[Nemo]

I'm just confused about how to refer to racial groups...><

how do u say 白人 in a formal way?
white ppl? caucasian?
but then in dictionary, it also says caucasian means Of or being a major human racial classification traditionally distinguished by physical characteristics such as very light to brown skin pigmentation and straight to wavy or curly hair, and including peoples indigenous to Europe, northern Africa, western Asia, and India. No longer in scientific use.

how to say 印度人?
punjab or hindu?
hindu is a religion right?, so we should call them punjabs?

how about 黑人?
black? african?

and 黃種人?
asian? chinese? i don't think there is a thing called yellows are yellow ppl...:P
i think chinese will be the right one, right??

i just want to clearify it, because i dont want to use words that may offend those im talking to.

thank you!!

[Iorik9999]

I believe 印度人 is just Indians..
at least that's what National Geographic called them when they were doing a show in India

黑人 i think negro-something.. i forgot the end


well too many immigrants around...

[CK]

caucasian is the formal way of saying white people. you can look at up at www.m-w.com

印度人 is called east indians. this is how most of us call them. i think indians are 山地人.

黑人 is called black americans by most people. 非洲人 are simply called africans.

and 黃種人 is usally called chinese. most white people just us chinese or south asians.

[water]

印度人 is Indian, punjab is a language, hindu is a religion
山地人 are aboriginals
黑人 calling them negro is impolite to them~
should call them africans, if they live in america they are call african americans
黃種人 can be yellow skined people
not just chinese, 黃種人 includes japanese, korean..etc etc
caucasian is usually refering to 白人

[Nemo]

so,
白人=caucasian
印度人=east indian
黑人= negro-something~~~lol or african american
黃種人= chinese
山地人= indian or aboriginal
非洲人= african

[Iorik9999]

well
黑人 is called negro-SOMETHING..
has a scientific name.....
if you say out the whole scientifc name, it's probably not that impolite
works like where you call someone Japanese, which is polite, wheras when you call him Jap, it's impolite... the shortening of the name is what makes it impolite, I think...
but I even think Negro doesn't sound so bad, the problem is with the variation that appears later "Nigger".. now that's really impolite

I thought Indian in the first place meant 印度人..
I thought it was Columbia who called the American natives Indian, because he thought he landed in India....

[Iorik9999]

黃種人= chinese
not sure about this one..
Koreans and Japanese won't be happy about it

[benyaoguai]

scientific?......
politically correct bah =.=...

they're called Negroid....
Netro is not as formal but still okay~.
calling them nigga.... then u're asking for some beating....

[Iorik9999]

really? only politically?
I thought Scientist give the name first..
Negroid has specific features I think

maybe the original name was something like Negroyourmamamymamaid, scientificly
and they changed it to negroid for short

[無花果]

long time ago, chinese ppl were called "little yellow people" lol (learned that from my biol 12 teacher)