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.
11 comments:
Yet another reason for me to fill out any and all applications with "Irish-American."
-Rich
AMEN! Thank you for that! I was outraged when i found out where Caucasia was. I'm not from anywhere near there!
Thats fantastic, I often say to people, I guess I am from Causcasia but I don't know where that is. Thanks you for letting me know that, no, in fact I am not from there...Italy isn't even close to there. And really aren't I just American anyways?
The information you provided is great and helpful. Nevertheless, the opinions i've read within this blog appear to be short sighted based on semantics and are ridiculous in ethics of social standards. One man in america no more says he is Kenya-American than another says he is Brazilian American. Nationalism as a recent political movement to control and classify us by ethnicity and race simply through geographic location plagues the majority of us with a superficial sense of clanship. If you are offended by the mass grouping of all white people, then you should get out more.
*Learn to listen not defend*
-Peace
the people of Caucasian are the people of Persia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the countries below russia(they belong to race called ARYAN RACE). im originally from Persia and my mom is from Armenian. Caucasian people are known of there white skin, colored eyes, muscular ed body and they used to be in the front lines in battles.
Finally, some explanation of what Caucasian means...
i hate being called a word I didn't know it meant.
It is not where you ARE from, but where you CAME from, that is to say, where your ancestors are from. I know for example that I, being a Hungarian, have the nomadic Huns as my ancestors. The Huns originally migrated into Europe from Mongolia, which is nowhere near Caucasus mountains. Along the way they mixed their blood with various nations. I know that many Hungarians, especially guys, have elongated eyes as a remaining feature from their ancestors. Even if Hungarians did mix with Caucasians :) whoever they are, I think it wrong to call myself a Caucasian, but then I can't say I'm Asian either, just originating from Asia. The more we move around and mix, the thinner nationality and ethnicity borders become. I think they will eventually disappear.
actually, in europe, where im from and am living now, we consider 'caucasian' to be synonymous with 'white european'. most europeans dont know where the caucasus mountains are.
hi, although i applaud your quest to get to the bottom of this term's origins, i have to admit that i am a bit surprised that, as your title says you are in the business of Christian education, you don't know where the first country that adopted Christianity as its OFFICIAL religion was: Armenia, 301 AD, located in the South part of the Caucasian mountains...
the area has been considered as a locus of origin for the so called White race, long since dismissed, but the term seemed to stick. the mountain range is the divison point between Europe and Asia, which in itself is an arbitrary human desigantion.
in America, ethnicity and nationality or race are often interchangeable terms. in the rest of the world they are all separate. ethnicity refers to how your ancestors designated themselves, i.e. French, German, Armenian, Persian etc. Your nationality refers to your citizenship, that is which country's passport you are holding, and even if you passort says France, but your ancestors were Algerian, you will never be called French by the native French. your race refers more to a general geographic place of origin as broad as a continent, so if you are Syrian, you will never be seen as European by other Europeans, more like Asians.
unfortunately, in America, the term "Asian" only refers to the countries in South East Asia. somehow the rest of Near East, Middle East and Central Asia do not cut it as Asia.
hope this helps,
A.M.
good luck
Caucasia, isn't the correct word unless you're actually talking about the place in Colombia. And considering your ancestors are German, being "caucasian" makes perfect sense, seeing as the term was first applied to the "white race" by a German anthropologist in 1795.
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