malta: Not sure what the map author had in mind here Greece: Romaniotes Israel: Yishuv (in Ottoman and British Palestine) Georgia: Georgian Jews (and Mountain Jews should probably be shown in Azerbaijan) Uzbekistan: Bukharan Jews Yemen: Yemenite Jews Ethiopia: Beta Israel (and more controversially the Beta Abraham) India: Bene Israel and several other groups of a few thousand or less China: Kaifeng Jews probably But for a really good time, read the Wikipedia talk page archives on this topic! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Who_is_a_Jew%3F Vivian Darkbloom fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Dec 24, 2020 |
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Dec 24, 2020 06:58
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a pipe smoking dog posted:Not only the exonym but the endonym as well. The island was split up into a load of small polities with no overarching term for the whole thing, so they just accepted the gently caress up as correct. "Bushmen" is a similar kind of interesting example. The native people living in southwest Africa often use "bushmen" to describe themselves collectively, and tend to explicitly prefer it to the Westerner-determined "more PC" demonym "San," which has a pejorative native meaning as opposed to the neutral etymology of "Bushmen" ( https://www.survivalinternational.org/material/1156 ). There was no local word for the collective name of all of that group, as everyone historically would refer to themselves as (whatever) actual group they are, as they still do, but if they need a generic term like for collective government bargaining or something, then it comes in handy rather than writing out however many local names for all the different groups there are. E: Apparently it is more complicated than I thought and depends partly on what country in southwest Africa you are in, and moreover probably exactly who you are speaking to, as it seems that "Bushmen" is considered more derogatory than "San" in South Africa, but in other places, like Namibia, it is the opposite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people#Names. I had my honeymoon in Namibia and we spent a couple days with a Bushman guy who preferred that demonym and disliked "San", and said not to bother trying using a more specific term because I wouldn't be able to even vaguely pronounce it without more practice and training than would be realistically expected. Saladman fucked around with this message at 10:39 on Dec 24, 2020 |
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Dec 24, 2020 10:30
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“Eskimo” has largely fallen out of favor, but there are quite a lot of people who don’t like the usual substitution of “Inuit” because that’s a specific ethnic group to which they do not belong.
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Dec 24, 2020 11:24
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Similar to Bushmen in South Africa and Namibia is Coloured people (and Cape Coloured in the Western Cape) in that you'll probably piss more people off trying to dance around it looking for a more 'correct' variant.
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Dec 24, 2020 11:38
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Guavanaut posted:Similar to Bushmen in South Africa and Namibia is Coloured people (and Cape Coloured in the Western Cape) in that you'll probably piss more people off trying to dance around it looking for a more 'correct' variant. I've been part of a few conversations where my happily-self-identified-as-coloured South African friend gets lectured by overly politically correct white British or American people on why the term coloured is racist, and hes not allowed to use it. Despite it being a completely accepted identification in his country. Its always amusing listening.
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Dec 24, 2020 15:30
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Platystemon posted:“Eskimo” has largely fallen out of favor, but there are quite a lot of people who don’t like the usual substitution of “Inuit” because that’s a specific ethnic group to which they do not belong. Do they actually prefer to be called Eskimo, or do they just not mind it? What term would they prefer?
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Dec 24, 2020 15:45
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a fatguy baldspot posted:Do they actually prefer to be called Eskimo, or do they just not mind it? What term would they prefer? I don't know what such people who don't like "Inuit" being used as a catch-all term prefer, but I know "circumpolar peoples" is an option. Though that term also includes groups that we don't normally think of as being connected with groups called Inuit/Eskimo, like the Sami and Nenets.
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Dec 24, 2020 16:04
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Blut posted:I've been part of a few conversations where my happily-self-identified-as-coloured South African friend gets lectured by overly politically correct white British or American people on why the term coloured is racist, and hes not allowed to use it. Despite it being a completely accepted identification in his country. Its always amusing listening.
