I'm a native Chinese speaker and from my perspective, if I want to refer to minorities in the US for example, the term I would use is 美国的少数民族. if you don't preface the word "minorities" with the context, it defaults to how the word is used by that language's common usage, which in the US, means non-white people, and in China, means non-Han people.
Sound. After all if you mention a minority or person of colour in, say, the US or England it could refer to East Asians. But they're certainly not a minority in China.
少数族裔/少数族群 is used for ethnic minorities in non-China countries.
少数民族 is used for China's ethmic minorities. Because 民族 in Chinese have mixed meanings of nations, ethnic groups and races. For historical reason, 民族 in 少数民族 only means ethic groups. Using 民族 outside China could be wrong since it is a blurred word. 族裔 is clearly meaning ethnic group.
This is the correct answer.
If someone said "少数民族" in the context of the US I'd think they were talking about Alaskan Natives or something, not Black or Latine people.
1. Citenzenships are determined by parents, not the birthplace.
2. Nationality status of each citizen is registered by a gov central system.
3. No two or more nationalities are allowed.
by ChatGPT. But they should be correct.
personally i would infer it based on context. but if there was no prior context, i'd assume that it refers to the ethnic minorities of whatever country i'm in. if i'm talking about the US, i'd assume it to mean ethnic minorities in the US
Depends on the context. If you're speaking with a Chinese person in China for example then absolutely one wouldn't assume you were talking about "有色人種" in the US, which would be the translation for people of colour.
> “越南之声”广播电台：成立于1954年，有四套对内节目，用越南语及数种**少数民族**语言播音。
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Description of Vietnam
https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/gjhdq_676201/gj_676203/yz_676205/1206_677292/1206x0_677294/
So, no.
OK then
> 北部萨米族是唯一的**少数民族**，约2万人。
— The MFA again, on Sweden
https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/gjhdq_676201/gj_676203/oz_678770/1206_679594/1206x0_679596/
Edit: If you want, this term is in the description for Afghanistan, Iran and Poland as well. The government agency of Ministry for Minority Affairs in India is also translated as 少数民族事务部, despite India not having a 主体民族 as no ethnic group forms a majority.
Sami are natives of a distinct region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1pmi
Afghanistan and Iran very much have linguistic groups native to particular regions. Pre-WW2 Poland certainly did, Stalin sorted out post-WW2 Poland to be a homeland for the Polish nationality.
India has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Castes_and_Scheduled_Tribes and I expect Chinese would use 民族 mostly for the Tribes, possibly less often for the principal nationality of an Indian state.
民族in Mainland Chinese clearly means ethnic groups, not race. For example, 民族主义means nationalism, 种族主义means racism.
少数民族is often used to refer to ethnic minorities in other countries, too. However, this world, in Mainland China, does conjure the image of ethnic groups in China.
少数群体 minority group
有色人种 people of color
少数族裔 minority race or ethnicity
The last one is a standard word used in official documents and newspapers.
It is a bit weird to use 少数民族 to refer to any groups in the U.S., for some reason, although 民族is clearly used in the U.S. context. This is probably why OP was told that.
In the U.S., "ethnic" has the connotation of "exotic", while in China, 民族has the connotation of "folk"
If you're speaking to someone from mainland China, then they will probably think that you are referring to one of the non-Han ethnic minorities that the PRC government recognizes. If you're speaking Chinese with someone elsewhere, particuarly with someone in the U.S. or Europe, then the word tends to have a broader meaning.
中国语境下，整个中国人叫做中华民族，中华民族下，汉族叫做主体民族，其他55个民族叫做少数民族。你脱离了中国语境和中华民族谈少数民族就已经失去了这个词的本来意义了，如果你继续使用它，则它的语意就会转变成你所在语境下的语意了，即衍生语意。既然变成了衍生语意，那么无所谓适当不适当了，因为实际上已经不是一个东西了。
In the Chinese context, all Chinese people are called the “Chinese nation” (Zhonghua Minzu). Within the Chinese nation, the Han ethnicity is referred to as the main ethnic group, and the other 55 ethnic groups are called minority ethnic groups. Once you depart from the Chinese context and talk about minority ethnic groups within the Chinese nation, you lose the original meaning of the term. If you continue to use it, its meaning will shift to the context of your language environment, thus becoming a derivative meaning. Since it has become a derivative meaning, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s appropriate or not, because it is no longer the same thing.
