Ethnonym

greatness of the black race.[4]

An ethnonym (from the Greek: , thnos, nation and , noma, name) is the name applied
to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into
two categories: exonyms (where the name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people)
and autonyms or endonyms (self-designation; where the
name is created and used by the ethnic group itself).

Four decades later, a similar dierence of opinion remains. In 2006, one commentator suggested that the term
Negro is outdated or oensive in many quarters, similarly, the word colored still appears in the name of the
NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People.

As an example, the ethnonym for the ethnically dominant In such contexts, ethnonyms are susceptible to the phegroup in Germany is the Germans. This ethnonym is an nomenon of the euphemism treadmill.
exonym used by the English-speaking world, although the
term itself is derived from Latin. Conversely, Germans
themselves use the autonym of die Deutschen. Germans
are indicated by exonyms in many European languages, 3 Linguistics
such as French (Allemands), Swedish (tyskar) and Polish
(Niemcy).
Main article: Demonym

In English, ethnonyms are generally formulated through

suxation; most ethnonyms for toponyms ending in a are formed by adding -n: America, American; Austria, Austrian. In English, in many cases, the word for
the dominant language of a group is identical to their
English-language ethnonym; the French speak French,
the Germans speak German. This is sometimes erroneously overgeneralized; it may be assumed that people
from India speak Indian,[5] despite there being no language which is called by that name.

Variations

Numerous ethnonyms can apply to the same ethnic or

racial group, with various levels of recognition, acceptance and use. The State Library of South Australia
contemplated this issue when considering Library of
Congress Headings for literature pertaining to Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people. Some 20 dierent ethnonyms were considered as potential Library of Congress
headings, but it was recommended that only a fraction of Generally, any group of people may have numerous ethnonyms associated with the political aliation with a
them be employed for the purposes of cataloguing.[1]
state or a province, with geographical landmark, with
the language, or another distinct feature. Ethnonym may
be a compound word releted to origin or usage, polito2 Change over time
ethnonym indicates that name originated from the political aliation, like Belgian for inhabitants of Belgium
Ethnonyms can change in character over time; while orig- that have their own endonyms; topo-ethnonym refers
inally socially acceptable, they may come to be consid- to the ethnonym derived from the name of the localered oensive. For instance, the term Gypsy has been ity, like Uralians for the inhabitants of the geographical
used to refer to the Romani. Other examples include area near the Ural mountains that have their own distinct
Vandal, Bushman, Barbarian, and Philistine.
endonyms. Classical geographers frequently used topoThe ethnonyms applied to African Americans have ethnonyms (demonyms) as substitute for ethnonyms in
demonstrated a greater evolution; older terms such as general descriptions or for unknown endonyms. Comcolored carried negative connotations and have been pound teminology is widely used in professional literature
replaced by modern-day equivalents such as African- to discriminate semantics of the terms.
American.[2] Other ethnonyms such as Negro have a different status. The term was considered acceptable in
its use by activists such as Martin Luther King in the
1960s,[3] but other activists took a dierent perspective.
In discussing an address in 1960 by Elijah Muhammad,
it was stated to the Muslims, terms like Negro and colored are labels created by white people to negate the past

4 See also
-onym
diaspora studies
1

5
demonym
exonym
hyphenated American
statistext
onomastics

References

[1] Aboriginal Rountable (1995): LCSH for ATSI People.

[2] Shahadah, Owen 'Alik. Linguistics for a new African reality.
[3] Jr., Martin Luther King,; Holloran, Peter; Luker, Ralph
E.; Penny A. Russell (1 January 2005). The Papers of
Martin Luther King, Jr.: Threshold of a New Decade,
January 1959-December 1960. University of California
Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-520-24239-5. Retrieved 29
July 2013.
[4] Message from the Wilderness of North America. A Journal for MultiMedia History article.
[5] Bourne, Jill; Pollard, Andrew (26 September 2002).
Teaching and Learning in the Primary School. Taylor &
Francis. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-203-42511-4. Retrieved 29
July 2013.

REFERENCES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1

Text

Ethnonym Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnonym?oldid=673827279 Contributors: Crissov, Dcoetzee, Altenmann, Diderot,

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