[trashb]

Ethnicity is hard to define and a term that spurs a lot of debate. Therefore I think it is best avoided in serious discussion.

For America (and in extension the american continent) it is quite clear who is ethnically native, actually it is probably one of the clearest examples there is partly because it is near in history. And already it gets messy when you dig deeper because of limited record keeping etc.

Broadly in the Americas anyone that was there before Columbus is considered native. Anyone that came after is considered migrant. Anyone born into native heritage can be considered descendant of native and thus native themselves.

  British ethnicity is a thing though

British ethnicity is messy and quite complex, are we talking before or after migration of the vikings? Before or after roman rein? Are we considering Ireland or Scotland separate? What about intermixing with neighboring countries through trade? Before, in or after British colonial empire?

[parineum]

You seem to be taking ethnicity pretty serious for a guy who says it should be avoided in serious debate.

Ethnicity is entirely arbitrary, that's why it should be avoided.

For example, the genetic line of what your calling the clearly Native Americans traces back to Asia. You've arbitrarily decided that their ethnicity is defined at a certain time in their lineage. Ehy aren't they Asians or even Africans?

There is culture that you can tie to a group of people at a certain time and that group frequently has similar lineage. That's usually what people mean by ethnicity. They're using physical characteristics due to lineage that is associated with a culture and they call that ethnicity.

In this context of of Romans, there is really no ethnicity that should map to the cultural identity of "Ancient Roman" as the empire had many subjects across it's empire.

[trashb]

  You seem to be taking ethnicity pretty serious for a guy who says it should be avoided in serious debate.

I take language and debate serious.

  For example, the genetic line of what your calling the clearly Native Americans traces back to Asia. You've arbitrarily decided that their ethnicity is defined at a certain time in their lineage. Why aren't they Asians or even Africans?

Yes I have arbitrarily decided, based on the later influx of people (in my view) other ethnicity from other continents. It is a divide I used as an example, there are more divides.

Ethnicity is arbitrary precisely because it is not clear what the boundaries of it are. I used Native Americans as an example, we all trace back to a few individuals in Africa. However Ethnicity is not just the genetics, it also includes culture, language, history, traditions and more. and it includes a component over time for example: "They have been living like this for x amount of years"(since after a war or similar displacement event) can be a divide in ethnicity.

You could subdivide ethnicity all the way until you reach the lineage and environment of a single individual. There are lots of ethnic differences between Native American tribes for example.

[8note]

you havent stated it directly, but you are asserting that "ethnicity" is equivalent to "a set of humans with a membership rule" with the most important part being legibility

and that you can create subsets and most importantly, union any two ethnicities together to get a subset.

ethnicity does not have that latter property though, so starting from the largest group and subdividing does not work.

"the americas is really big" is actually describing "there are many ethnicities in the americas that cannot be unioned together"

the union rule for ethnicities is that you can union two ethnicities and get an ethnicity only if there's significant overlap in genetics, language, culture, traditions, geography, etc.

there arbitrariness in setting that line, but its not approximately zero, as you've been suggesting, and we can tease that out with sniff tests. You maybe just dont know much about native americans, but you'd never put inuit and maya in the same ethnicity.

seriousness in debate and language would be to take curiosity in why the critiques think that size does matter, rather than asserting that it doesnt.

[liveoneggs]

are you an alt account for benj111?

[trashb]

No i don't know who that is.

[broken-kebab]

In the same fashion we can declare pretty much all words messy, simply because their meanings are context-dependent. It's true even for majority of hard science terms. However, it doesn't make that postmodernist way of cancelling words any less absurd as it makes all discussions impossible.

As a good example you yourself use "native" which is as messy, and complex as "ethnicity". You arbitrarily chosen Columbus arrival as definition point, which can make you feel comfortable in the moment, but it's neither universally accepted, nor universally applicable. Using the same logic it must be banished from serious discussion.

[trashb]

The points I've chosen as examples above are not arbitrarily. They correspond with an influx of people that may be considered of other ethnicity, for example from another continent or culture. You describe the ambiguity of what you interpret as a border for "change of ethnicity" is precisely the problem with the term. Unless you create a consensus about the use in the specific discussion you may be misinterpreting what is being said.

The meaning of any natural language term is up to discussion some more then others.

Native is a lot more clear if used to refers to where a single person was born.

[throwthrowuknow]

Comparing Britain and the Americas is a category error. Even comparing England to the USA would be incorrect.

[trashb]

I didn't compare the Americas and Britain.

[frollogaston]

Right, nobody did

[liveoneggs]

The americas are really big. Grouping every person "pre columbus" into a single bucket is wrong

[trashb]

  The americas are really big

The size doesn't matter.

  Grouping every person "pre columbus" into a single bucket is wrong

Wrong for what? To make a distinction between to generalized groups can be a very useful abstraction in language, debate and science. "pre columbus peoples of the Americas" is already way more defined then "ethnically american" which was the main point I am making, "ethnic" is a vague term.

[graemep]

Its as good as you are going to find in grouping people by ancestry.

[frollogaston]

1700ad is a good cutoff for the modern definition of Britain, which is when the island was unified under a single government. Norman Conquest was pretty transformative I heard, and by then the conquerors had already been assimilated, but idk how much that really matters since William wasn't like Tamerlane.

Caesar saw Europe differently back then but surprisingly not that different by geography, "omnia Gallia" divided by rivers plus Germany, Britain, and Spain. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-R1QU...