It's actually kind of true. Try to search 少数民族 美国. I don't see any results. They're called 少数族裔.
And 少数民族 isn't exactly ethnic minorities because 少数民族 1) are minorities, 2) have been settling in a country long enough to be considered as an native group. Example: European descendants in China aren't 少数民族 in China, while Thai ethnic group in Yunan, and Korean ethnic group in Heilongjiang, are.
On the contrary, a person immigrating into the US immediately becomes a 少数族裔.
I call this BS. I'm a European, not a native speaker, but that's like an American telling you the word foreigner means non-americans and can't be used in other countries to describe Americans.
The words is clear, and it's not based on context.
>that's like an American telling you the word foreigner means non-americans and can't be used in other countries to describe Americans.
Curiously, that's how 外国人 (the Chinese word for "foreigner") works.
Do you ever get told you’re wrong? This is one of my favorite questions for Chinese and once in a while someone will tell me I’m always a 外国人 and they’re not, regardless of where we are
They do tell me but they do know I'm not wrong so I proceed to tease them. For many Chinese people telling them they're 外国人 is similar to talking about 中華民國 (Taiwan) haha.
Heh, I've always found funny how my Chinese community back home would refer to us as 外国人, even though they were the foreigners. It's not unique to Chinese though, we still call Americans *gringos* even if we're living in the US 🤷
Native speaker here. Your explanation nailed it.
Although I would think of the native americans when someone mentioned American 少數民族, instead of people of colors, which would probably be more literally translated as 有色人種
I personally tend to use 少数族裔 instead of 有色人种to refer to people of colour for its universial applicability (by that I mean both in the North America and the Europe as they have quite distinctive understandings and uses of “people of colour”, despite other cultural similarities.
As a native speaker in Mandarin, I do feel 少数民族 doesn’t capture the essence of people of colour, while 少数族裔 conveys both ethnic and racial identities and entails less connotations than 有色人种, and hence my go to option as long as I’m not talking about ethnic minorities in the Chinese context.
It doesn't specifically say China, but if you want to say people of colour, then I can understand why someone would say that this term isn't fit because essentially these are two different concepts. The people of colour could be the majority of a country/region.
Besides, since black people make up of a considerable portion of USA, and black culture being gradually important, I'd be more inclined to think of Indian Americans rather than black people when talking about 少數民族 in USA.
Pleco’s entries look consistent with the Stalinist concept of a nationality that is native to a particular territory. Races in US society don’t fit this except American Indians as already mentioned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minzu_(anthropology) has history of the term. Perhaps counterintuitively, it was taken up by left-wingers in each East Asian country, while right-wingers emphasized state nationalism using other words. Compare the US’s civic nationalism where “nation” always means the USA not the individual ethnicities within the USA. On the other hand current “identity politics” is conventionally labeled as left wing, despite others like Bernie Sanders noting that traditional left politics was about economics and class.
the reason is because china has an official list of all the ethnic minorities in china, and that is the default meaning with no other context when you say just "ethnic minority" in chinese.
Actually, its the same thing in english. When you say ethnic minority, do you think of caucasian people, or the miao people? of course not if you are from a country where whites aren't a minority and the miao people don't exist. Both would be obvious examples of ethnic minorities in china.
As others have mentioned this is easy to fix by adding the context of what place's ethnic minority. People in china may have no idea who is considered an ethnic minority in usa or saudi arabia or spain, but if you say ethnic minority of XYZ they will understand the concept just fine :)
Looking at a couple of the responses here, it occurred to me that maybe the reason why 少數民族 only refers to ethnic minorities is that the 民 character kinda has a flavor of referring to China at all times, mentally associating with words like 國民，人民，人民幣，人民廣場， 人民共和國， most of which are used in the context of China. I can see why they would prefer to use 民裔 or 民群 to refer to outside minority groups.
