AHC: Indo-European Language in Sub-Saharan Africa Before Colonial Era

[Gabingston]

There was a survey that went around my workplace recently. They asked to self identify based on race/ethnicity, it was for diversity and inclusion.

One of the options said "Indigenous, ie Maori, First Nations, Aboriginal Australian..."

I asked it out loud. "Surely you can't be asking if my ancestors are indigenous to ANYWHERE ON EARTH, right? Like you dont expect me to say "indigenous Irish", you want white?"

The truth is race is a social construct but I'm not sure the world is ready for that conversation yet...

Not to ask personal questions, but where do you live?

 

[durante]

Not to ask personal questions, but where do you live?

Sorry, should've mentioned as it's relevant to the context. I'm on Vancouver Island, Canada.

 

[Gabingston]

Sorry, should've mentioned as it's relevant to the context. I'm on Vancouver Island, Canada.

OK. Characterizing First Nations as Indigenous would be accurate to Canada, but the Maori and Aboriginals are as much non-indigenous as Europeans are. "Indigenous" just seems to mean "replaced in their native land by outside (usually European) settlers within the past 500 years", rather than "original people group of this particular location", which itself could mean all sorts of things (back to the "are Turks native to Anatolia?" question I thought of posing). Even within Canada, can a Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia really be called Indigenous in BC? It'd be like calling the Russians Indigenous in Portugal if Europe had been colonized by, say, Japan and then united into one large country post-independence.

 

[Falecius]

OK. Characterizing First Nations as Indigenous would be accurate to Canada, but the Maori and Aboriginals are as much non-indigenous as Europeans are. "Indigenous" just seems to mean "replaced in their native land by outside (usually European) settlers within the past 500 years", rather than "original people group of this particular location", which itself could mean all sorts of things (back to the "are Turks native to Anatolia?" question I thought of posing). Even within Canada, can a Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia really be called Indigenous in BC? It'd be like calling the Russians Indigenous in Portugal if Europe had been colonized by, say, Japan and then united into one large country post-independence.

In that sense, if you push it, nobody is really indigenous to anywhere outside Africa, and even there... It gets very messy very quickly, and that's partly because we are a long-term traveling species which likes overcomplicated and variable social constructs.