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Dec 24, 2020 16:21
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a fatguy baldspot posted:Do they actually prefer to be called Eskimo, or do they just not mind it? What term would they prefer? I think the groups that grumble about being labeled Inuit are the Aleut, Yupik, and the Chukchi. I liked CGP Grey's video about the word "indian" that he did, although often northwestern native groups are talked about separately because they faced significantly different hardships from east-coast or great plains groups. I feel like there's a bit of a mess with broad ethnic categorization words where all the words may have some kind of half-life, because any term to denote the people will eventually sour from being mired in the old, archaic understandings of ethnicity. Maybe even some people would want to no longer be categorized as something as they assimilate into larger populations, although that can come undone as the result of rediscoveries of ethnic pride or new waves of nationalism alienating people, it's a whole mess. If you don't personally know someone of the ethnicity in question or like a sociologist, it can feel like arbitrary bombs going off as words pass into being offensive, and there's some kind of weird mystique about the more accepted as universally offensive words because people refuse to even say them when talking about the words themselves. It's weird.
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Dec 24, 2020 16:25
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In the thirties, Canada tried to argue that Inuit people were not “Indians”, but in fact full Canadian citizens. Sounds great, right? Hahaha no. It was so the government could starve them. quote:In the early 1930s, the Conservative government of R.B. Bennett was desperate to shore up the dismal accounts of the Canadian government. Canada was one of the countries hardest hit by the Great Depression of the 1930s. As an export nation the sudden stillness of international trade hit the northern Dominion harder than most. Prime Minister Bennett's solution was to cut expenses across the board. Bennett - a long time corporate leader and millionaire - ran the country the way he would run his business. It made sense to many during the Depression that if the government had less money flowing in, it should cut down on money flowing out. source
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Dec 24, 2020 16:30
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Platystemon posted:In the thirties, Canada tried to argue that Inuit people were not “Indians”, but in fact full Canadian citizens. Nothing that involves both "Indians" and "Canada" ever sounds great.
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Dec 24, 2020 16:33
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Yes inuits are a specific ethnic group in Canada. It’s not that inuit people don’t like inuit, it’s that ignorant people use that as a catch-all term because they don’t realize that there are other groups. It’s like going “I don’t use the offensive term kraut, these people are called bavarians. Also none of the arctic peoples in North America are First Nations/Native American. Also a lot of indigenous people in the US prefer Indian as the catch-all term. It evolved naturally, whitey made up the new name to make up for the centuries of and ongoing genocide. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Dec 24, 2020 |
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Dec 24, 2020 16:42
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a fatguy baldspot posted:Do they actually prefer to be called Eskimo, or do they just not mind it? What term would they prefer? Generally Alaska Native since thats the place where there are multiple indigenous ethnic groups. Canada has almost inuit exclusively iirc.
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Dec 24, 2020 16:53
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Yes inuits are a specific ethnic group in Canada. It’s not that inuit people don’t like inuit, it’s that ignorant people use that as a catch-all term because they don’t realize that there are other groups. It’s like going “I don’t use the offensive term kraut, these people are called bavarians. Also none of the arctic peoples in North America are First Nations/Native American. If you want to get technical Indian refers to the tribes and enrolled members of tribes while Native American or Indigenous refers to people who are descended from the Pre-Columbus inhabitants who because of blood quantum and enrollment rules may not be enrolled members of a tribe.
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Dec 24, 2020 17:07
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Aleutian tribe member here, can't speak for everyone, but generally when it comes to the Alaskan Native population...Platystemon posted:“Eskimo” has largely fallen out of favor, but there are quite a lot of people who don’t like the usual substitution of “Inuit” because that’s a specific ethnic group to which they do not belong. We go with Native Alaskan, Native and for the tribes in the west to south regions Yupik. Native is the most common/casual usage. Edgar Allen Ho posted:Yes inuits are a specific ethnic group in Canada. It’s not that inuit people don’t like inuit, it’s that ignorant people use that as a catch-all term because they don’t realize that there are other groups. It’s like going “I don’t use the offensive term kraut, these people are called bavarians. Also none of the arctic peoples in North America are First Nations/Native American. Some tribal elders do prefer Indian, with the younger people it's mostly Native. BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:If you want to get technical Indian refers to the tribes and enrolled members of tribes while Native American or Indigenous refers to people who are descended from the Pre-Columbus inhabitants who because of blood quantum and enrollment rules may not be enrolled members of a tribe. Alaskan Natives had much looser blood quantum rules and eventually just dropped it and went with being able to prove descent. The US government measures three things by blood quantum: horses, dogs and Indians. I do have a certificate of live Indian birth with my blood quantum on it.
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Dec 24, 2020 17:39
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Mr.Pibbleton posted:Aleutian tribe member here, can't speak for everyone, but generally when it comes to the Alaskan Native population... Wait what? Really? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised
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Dec 24, 2020 17:42
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