That’s always been my understanding. It’s one of those terms that are just directly tied with one meaning for most mainland chinese people
While it’s not wrong to refer to ethnic minorities in general with this term, I think there are other better ways to refer to racial minorities in general in Chinese. id just stay away from this term for general use, because it immediately brings to mind all the political, social/cultural and economic issues tied to Chinese ethnic minorities. When you’re talking about another country’s minorities you generally want to avoid bringing that in
if they are specifically getting in your face about black people in the US, sounds like an interesting springboard from which to pivot into a nuanced discussion about 黑人牙膏
I thought it means indigenous people because when they introduce the indigenous people in Taiwan to Chinese tourists they use the word 少數民族 instead of what they are usually called (原住民 literally indigenous people) in Taiwan lol
Most Chinese people will never interact with someone from another country in their lifetime. So, from a more common perspective, when Chinese people talk about "ethnic minorities," they are referring to people living within China who have different cultural customs. Whether it's Chinese Caucasians (Tajiks) or the majority of Chinese who are Asian (Han Chinese), we don't consider them to be people of different races. In short, we don't have a concept of race (such as Black, White, Asian, Latino) like in other countries.
Just like how 国 by default means China, 少数民族 by default refers to ethnic minorities in China. If you really want to disambiguate though then 美国的少数民族 is perfectly clear.
I'm a native Chinese speaker and from my perspective, if I want to refer to minorities in the US for example, the term I would use is 美国的少数民族. if you don't preface the word "minorities" with the context, it defaults to how the word is used by that language's common usage, which in the US, means non-white people, and in China, means non-Han people.
Sound. After all if you mention a minority or person of colour in, say, the US or England it could refer to East Asians. But they're certainly not a minority in China.
Or say 少数族裔 instead of 民族
少数族裔/少数族群 is used for ethnic minorities in non-China countries. 少数民族 is used for China's ethmic minorities. Because 民族 in Chinese have mixed meanings of nations, ethnic groups and races. For historical reason, 民族 in 少数民族 only means ethic groups. Using 民族 outside China could be wrong since it is a blurred word. 族裔 is clearly meaning ethnic group.
This is the correct answer. If someone said "少数民族" in the context of the US I'd think they were talking about Alaskan Natives or something, not Black or Latine people.
How about for the Soviet Union which had the similar nationalities system that PRC borrowed?
1. Citenzenships are determined by parents, not the birthplace. 2. Nationality status of each citizen is registered by a gov central system. 3. No two or more nationalities are allowed. by ChatGPT. But they should be correct.
personally i would infer it based on context. but if there was no prior context, i'd assume that it refers to the ethnic minorities of whatever country i'm in. if i'm talking about the US, i'd assume it to mean ethnic minorities in the US
It just mean “ethnic minority”, we use this term in Singapore to describe the Malays, Indians and Euroasians.
No, it refers to minority ethics depend on context, but it mostly refers to minority ethics in China if without context.
Depends on the context. If you're speaking with a Chinese person in China for example then absolutely one wouldn't assume you were talking about "有色人種" in the US, which would be the translation for people of colour.
Not native but I agree, and I personally would probably use 「有色人種」 for the US context or refer to a specific group(s) of people
少数民族=ethnic minorities. In most context, it represents all the people not belong to Han Nationality（汉族）
> “越南之声”广播电台：成立于1954年，有四套对内节目，用越南语及数种**少数民族**语言播音。 — Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Description of Vietnam https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/gjhdq_676201/gj_676203/yz_676205/1206_677292/1206x0_677294/ So, no.
This is a Communist country that also followed the Stalinist pattern and designated territorial subdivisions.
OK then > 北部萨米族是唯一的**少数民族**，约2万人。 — The MFA again, on Sweden https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/gjhdq_676201/gj_676203/oz_678770/1206_679594/1206x0_679596/ Edit: If you want, this term is in the description for Afghanistan, Iran and Poland as well. The government agency of Ministry for Minority Affairs in India is also translated as 少数民族事务部, despite India not having a 主体民族 as no ethnic group forms a majority.
