Re: Amerinds (was: Gallopavo (was: Re: fruitbats))

Quoting tomhchappell <tomhchappell@...>:

> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Johansson <andjo@F...> wrote:
> > [snip]
> > I've always found it rather infuriating that English use "Indian"
> > both of the Subcontinent and of the peoples of the Americas. Most
> > other European languages use different derivatives of "India", eg
> > German _Inder_ "(subcontinental) Indians", _Indianer_ "(American)
> > Indians".
> >
> > One of the English words should be changed to "Indish" or something.
> >
> >                                              Andreas
> >
>
> For some time the accepted academic designation was "Amerind".  You
> can see this in linguists' articles from that time.
It was the term used in a (American) textbook I had back in high school in the
late '90s, but if I try and use it these days, people accuse me of accepting
Greenberg's linguistic macrofamilies.

> Nowadays our own autonym, and therefore politically correct ethnonym,
> is "Native American".  In my view this is insufficiently
> specific; "Native American" means "born in America", and so would
> include anyone who is not himself or herself an immigrant.  To
> me, "Indigenous American", "Aboriginal American" or "American
> Aborigine", or "Autochthonous American" would be better -- though I
> don't really see what was so bad with "Amerind".
I dislike all of these due to the double meaning of "American" - are we refering
to the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, or just to those of what now is
the USA?

Also, these terms should logically include Eskimos and Aleutians, which, or so I
was thought in geography class, aren't considered Indians of any sort or
description.

                                                Andreas