"ethnic restaurant", etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the dominant population of an area was established.ĭepending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership, the following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified: The term may also be used with the connotation of something exotic (cf. The process that results in emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis, a term in use in ethnological literature since about 1950. Depending on context, the term nationality may be used either synonymously with ethnicity or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state). The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972. The abstract ethnicity had been used for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953). The sense of "different cultural groups", and in American English "racial, cultural or national minority group" arises in the 1930s to 1940s, serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological racism.
In the 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. In Classical Greek, the term took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as " nation, people" only in Hellenistic Greek did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or " barbarous" nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan"). The Greek term in early antiquity ( Homeric Greek) could refer to any large group, a host of men, a band of comrades as well as a swarm or flock of animals. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian oikumene), as the Septuagint used ta ethne ("the nations") to translate the Hebrew goyim "the nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews". The inherited English language term for this concept is folk, used alongside the latinate people since the late Middle English period. The term ethnic is derived from the Greek word ἔθνος ethnos (more precisely, from the adjective ἐθνικός ethnikos, which was loaned into Latin as ethnicus).
Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a pan-ethnicity and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity. Ethnic groups may be subdivided into subgroups or tribes, which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy or physical isolation from the parent group. Ethnic groups often continue to speak related languages.īy way of language shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with many groups having mixed genetic ancestry. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language, or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance. Ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism, and is separate from the related concept of races.Įthnicity may be construed as an inherited or as a societally imposed construct. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area. An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups.
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