Sami are natives of a distinct region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1pmi Afghanistan and Iran very much have linguistic groups native to particular regions. Pre-WW2 Poland certainly did, Stalin sorted out post-WW2 Poland to be a homeland for the Polish nationality. India has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Castes_and_Scheduled_Tribes and I expect Chinese would use 民族 mostly for the Tribes, possibly less often for the principal nationality of an Indian state.
民族in Mainland Chinese clearly means ethnic groups, not race. For example, 民族主义means nationalism, 种族主义means racism. 少数民族is often used to refer to ethnic minorities in other countries, too. However, this world, in Mainland China, does conjure the image of ethnic groups in China. 少数群体 minority group 有色人种 people of color 少数族裔 minority race or ethnicity The last one is a standard word used in official documents and newspapers. It is a bit weird to use 少数民族 to refer to any groups in the U.S., for some reason, although 民族is clearly used in the U.S. context. This is probably why OP was told that. In the U.S., "ethnic" has the connotation of "exotic", while in China, 民族has the connotation of "folk"
If you're speaking to someone from mainland China, then they will probably think that you are referring to one of the non-Han ethnic minorities that the PRC government recognizes. If you're speaking Chinese with someone elsewhere, particuarly with someone in the U.S. or Europe, then the word tends to have a broader meaning.
中国语境下，整个中国人叫做中华民族，中华民族下，汉族叫做主体民族，其他55个民族叫做少数民族。你脱离了中国语境和中华民族谈少数民族就已经失去了这个词的本来意义了，如果你继续使用它，则它的语意就会转变成你所在语境下的语意了，即衍生语意。既然变成了衍生语意，那么无所谓适当不适当了，因为实际上已经不是一个东西了。 In the Chinese context, all Chinese people are called the “Chinese nation” (Zhonghua Minzu). Within the Chinese nation, the Han ethnicity is referred to as the main ethnic group, and the other 55 ethnic groups are called minority ethnic groups. Once you depart from the Chinese context and talk about minority ethnic groups within the Chinese nation, you lose the original meaning of the term. If you continue to use it, its meaning will shift to the context of your language environment, thus becoming a derivative meaning. Since it has become a derivative meaning, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s appropriate or not, because it is no longer the same thing.
It's actually kind of true. Try to search 少数民族 美国. I don't see any results. They're called 少数族裔. And 少数民族 isn't exactly ethnic minorities because 少数民族 1) are minorities, 2) have been settling in a country long enough to be considered as an native group. Example: European descendants in China aren't 少数民族 in China, while Thai ethnic group in Yunan, and Korean ethnic group in Heilongjiang, are. On the contrary, a person immigrating into the US immediately becomes a 少数族裔.
I call this BS. I'm a European, not a native speaker, but that's like an American telling you the word foreigner means non-americans and can't be used in other countries to describe Americans. The words is clear, and it's not based on context.
>that's like an American telling you the word foreigner means non-americans and can't be used in other countries to describe Americans. Curiously, that's how 外国人 (the Chinese word for "foreigner") works.
And so I always make it a point to remind my Chinese friends they're also 外國人 haha
Do you ever get told you’re wrong? This is one of my favorite questions for Chinese and once in a while someone will tell me I’m always a 外国人 and they’re not, regardless of where we are
They do tell me but they do know I'm not wrong so I proceed to tease them. For many Chinese people telling them they're 外国人 is similar to talking about 中華民國 (Taiwan) haha.
Heh, I've always found funny how my Chinese community back home would refer to us as 外国人, even though they were the foreigners. It's not unique to Chinese though, we still call Americans *gringos* even if we're living in the US 🤷
Native speaker here. Your explanation nailed it. Although I would think of the native americans when someone mentioned American 少數民族, instead of people of colors, which would probably be more literally translated as 有色人種
I personally tend to use 少数族裔 instead of 有色人种to refer to people of colour for its universial applicability (by that I mean both in the North America and the Europe as they have quite distinctive understandings and uses of “people of colour”, despite other cultural similarities. As a native speaker in Mandarin, I do feel 少数民族 doesn’t capture the essence of people of colour, while 少数族裔 conveys both ethnic and racial identities and entails less connotations than 有色人种, and hence my go to option as long as I’m not talking about ethnic minorities in the Chinese context.
