Separated by a Common Language

Glad to have found this blog - it's very interesting.

From my (BrE, 35-year-old) perspective, I think I'd be very unlikely to describe anybody as as "an oriental" (noun), but I might possibly describe them as "oriental" (adjective). I would certainly have little hesitation in using the word as a adjective in relation to, for example, food - a phrase like "oriental cuisine" feels perfectly natural (indeed, our local Chinese restaurant is called Oriental Kitchen).

As to south Asia, I have (rarely) heard the word "subcontinental" used as an adjective to refer to things from the India/Pakistan/Bangladesh region - though I don't think I've heard it applied to people.

Yes, it's only the application of oriental to people, rather than things, that is usually felt to be unnice.

I do think that oriental is generally used by people of a certain age/attitude--signalling the same kind of behind-the-times attitude as use of the word colo(u)red does in BrE or AmE (but not South African English, where it means a specific group of people).

I've heard some Americans address the "Indian" ambiguity by asking, "Dots or feathers?"

That 'Asian = Chinese/Japanese/etc' confuses me when I'm reading books, mostly.

I think I'd say American Indian for Native American....

Glad you'll still be around :) And it was great to read the interview!

To me, a brit, "asian" always meant the Far East, not the area in and around the Indian subcontinent. Maybe I just didn't understand the 'proper' British usage, but it still doesn't make sense to me to have that one term refer to places as different as India and Japan. I don't know anyone who uses the term 'oriental' when refering to people, even among the older generations.

Ethnicity is a tricky, fraught subject; kudos for taking it on.

It's strange: I would use the word native to talk about Native Canadians but my native friends mostly seem to call themselves Indians. I think First Nations People is the most politically correct term right now. In South Africa native is a deregatory term from apartheid for black Africans.

I used to use Asian to refer to East Asians but recently I've tried to be more accurate, using it for all of Asia but that usually requires further clarification.

Sorry to hear you won't be posting as often. I really enjoy them... guess I should read more of your archives.

Any thoughts on the whole "Indian giver," "Indian summer" thing?

Hi, I guess it’s true what you say, what I would consider asian (british english), is interpreted as people from china, japan etc in US and it fairly confuses me. Similarly "east indian" also manages to confuses me lately but I guess they refer to the indian, pakistanis, bangaladesi's groups. If I use the word oriental, my husband who lives in US, chids me for being rude whilst I was just referring to the anthropological definition for want of better work. I wouldn’t be able to call the majority of population as Caucasian could I? Whilst there is further colloquial differences like Mediterranean or eastern European and many more. Coming from a homogenous population (India), I am beginning to learn the differences of usage which is proving to be increasingly hard and sometimes I err thou mostly out of ignorance.

Thanks for the comments.

I did a long comment earlier in which I linked to a number of reports about two men of Pakistani descent being removed from a plane in Manchester a couple of weeks ago because people heard them speaking something the assumed was Arabic and thought they might be terrorists. The Daily Mail's version of the story can be seen here.

I had searched for this story from a lot of different sources and had lots of links to it. Then my server crashed. I'm not going to do it all again, but the upshot was that UK sources refer to them as Asian and when it's presented in American blogs or news sources they're presented (erroneously) as Arab or Arabic-speaking or (by United Press International) as 'of Asian or Middle Eastern appearance'--which seems to be a melding of the British source (which doesn't mention the Mid East) and the need to make it understandable to Americans. CBATG. You can google it yourself if you're desperate for the evidence!

Very interesting site. I was recommended to it by Lizza. I have a post on American v. British English (1st Sept.) that got some funny comments!

I have no idea whether the Guardian piece cited here is correctly described as an editorial in AmE, but it is certainly not a leader in BrE.

A leader is a short piece in the leader column, almost invariably anonymous, which is the formal opinion of a newspaper. It is written by a leader writer who is an employee of the newspaper concerned.

The Guardian piece is a column, written by a columnist, which is the opinion of nobody other than its author. A columnist may be an employee of the newspaper, but very often is not.

There is some implication of regularity, or at least plurality, in the column/columnist form. As a BrE newspaper reader, that doesn't prevent me using it to describe a one-off piece, but it does make me feel the want of a better word

I lived for about five years in coastal California, where people of East Asian descent make up a large percentage of the population (though you would never know that from watching television shows set in Californian cities) and questions of the experience of East Asian people in the USA come up more often than in many other parts of the country. The reason, I was told, that "Asian" is preferred over "Oriental" is that "Oriental" is a Euro-centric term -- it means east of Europe, whereas "Asian" refers to that continent without reference to Europe.

I was talking about the "Asian" difference with an English friend of mine (who is himself young and of Sri Lankan descent), and he told me he would call East Asian people "Oriental"; when I explained that some people in California thought that was a racist term, and why, he thought that reasoning was overly fussy.

I also find this argument for preferring "Asian" over "Oriental" not particularly compelling because I've studied Mandarin Chinese for several years; not only are the Chinese plenty ethno-centric, but the most common polite terms for Asians and Europeans I've heard in Mandarin gloss as "east area people" and "west area people". For an idiomatic translation, feel free to pick "Easterner/Westerner" or "Oriental/Occidental" according to the register you want.

My flatmate (born and raised in London) pointed out a character on the soap EastEnders to me by referring to her as "the Chinese girl." By her accent, I'd say this character was born and raised in the East End herself, so I think he was using "Chinese" as a neutral racial designation. UK forms asking for race/ethnicity use "Asian" to refer to the subcontinent, and have a category for "Chinese" and no other east Asian category except "Other". This fits my flatmate's usage.

