SV: Kinship systems

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Vidyasankar Sundaresan [SMTP:vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM] skrev 10. oktober
2000 22:54:
> ps. In Naga Ganesan's recent post, the word "ethnic" appears, to talk of
> Aryan vs. Dravidian. In order to keep the discourse on track, may I point
> out that "ethnic" is simply another word that attempts to bring race in,
> through the back door?

Not necessarily. Greek ethnos means "people", and interestingly, "race"
originally could mean "people" or "nation", even "family" as well as
"race". Both in English and German, by the way. Today, "race" seems to have
become specialized to mean "biological" race, whereas "ethnic" may refer to
groups of different cultures or nationalities that may, however, belong to
the same "biological race". Compare the recent war in Yugoslavia, where
three ethnic groups that all belong to the same "race" and speak almost
identical languages have been busy making war on each other.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
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