Ethnonym

An ethnonym (from the Greek: ἔθνος, éthnos, "nation" and ὄνομα, ónoma, "name") is a name applied to a given ethnic group.
Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of
people) and autonyms, orendonyms (whose name is created and used by the ethnic group itself).

As an example, the ethnonym for the ethnically-dominant group in Germany is the Germans. That ethnonym is an exonym used in
English but itself comes from Latin. Conversely, Germans themselves use the autonym of Deutschen. Germans are indicated by
exonyms in many other European languages, such asFrench (Allemands), Italian (tedeschi), Swedish (tyskar) and Polish (Niemcy).

Contents
Variations
Change over time
Linguistics
See also
References

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 different ethnonyms were considered as potential Library of Congress
[1]
headings, but it was recommended that only a fraction of them be employed for the purposes of cataloguing.

Change over time

Ethnonyms can change in character over time; while originally socially acceptable, they may come to be considered offensive. For
instance, the term Gypsy has been used to refer to theRomani. Other examples includeVandal, Bushman, Barbarian, and Philistine.

The ethnonyms applied to African Americans have demonstrated a greater evolution; older terms such as colored carried negative
connotations and have been replaced by modern-day equivalents such as African-American. 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,[2] but other
activists took a different perspective. In discussing an address in 1960 byElijah Muhammad, it was stated "to the Muslims, terms like
[3]
Negro and colored are labels created by white people to negate the past greatness of the black race".

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 In 2006, one commentator suggested that the term Negro is outdated or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

In such contexts, ethnonyms are susceptible to the phenomenon of theeuphemism treadmill.[4]

Linguistics
In English, ethnonyms are generally formulated through suffixation; 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.

Generally, any group of people may have numerous ethnonyms associated with the political affiliation with a 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,
polito-ethnonym indicates that name originated from the political affiliation, like Belgian for inhabitants of Belgium that have their
own endonyms; topo-ethnonym refers to the ethnonym derived from the name of the locality, like Uralians for the inhabitants of the
geographical area near the Ural mountains that have their own distinct endonyms. Classical geographers frequently used topo-
ethnonyms (demonyms) as substitute for ethnonyms in general descriptions or for unknown endonyms. Compound teminology is
widely used in professional literature to discriminate semantics of the terms.

See also
-onym
diaspora studies
demonym
exonym
hyphenated American
statistext
onomastics

References
1. Aboriginal Rountable (1995): LCSH for A
TSI People (http://www.nla.gov.au/niac/libs/martin.html).
2. 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(https://books.google.com/books?id=T
U_HozbJSC8C&pg=PA40). University of California Press. p. 40.ISBN 978-0-520-24239-5. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
3. Message from the Wilderness of North America. A Journal for MultiMedia History article
(http://www.albany.edu/jmm
h/vol1no1/elijahmuhammad.html).
4. "The game of the name"(https://web.archive.org/web/20110515171806/http://pinker
.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/
1994_04_03_newyorktimes.pdf)(PDF). Baltimore Sun. 1994-04-03. Archived fromthe original (http://pinker.wjh.harv
ard.edu/articles/media/1994_04_03_newyorktimes.pdf)(PDF) on 2011-05-15. Retrieved 2011-01-19.
5. Bourne, Jill; Pollard, Andrew (26 September 2002).Teaching and Learning in the Primary School(https://books.goog
le.com/books?id=KOsXN9eJvDkC&pg=P A34). Taylor & Francis. p. 34.ISBN 978-0-203-42511-4. Retrieved 29 July
2013.

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