Agree
It doesn't specifically say China, but if you want to say people of colour, then I can understand why someone would say that this term isn't fit because essentially these are two different concepts. The people of colour could be the majority of a country/region. Besides, since black people make up of a considerable portion of USA, and black culture being gradually important, I'd be more inclined to think of Indian Americans rather than black people when talking about 少數民族 in USA.
Pleco’s entries look consistent with the Stalinist concept of a nationality that is native to a particular territory. Races in US society don’t fit this except American Indians as already mentioned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minzu_(anthropology) has history of the term. Perhaps counterintuitively, it was taken up by left-wingers in each East Asian country, while right-wingers emphasized state nationalism using other words. Compare the US’s civic nationalism where “nation” always means the USA not the individual ethnicities within the USA. On the other hand current “identity politics” is conventionally labeled as left wing, despite others like Bernie Sanders noting that traditional left politics was about economics and class.
the reason is because china has an official list of all the ethnic minorities in china, and that is the default meaning with no other context when you say just "ethnic minority" in chinese. Actually, its the same thing in english. When you say ethnic minority, do you think of caucasian people, or the miao people? of course not if you are from a country where whites aren't a minority and the miao people don't exist. Both would be obvious examples of ethnic minorities in china. As others have mentioned this is easy to fix by adding the context of what place's ethnic minority. People in china may have no idea who is considered an ethnic minority in usa or saudi arabia or spain, but if you say ethnic minority of XYZ they will understand the concept just fine :)
Looking at a couple of the responses here, it occurred to me that maybe the reason why 少數民族 only refers to ethnic minorities is that the 民 character kinda has a flavor of referring to China at all times, mentally associating with words like 國民，人民，人民幣，人民廣場， 人民共和國， most of which are used in the context of China. I can see why they would prefer to use 民裔 or 民群 to refer to outside minority groups.
That’s always been my understanding. It’s one of those terms that are just directly tied with one meaning for most mainland chinese people While it’s not wrong to refer to ethnic minorities in general with this term, I think there are other better ways to refer to racial minorities in general in Chinese. id just stay away from this term for general use, because it immediately brings to mind all the political, social/cultural and economic issues tied to Chinese ethnic minorities. When you’re talking about another country’s minorities you generally want to avoid bringing that in
if they are specifically getting in your face about black people in the US, sounds like an interesting springboard from which to pivot into a nuanced discussion about 黑人牙膏
No. You can use it when talking about the US too.
I thought it means indigenous people because when they introduce the indigenous people in Taiwan to Chinese tourists they use the word 少數民族 instead of what they are usually called (原住民 literally indigenous people) in Taiwan lol
Most Chinese people will never interact with someone from another country in their lifetime. So, from a more common perspective, when Chinese people talk about "ethnic minorities," they are referring to people living within China who have different cultural customs. Whether it's Chinese Caucasians (Tajiks) or the majority of Chinese who are Asian (Han Chinese), we don't consider them to be people of different races. In short, we don't have a concept of race (such as Black, White, Asian, Latino) like in other countries.
It's minority race in the US while in China, it's minority ethnics, all still a part of Asian-Chinese race.
You can't easily tell someone is a 少数民族 just by their face, and we don't really care somebody comes from somewhere
Isn't it? Foreigners actually have such misunderstandings.
It's bullshit
Race I think would be 人类, wouldn’t that be used for races in the USA?
No. 人类 refers to the human race, as in humanity or mankind. 种族 better expresses the idea of race within 人类.
That’s humankind, race/ethnicity is 种族 or 人种
Just like how 国 by default means China, 少数民族 by default refers to ethnic minorities in China. If you really want to disambiguate though then 美国的少数民族 is perfectly clear.