Americans are whatever, British ethnicity is a thing though
Its not defined by genetics. A very high proportion of "white British" people I know (that is of those who have told me!) turn out to have all kinds of ancestry (Indian, Romany, and Polish examples come to mind) in recent generations.
Genetics do not refine race/ethnicity, culture and cultural definitions do. Americans have definitions even the culturally similar British do not understand (e.g. hispanic, white passing black). I am defined differently in different countries: https://pietersz.co.uk/2023/08/racism-culture-different
Surely 'ethnic americans' are Native North Americans?
This is the thing. Ethnicity gets wrapped up in a value judgement. We don't want to talk about ethnic Americans, but are willing to talk about ethnic Britons. Which then implies some rights those ethnic groups should have. But I would dare say the majority of 'ethnic Britons' wouldn't identify as British.
So I'd rather not use it in a way that conflates nationhood with ethnicity.
But on this topic the concept of German ethnogenesis is very interesting. The formation of Gothic identity and communities even more, though sources are extremely scarce and it's more of a mystery.
...yes?
dene for sure crosses borders
native american is a group of ethnicities reasonably unrelated to "american" so its not particularly useable as "ethnic americans" when its could be just as useable as "ethnic canadians"
Yes
> Surely 'ethnic americans' are Native North Americans?
Yeah but they're normally called Native Americans
For America (and in extension the american continent) it is quite clear who is ethnically native, actually it is probably one of the clearest examples there is partly because it is near in history. And already it gets messy when you dig deeper because of limited record keeping etc.
Broadly in the Americas anyone that was there before Columbus is considered native. Anyone that came after is considered migrant. Anyone born into native heritage can be considered descendant of native and thus native themselves.
British ethnicity is a thing though
Ethnicity is entirely arbitrary, that's why it should be avoided.
For example, the genetic line of what your calling the clearly Native Americans traces back to Asia. You've arbitrarily decided that their ethnicity is defined at a certain time in their lineage. Ehy aren't they Asians or even Africans?
There is culture that you can tie to a group of people at a certain time and that group frequently has similar lineage. That's usually what people mean by ethnicity. They're using physical characteristics due to lineage that is associated with a culture and they call that ethnicity.
In this context of of Romans, there is really no ethnicity that should map to the cultural identity of "Ancient Roman" as the empire had many subjects across it's empire.
You seem to be taking ethnicity pretty serious for a guy who says it should be avoided in serious debate.
For example, the genetic line of what your calling the clearly Native Americans traces back to Asia. You've arbitrarily decided that their ethnicity is defined at a certain time in their lineage. Why aren't they Asians or even Africans?
Ethnicity is arbitrary precisely because it is not clear what the boundaries of it are. I used Native Americans as an example, we all trace back to a few individuals in Africa. However Ethnicity is not just the genetics, it also includes culture, language, history, traditions and more. and it includes a component over time for example: "They have been living like this for x amount of years"(since after a war or similar displacement event) can be a divide in ethnicity.
You could subdivide ethnicity all the way until you reach the lineage and environment of a single individual. There are lots of ethnic differences between Native American tribes for example.
and that you can create subsets and most importantly, union any two ethnicities together to get a subset.
ethnicity does not have that latter property though, so starting from the largest group and subdividing does not work.
"the americas is really big" is actually describing "there are many ethnicities in the americas that cannot be unioned together"
the union rule for ethnicities is that you can union two ethnicities and get an ethnicity only if there's significant overlap in genetics, language, culture, traditions, geography, etc.
there arbitrariness in setting that line, but its not approximately zero, as you've been suggesting, and we can tease that out with sniff tests. You maybe just dont know much about native americans, but you'd never put inuit and maya in the same ethnicity.
seriousness in debate and language would be to take curiosity in why the critiques think that size does matter, rather than asserting that it doesnt.
As a good example you yourself use "native" which is as messy, and complex as "ethnicity". You arbitrarily chosen Columbus arrival as definition point, which can make you feel comfortable in the moment, but it's neither universally accepted, nor universally applicable. Using the same logic it must be banished from serious discussion.
The meaning of any natural language term is up to discussion some more then others.
Native is a lot more clear if used to refers to where a single person was born.
The americas are really big
Grouping every person "pre columbus" into a single bucket is wrong
Caesar saw Europe differently back then but surprisingly not that different by geography, "omnia Gallia" divided by rivers plus Germany, Britain, and Spain. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-R1QU...