History questions not worth their own thread V

[sophie]

Contemporary scholarship prefers "Indian". So do most Indians.

/that discussion

Well yeah, that's rather my point. You can be pedantic and find technical issues with pretty much any label anybody opts to use. Look at Dachs' counter-argument. Getting caught up on Amerindians is silly. Language is arbitrary. The point is ease of use and clarity in defition; it needs to be easy to say, everyone needs to know exactly what you're talking about when you use it, and it has to be acknowledged as a legitimate (non-offensive) definition of the idea you're trying to encapsulate. Amerindian is a term commonly used in academia because it fits these criteria. It's about as accurate as "Native American" in its precision of definition, and I find it easier to type and say, which is mostly why I prefer it over Native American. Mouthwash is just getting hung up on etymological pedantry, and not even particularly good etymological pedantry at that. As I said before, if you want to get into that the entire basis of our English word for the Indian Subcontinent is a Sanskrit word for a River in the Northwestern corner of the subcontinent which got warped going through 3 different languages. Just take it easy mang. Save the nerdrage for something more deserving, like bad transliterations.

WADE-GILES MUST DIE

 

[Bowsling]

On that argument, should I start calling mentally ill people ********? I don't see how accusing him of pedantry justifies anything. You could just as well accuse someone of pedantry for getting squeamish over using the n word?

Plus, Native American is in fact way less ambiguous than Indian, regardless of any political-correctness considerations.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well yeah, that's rather my point. You can be pedantic and find technical issues with pretty much any label anybody opts to use. Look at Dachs' counter-argument. Getting caught up on Amerindians is silly. Language is arbitrary. The point is ease of use and clarity in defition; it needs to be easy to say, everyone needs to know exactly what you're talking about when you use it, and it has to be acknowledged as a legitimate (non-offensive) definition of the idea you're trying to encapsulate. Amerindian is a term commonly used in academia because it fits these criteria. It's about as accurate as "Native American" in its precision of definition, and I find it easier to type and say, which is mostly why I prefer it over Native American. Mouthwash is just getting hung up on etymological pedantry, and not even particularly good etymological pedantry at that. As I said before, if you want to get into that the entire basis of our English word for the Indian Subcontinent is a Sanskrit word for a River in the Northwestern corner of the subcontinent which got warped going through 3 different languages. Just take it easy mang. Save the nerdrage for something more deserving, like bad transliterations.

WADE-GILES MUST DIE

That's all true, sure, but in this case you don't even need to bother shopping around for analogies. Plenty of eminently sympathetic scholarship refers to them as "Indians", and that's the term that most respondents, at least in the United States, prefer for themselves to be identified as "Indians". It's not just that it's not a problem with worrying about it, it's just plain old not a problem.

Plus, Native American is in fact way less ambiguous than Indian, regardless of any political-correctness considerations.

Actually, one of the reasons scholarship moved away from "Native American" was precisely its ambiguity in regards to post-Columbian indigenous groups, like Creoles and Metis, in regards to indigenous populations of American countries outside of the American continents, such as native Hawaiians, and in regards to indigenous peoples who are spread between the Americas and Eurasia, like the Inuit. "Indian", at least, is relatively well-delineated once you know we mean the American kind and not the Asian kind, although of course any good scholar still tries to make it clear what he means in his particular context.

Well, yeah, duh.

I agree it's a duh. But it's a duh that should have come eight posts earlier.

 

[Bowsling]

I think we're approaching this from opposite angles. You're concerned from an academic standpoint that Native American doesn't define whether it includes all the things you listed; I'm worried that if a friend describes a Native American person as Indian, I would think that they were literally from India - hence the ambiguity.

 

[Mouthwash]

Contemporary scholarship prefers "Indian". So do most Indians.

/that discussion

 

[Masada]

@TheLastOne36

Your position(s) don't make a lot of sense. So I'll just limit myself to some general points:

(1) There's no evidence of Austronesian speakers conquering or invading the pre-existing populations. This includes claims of genocide.
(2) There is no evidence for epidemiological factors being a factor in the spread of Austronesian languages. None. Zero. Zilch.
(3) Austronesian is a language family, not a race. Austronesian speakers doubtless includes descendants of pre-Austronesian speaking peoples.
(4) Language diffusion and assimilation are processes that we understand quite well. They also happened a lot.
(5) Ecological niches. Look them up. Actually, just read: The Art of Not Being Governed. It's accessible, well written and James C. Scott is highly respected SEA scholar.
(6) Read some modern literature. Peter Bellwood has a lot of stuff free on the internet. Check, ANU's website, where he teaches.
(7) Please stop quoting Jared Diamond to me. He's not a scholar of the subject.
(8) I also don't care about "universal constants" because they're mostly bull.

I also scrapped the long write-up I had prepared. I wasn't convinced you'd understand it.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think we're approaching this from opposite angles. You're concerned from an academic standpoint that Native American doesn't define whether it includes all the things you listed; I'm worried that if a friend describes a Native American person as Indian, I would think that they were literally from India - hence the ambiguity.

Fair point, but if it's just in everyday conversation, "Native American", "Indian" and "American Indian" or all acceptable, and you should just go for whatever's clearest. (I mean, ideally, if you're talking about a particular individual, you'd specify what nation or nations he actually belonged to, but of course that's not always possible.) It's only really in formal contexts that you need an "official" nomenclature, so it's only really in those contexts that contesting the relative merits of "Indian" and "Native American" becomes important.

