I have often remarked upon being referred to as a Caucasian, where exactly is Caucasia. Tonight, when recalling a pair of stories from my day, the term came up and this time rather than just query as to the location of Caucasia, I sought to get actual answers to this conundrum. So I pulled out a copy of 1828 edition of Webster's Dictionary (a wonderful gift from my church last Christmas), to look up Caucasian and here is what I found: "Pertaining to Mount Caucasus in Asia." Now I was really confused. Was I to understand that for all this time I was being called Asian? That could not be. So, I then pulled out the 1997 Random House Webster's College Dictionary to see what it contained that would help me to understand what was shaping up to be a rather humorous quest for knowledge. There I found the following:
1) of, designating, of characteristic of one of the traditional racial divisions of humankind, marked by fair to dark skin, straight to curly hair, and light to very dark eyes and orig. inhabiting Europe, parts of North Africa, W Asia, and India.
Let me get this straight. By this definition a Caucasian no longer has to be from Caucasia or Caucasus, but is only identifiable by having skin, hair, and eyes? This definition, really failed to define much of anything. "Fair to dark skin" does leave much out other than the people without skin.
Wanting to understand further I set about looking about the internet for more answers. There I discovered the in Europe "Caucasian" is still reserved for people actually from the Caucasus Mountains and not just the general term for white people as it is used in the U.S.
So when I am referred to as Caucasian, where are they saying I am from? A mountain range between the Black and Caspian seas along the border between Russia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. That's good to know, I thought I was just German.
