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Question for Eral; Just needed to get your attention
Topic Started: Feb 13 2008, 12:15 AM (43 Views)
lara
Unregistered

Hi Eral

I'm editing my second story on the big apology, and I was wondering: is the term Aborigine politically correct? North Americans have this habit of calling aboriginal Americans Indians, and it's utterly confusing. Aborigines seems so, well, vast. Is it acceptable?

(The "right" words here for aboriginal Canadians is First Nations.)
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Eral
Kopi Luwak

Some people feel "Aborigine" has too much racist history: like saying Jew, rather than Jewish. People often say "indigenous Australians", or "Aboriginal Australians" or "Australia's First People".

The term "Koori" or "Koorie" was used for a while to describe all Aboriginal people, but it really only describes people from Victoria, and isn't used so much now.

Names tell where you come from, where you belong. That's why there isn't a general Aboriginal word for all the people, because everyone comes from different places and are distinct from one another.
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lara
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Kopi Luwak
That's why we've opted for First Nations. It's a good description, imo: they are a variety of peoples, as different from one another as Chinese and Germans, you could argue, and they were here first.
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
Aboriginal people haven't agreed on a term yet.

http://www.theage.com.au/
You'll see how it's normally dealt with here.

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