 

[Tee Kay]

Bring back "Hindustani"

 

[TheLastOne36]

(1) There's no evidence of Austronesian speakers conquering or invading the pre-existing populations. This includes claims of genocide.
(2) There is no evidence for epidemiological factors being a factor in the spread of Austronesian languages. None. Zero. Zilch.
(3) Austronesian is a language family, not a race. Austronesian speakers doubtless includes descendants of pre-Austronesian speaking peoples.

Conquering and Invading are supposed to be vague terms in the context of prehistoric migrations of peoples. I doubt Austronesians formally declared a war on the pre-existing populations and proceeding on to enact genocide against them. I find it more likely that Austronesian speakers with their advantageous position as an agriculturally developed peoples originating from likely China would arrive on the island and in little time out-populated, displaced and assimilate the local inhabitants. Epidemiological factors probably having played some role as well.

I realize there is little evidence to support this as these events took place at a time before recorded history, however I reject that absent of knowledge is an absent of absent of case. What I described above historically occurred globally when an agrarian society interacted with hunting-gatherer societies. I see no reason why it wouldn't happen in SE Asia. If there are reasons why, post them. Similarly, it makes sense that the same process failed to take place in New Guinea when an agrarian society encountered another agrarian society.

Also why the reluctance to consider that the pre-existent peoples of Indonesia prior to the arrival of Austronesian speakers from East Asia could have been related to Melanesians and Australian Aboriginees? It's coming across as protecting some sort of agenda rather than remaining objective.

(5) Ecological niches. Look them up. Actually, just read: The Art of Not Being Governed. It's accessible, well written and James C. Scott is highly respected SEA scholar.
(6) Read some modern literature. Peter Bellwood has a lot of stuff free on the internet. Check, ANU's website, where he teaches.

Will do. The topic and region interests me and I believe you've suggested atleast the first one before.

(7) Please stop quoting Jared Diamond to me. He's not a scholar of the subject.
(8) I also don't care about "universal constants" because they're mostly bull.

He is however an anthropologist. Regardless of people's views on him on this forum, his arguments relating to interaction of agrarian and hunting-gatherer societies is within his subject of scholarship, and they have merit and can be applied to the presumed interactions between agrarian and hunting-gatherer societies South-East Asia. If it's bull, why is it so in this particular case compared to others?

 

[Traitorfish]

Diamond writes popular anthropology, but he isn't an anthropologist. (Not even in the strained, well-maybe-twenty-years-ago that somebody like Niall Ferguson is described as an historian; Diamond's background is in physiology.)

 

[TheLastOne36]

Diamond writes popular anthropology, but he isn't an anthropologist. (Not even in the strained, well-maybe-twenty-years-ago that somebody like Niall Ferguson is described as an historian; Diamond's background is in physiology.)

Hmm and so he is. My mistake then.

Regardless he justified his arguments on this topic to their logical conclusions. I believe they have merit in application to SE Asia where similar agrarian peoples encountered non-agrarian peoples.

 

[Tee Kay]

There's a tendency to conflate language with ethnicity/race. Just because a foreign language becomes dominant doesn't mean the indigenous population is replaced.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

1) Back in 2009, I went on an archaeological dig in Kentucky at a Fort Ancient (branch of the Mississippian culture) site. Of the staff anthropologist there were two Fort Ancient Specialists, four Mississippian specialists, and a Mesoamerican specialists (I think she was a late Maya person but I don't rightly remember.) Anyway of these seven professional anthropologists from three different institutions, ALL of them made fun of Diamond and his conclusions, particularly his belief that technology and information travel better east-west than north-south. Anthropology has this fascination with studying one people set and juxtaposing their development on "similar peoples", there is a reason that most true archaeologist and historians avoid doing this and that is because its like making a ship out of cardboard.

2) Its a good thing to remember in a debate that if your primary debater rejects a particular person/source, no matter how rational or silly their reason might be, you should avoid using them because your arguments will fall on deaf ears. For instance, Dachs usually refraines from quoting James McPherson to me in our Civil War debates because of my rather intense dislike of him and his work, despite the fact that he is actually a well established author in the field.

 

[Mouthwash]

1) Back in 2009, I went on an archaeological dig in Kentucky at a Fort Ancient (branch of the Mississippian culture) site. Of the staff anthropologist there were two Fort Ancient Specialists, four Mississippian specialists, and a Mesoamerican specialists (I think she was a late Maya person but I don't rightly remember.) Anyway of these seven professional anthropologists from three different institutions, ALL of them made fun of Diamond and his conclusions, particularly his belief that technology and information travel better east-west than north-south.

I thought that that was common knowledge.

 

[Tee Kay]

What was? That technology travel better east-west or that it is false?

 

[Mouthwash]

What was? That technology travel better east-west or that it is false?

Yes, that it does.

 

[JohannaK]

But it does or it doesn't? Cause now I'm confused.

 

[Mouthwash]

But it does or it doesn't? Cause now I'm confused.

It obviously does. I mean, is there even an argument against it?

 

[JohannaK]

I don't see why it is obvious. Care to explain?

 

[Mouthwash]

I don't see why it is obvious. Care to explain?

Climate affects biology.
Plants and animals, as well as temperatures, affect culture and human tolerances.
Climates differ more along N/S axises than E/W axises.
Therefore, technology, social systems, and crops should diffuse more slowly N/S than E/W.

Empirical evidence supports this heavily. Look at every large pre-colonial empire in history and tell me which axis they all go along.