Native self-descriptions WAS NEWS: MicroSoft's Spanish language problems

Siyo!

> >
> > I don't think I'd like this either if I were of
> Indian descent,
> > particularly not if of the Bharat variety ...
Where I live, you're safest to use the term "desi" for
natives of the Indian subcontinent.  Conflating
Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis is not a good
idea if you can help it, so best to use the one term
they share.

> Generally agreed, but to be fair, the term "American
> Indian"
> is often considered less patronizing by many of the
> peoples
> it describes than "Native American" is. (Of course,
> this does
> not legitimize these other synonyms.)
>
I've seen it go maybe fifty-fifty amongst all the
Natives I've talked to (part of my ideolect tends to
shorten it to "Native".)  Some of it seems to be
perhaps a correlation with education--Native students
I know here at school are more likely to go with
"Native American", and the few I've known outside
school with less education seem much more likely to go
with either "American Indian" or just "Indian".  For
myself, I don't use any of these terms, in part
because I'm biracial anyway.  I just describe myself
as "Cherokee" because that's so much more accurate.
How much do I have in common ethnically, historically,
etc, with, say, Navajos or Athabascans?

Dana
Clint

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