But anyway, I use "Asian" when I'm in the US or Canada and "East Asian" when I'm in the UK because I am too aware of differences between Chinese, Koreans, Cambodians, Japanese, and so forth to use "Chinese", and I'm not comfortable with "Oriental".

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lynneguist wrote: In the US and, it turns out, Australia, Asian typically refers to people/things from East Asia

Actually, in Australia (or Melbourne at least) Asian typically encompasses cuisine, culture etc from anywhere on the Asian Continent, from Pakistan to Indonesia.

The phrase South-East Asian is commonly used to refer specifically to countries within the region of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, etc.

We don't really have a phrase for the countries in the region of Pakistan, India etc. While the meaning of subcontinental is understood, it is not widely used, and sounds to my ears somewhat archaic and British .

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I have removed a comment by VIRTUAL because it used abusive language toward(s) the people commenting here. If VIRTUAL would like to rephrase his/her sentiments in a way that doesn't involve name-calling of other participants, I'd be happy to let the comment stand.

To my British ears, China, Japan, Korea etc are 'the Far East'; India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are 'the Indian subcontinent'; everything from the Levant eastwards is 'the East'. I would prefer it if we still called the area now known as the Middle East, the Near East, because I really don't know what it is supposed to be in the middle of.

But yes, definitely, 'Asian' has very different connotations in the UK and the US. I wonder if this is a contender for your prototypical differences? Asian could refer to anyone from Asia in both countries, I think, but the prototype in the UK is Indian/Pakistani and in the US Chinese/Japanese/Korean.

Good call, Ros! Will add it to my prototypes list...

My kids go to a Pakistani Dr. She says she is "Middle Eastern. Although when I first me ther I aske if she was from India.

In my Area in the Midwest we have quite a few Middle eastern people mostly from Pakistan and Afgahnistan.

In the city of st louis ther is a large Bosnian community, but I do not know what they would be considered.

I can't think of any way a Bosnian could be thought an Asian! Bosnia is unambiguously in Europe.

It seems strange to me to call Pakistan and Afghanistan "Middle East" - to me the Middle East ends somewhere west of Iran.

I'm a Canadian who has also lived in the UK and US. To avoid any ambiguity, I tend to say "East Asian", "South Asian" and "Southeast Asian" when looking for a modifier for Asianness.

cinnamongirl (above) mentioned that the approved term for Native Canadians (the Canadian version of American Indians) is "First Nations people". For what it's worth, most of the First Nations people I've met simply refer to themselves as "Indian", and in some legislation they are still called by that name (cf. the designation "Status Indian"). There was a federal court decision a couple of years back that recognized Métis and non-status Indians in Canada as "Indians" under the Constitution Act, so usage can indeed get complicated.

There are 3 groupings of indigenous people in Canada: First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. (The Inuit are still commonly called Eskimo in Alaska, I understand, but in Canada that term is seen as politically incorrect as well as dated and imprecise.)

The catchall term for all indigenous peoples in Canada is "Aboriginal". In Australia (as I learned from a colleague down under), the most common catchall term is Indigenous, since it refers to both Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders.

I've heard that the demise of Near East resulted from a misinterpretation of M.E.F. which was actually the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in the First World War. It was widely assumed to stand for Middle East(an) Force.

The MEF did exist, and Near East was used beforehand, so I'm inclined to believe the story.

In fact, I believe the term Near East was used long after the Ottoman Empire had lost all its Balkan provinces.

now, west asians are arabs, east asian are orientals, but south central asians don't seem to have their own collective term. (of course the north asians are russian) so it really confuses me, because most people refer to them as indians, even if they're not. (pakistani, sri lankans, bangladeshi, etc.) so it really does confuse me. (along with many others.

In the US these days, I think Oriental, as a designation for an individual from anywhere on the Asian continent, is out. Older folks and those living in areas where Asians are less frequent may not know that and thus still use the term. But having married a Japanese-American and having biracial children, I can attest to the offense it can cause among members of Asian communities. It smacks of white supremacy because of its historical use during periods of Western domination over populations in China, and other lands in Asia.

Even using Oriental to characterize the cultures, languages and geography is passé. Probably the only time where it's not frowned on completely is when discussing furniture or antiques. But again, a more specific designation would be more appropriate, e.g. Japanese chest, Chinese porcelain, South-East Asian subcontinent

BrE. I have a layman’s interest in history, archaeology and, mor recently, studies using ancient dna. In articles and papers, the term Indian used to be used as a “geographical” descriptor. References to the Indian subcontinent, or even just the subcontinent, ere common, but the adjective subcontinental was rarer. Currently, the term “south Asian” is clearly preferred.

Mayanma(r)/Thailand/Laos/ Vietnam/Malaysia/Indonesia are Southeast Asia in this context, and the term may include (the?) Philippines, Borneo and Papua New Guinea (and any other country in the area that I’ve missed). China/Japan/Korea(s) are east Asia. Central Asia is essentially all those countries that end in -stan. The Middle East vs near east can be avoided by using terms like “the Fertile Crescent”. Iran, or the Iranian plateau, for some reason, is generally referred to as a separate entity.

And if you think these designations reflect scientific objectivity, the rancour and flaming on some blogs is truly depressing.

I think the use of (south) Asian for people from the Indian subcontinent is relatively new (like, in my lifetime; maybe within the last 30-40 years). When I was young, I’m pretty sure “Asian” meant East Asian/oriental. I assume it changed to avoid everyone from the region being described as Indian (or Pakistani or other more offensive terms). It can be confusing but Asia’s a big place