"Native American"

The joke is, of course, that calling people of South and North America "Americans" is silly. In that "America" comes from the explorer Amerigo Vespucci. So, if we wanted to be properly named after the European who opened up the Western Hemisphere to European colonization, we'd all be Colombians.
Common misconception, actually- it is now known that "America" is named after the Welsh businessman Richard Amerike who funded John Cabot's voyage to Newfoundland in 1497- Cabot would have been expected to name any discoveries after his financier. Originally, it only applied to the areas which Cabot actually explored, but it eventually came to be used for the entirety of both continents. Essentially, "America" is the feminine Latin form of "Amerike Land".
The great irony of the phrase "Native American" is that acknowledges their position as the native peoples, but still forces a foreign name upon them. Still, as Scy12 said, if you're going to use a blanket term for an entire race of people, then it's only fair that it's in the one language which they share- English (at least in the context of those tribes from the modern USA and Canada).
 
I'm not gonna say you're wrong, but I'll say I'm not familiar w/ the theory you gave. I'd love to read up on it, if you have any references.

Regarding the Vespucci claim the wikipedia does a decent job covering the basics. I'm actually linking to the cartographer who is thought to have first adapted the name "America".

Source.

I'm going to start using the new term "Siberian Colombians".
 
I digress, but even Wiki holds this as a fringe theory. This forum is the very first time ever that I've heard of this theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Amerike

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#Naming
Edit: but perhaps this is merely evidence of time travelers creating paradoxes in our history :lol:

Common misconception, actually- it is now known that "America" is named after the Welsh businessman Richard Amerike who funded John Cabot's voyage to Newfoundland in 1497- Cabot would have been expected to name any discoveries after his financier.
 
:lol: I love it when competing posters both link to wikipedia as their only source.

I also have never heard of this theory, and always believed it was named after Amerigo.
 
Well the problem is in Civ 4 there already ARE Indians, and Natives is too Generic. Although Native American is also technically too Generic, it is better than Native, especially if they want to include multiple (non Souix) leaders from the "Natives".

Assuming they are trying to make a civ covering not just the Souix, but all of the Natives north of Mexico, then Native Americans is probably the best, perhaps Amerindians might work (I've heard the term somewhere before)



Indians are from India...
The civilization, tribes etc... who live in AMERICA (ALL CONTINENT, not just USA) where natives... so i dont think at least in south america that they whant to be called indians... They have their nations name, like iroquis, or from south america, mapuches, tehuelches....
 
It's the same with those of Oceania; "Polynesia" is a Greek word whereas Hawai'i, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Māori are indigenous names and words. I went to a lū'au today and the girls that danced were wearing haku or a ring of leaves in their hair. I thought, "Wouldn't that be funny if the Greeks got that idea from the Hawaiians or vice versa." Highly unlikely, but a thought.
 
Yes I admit it, it's too :mad: convenient to not use wiki.
:sad:

Three alternate sources for the name "america" at about the same time in history tells me time travellers are afoot.:crazyeye:

:lol: I love it when competing posters both link to wikipedia as their only source.

I also have never heard of this theory, and always believed it was named after Amerigo.
 
My big problem is that "Native American", "Native" or even "Indian" are all too generic. Plus the souix seem to be the LEAST appropriate native american tribe to be called a "Civilization" in either civ terms, or real terms. The term civilization comes from a term meaning city, and as I seem to recall the souix abandoned their settlements and became horse riding nomads early on.

Beyond that north america has a number of "Civilizations" that could be included. The Pueblo certainly were city building farmers, so where the Mound Builders on the Ohio/missisipi, the Iroquois confederation, and of course the Cherokee actually adopted white ways and had plantations and slaves in their nation before the trail of tears.

So there are plenty of "civilizations" too choose from that seem better suited to the game than the soux, and less generic than the "native Americans". It almost seems the souix are included because they have a well known leader. But sequoia of the Cherokee (who invented the cherokee alphabet) is just as well known.
 
We ought to call the Native American Tribes "American" and simply change the those other Americans to something else (e.g., United Staters)! :lol:
 
My big problem is that "Native American", "Native" or even "Indian" are all too generic.
I agree. It'd be like rolling the Celts, Germans, Scandinavians, Romans, Greeks, etc. into one, generic "European" civ and making the leader William Wallace on the basis that a lot of people have heard of him.
At least with the Celts or Scandinavians, they all shared a lot of language and culture, if not the same nation, but "Native American" is an arbitrary and euro-centric name for a civ.
 
It's the same with those of Oceania; "Polynesia" is a Greek word whereas Hawai'i, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Māori are indigenous names and words. I went to a lū'au today and the girls that danced were wearing haku or a ring of leaves in their hair. I thought, "Wouldn't that be funny if the Greeks got that idea from the Hawaiians or vice versa." Highly unlikely, but a thought.

Well I've never heard of any complaints from the Polynesian people about being called Polynesian as native Americans do when there called native Americans.
 
I think some of the problems with unifying an official name is that North American Native American tribes are actually a large number of diverse cultures initially, and probably developed over at least two separate waves of immigration from Asia. So there's quite a bit of dissimilarity. It'd probably be best to have 5 or 6 leaderheds for the basic game (to represent some of the diversity of the tribes), but stick with the name that the English gave them, even if it's an oversimplification.
The Iroquois were closest to starting a unifying body (on the flipside the Cherokee were considered the most advanced at the time the Europeans were trying to have influence) if you want a hypothetical alliance, but really such a scenario would be like the China Unification scenario. You'd have to play it out to figure what culture/lingos would dominate to figure out what the final name would be. Though when I tried to do something like this in Civ3, I came up with a Haida vs. Cherokee vs. Iroquois vs. Sioux. And that ignores Hopi/Apache


Is there a generic native word for "the great Land" ? something that can suit an hypothetical alliance of north american natives clans and/or tribes.
 
Well I've never heard of any complaints from the Polynesian people about being called Polynesian as native Americans do when there called native Americans.

I am "Polynesian" and would much rather be called "Hawaiian" than "Polynesian" because I am Hawaiian. If I were Hawaiian, Tahitian, Samoan, Tongan, Maori, and Fijian I might not mind so much. It means a lot to Hawaiians to be Hawaiian. Mistake a Tongan for a Samoan and it may be your last. ;) Historically, they are long time rivals.
 
I just think it'll be absolutely hilarious when Roosevelt meets Sitting Bull in-game.

"The American Empire greets a new potential ally!"
"The Native American Empire returns the greeting!""
"...Wait, what?"
"Well, obviously, we were here before you, no?"

It'll also look pretty strange if you end up at war with both of them at once:

"A Mine has been pillaged by a marauding American Cavalry!"
"A Cottage has been pillaged by a marauding Native American Cavalry!"
 
rofl

So anyway, are there any Celts living in Europe who don't want to be called "celt" or they don't mind?

same with the Zulu isn't the name they call themselves gnubi or something like that?
 
As a man who's Native to America (born in Louisiana, no less!) I think the name is just silly, for all of the reasons listed here.

If they don't come up with a better name before July 23, it will be changed within minutes of installation on my computer.
 
can u even consider the native americans a civilazation??
i whould prefer one tribe over just genaric native american.
 
Into what?

what will be the name?

In my case, probably Poland or something of that nature :)

I see no particular reason to include an ethnic group which had virtually no influence on history, but that's a different debate. My point here is: Why worry what Firaxis calls them, when you can call them whatever you want (and download a leaderhead to suit)?
 
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