The authors contention (and apparently that of the Anishinabek) is that aboriginal literally translates to not original and that native means slave. I did a little homework on this. According to what I found, ab as a preposition in Latin means of, from, by or since, as in ab initio, from the first. Thus the word aboriginal comes from aborigine (ab origine, from the beginning) plus the suffix al to make it an adjective. etymonline/index.php?term=aborigine Native comes from Old French natif, from Latin nativus, from natus, birth. By that etymology, I am a native of Canada, since I was born here. However, in the 15th century there WAS a second meaning of slavery, based on the idea that the native people of a conquered country were frequently enslaved. Does this invalidate native as a collective term? Maybe. Maybe not. Are we perhaps too sensitive about a connotation that existed five hundred years ago? etymonline/index.php?term=native Indian, of course, is just perpetuating a stupid mistake. Id love to see that word die in North America, except when referring to the people of India. I can understand wanting to reclaim identity... thats why the Micmac reclaimed the term Mikmaq, and more recently, Lnuk. But a collective term is really required. Many issues in North America impact all First Nations peoples, or at least a sizable percentage of them, and having to refer to over 500 First Nations by their individual names in such a situation is impractical. Canadians come from many different countries, but it makes sense to speak of ourselves collectively as Canadians rather than list off all possible countries of origin. Meaning no disrespect to the Anishinabek, to me it makes sense to speak of those who originally occupied a land (any land) as the aboriginal peoples of that land, since they were indeed there from the beginning. Thoughts?
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 12:16:46 +0000
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