Is Caucasian an ethnicity?

Question

What does it mean to be caucasian? It means nothing. It just means you are white and what else??

Answer 1

No its a soo called race Ethnicity is like Anglo, Celtic, White American Hispanic etc

Answer 2

The Caucasian race, sometimes called the Caucasoid race

is defined by the Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English as "relating to a broad division of humankind covering peoples from Europe, Western Asia, parts of the Indian Subcontinent and North Africa" or "white-skinned; of European origin" or "relating to the region of the Caucasus in SE Europe".

     People in Europe, especially in Russia and nearby, generally use the term "Caucasian" exclusively to identify people who are from the Caucasus region or who speak the Caucasian languages.

    The term "Caucasian" originated as one of the racial categories developed in the 19th century by people studying craniology. It was derived from the region of the Caucasus mountains.

    German scientist and naturalist, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840)  based the classification of the Caucasian race primarily on skull features, which he claimed were optimized by the Caucasian peoples, particularly a single skull from the Caucasia which resembled German skulls. It was from this similarity that he conjectured Europeans having arisen in the Caucasia. Blumenbach wrote about the "primeval" Caucasian race which he believed was "the oldest race of man" and the "first variety of humankind.

     In 1855, French diplomat and man of letters Arthur de Gobineau popularized ideas about race: "I must say, once and for all, that I understand by white men the members of those races which are also called Caucasian... [these] white races... had their first settlement in the Caucasus, historically an area of fascination for Europeans. Myths of the Caucasus featured Prometheus and Jason and the Argonauts. Greek mythology considered women from the Caucasus to have magical powers., such as Medea of Jason and the Argonauts fame.

   Among the main racial group of Caucasians there are three subgroups; Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean.  Meyers Blitz-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1932) divides "Caucasoid types" into: Nordic, Dinaric, Mediterranean, Alpine, East Baltic, Turks, Bedouins, Afghans. In 2003, the term "Caucasoid race" is a term used in physical anthropology to refer to people of a certain range of anthropometric measurements

    With the turn away from racial theory in the late 20th century, the term "Caucasian" as a racial classification fell into disuse in Europe. In the United Kingdom, the use of the term "Caucasian" is more likely than in the United States to describe people from the Caucasus, although it may still be used as a racial classification. In 2003, United States National Library of Medicine stopped using the term Caucasian race in favor of the term "European. In the United States, "Caucasian" has been mainly a distinction based on skin color with "white" or light complexion. Caucasians are also distinguished as a people who are, or whose ancestors were, "from Europe". The Oxford English Dictionary defines "Caucasoid" as as noun or adjective meaning "Of, pertaining to, or resembling the Caucasian race."

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/cau...

Caucasian

/korkayzin, -ay&ulzh;’n/

  ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚€Â¢ adjective 1 relating to a broad division of humankind covering peoples from Europe, western Asia, and parts of India and North Africa. 2 white-skinned; of European origin. 3 relating to the region of the Caucasus in SE Europe.

  ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚€Â¢ noun a Caucasian person

What else?, you ask.  I answered this on the hope it was not a racist-based question. We must all remember there is only one RACE on Earth--the HUMAN race--regardless of skin color, political views, etc. We all bleed the same red, turn to the same white bones, and later to the same brown dust from the earth that Adam came from (see Genesis in your Bible)

Answer 3

Forensically, it is a race. There are 3 forensic races: Caucasoid; Mongoloid: and N. e. g. r. o. i. d. and isn't it stupid that we must spell a valid scientific word with spaces and periods just to keep Yahoo happy? We all can see the word.

"ethnicity (n) a term which represents social groups with a shared history, sense of identity, geography and cultural roots which may occur despite racial difference."

http://racerelations.about.com/od/skills...

Therefore, race does not determine ethnicity; common experience does. Read the rest of that link.

Answer 4

It means your belong to the second least populous skin-color in the world. No. 1 is yellow; #2 is black; #3 is brown; #4 is white; #5 is red.

So, it means that whites have more control over their sexual urges.

Answer 5

****, its an ethnicity, just check it on dictionary noob

Answer 6

Nope. Ethnicity is usually finer-grained than that, It is a race. Race, in turn, is a handy method of describing people quickly, as in

"The lost hiker is a male Caucasian, 5'8", 180 pounds, 50 years old, last seen wearing a red flannel shirt and blue jeans".

Once you get to describing anything more than physical, as in

"All Whites / Blacks / Asians / Chinese / Mexicans / Huguenots

are

Brave / cowardly/ Smart / stupid / Honest / thieves / Industrious / lazy "

you get into trouble.

> It means nothing

In the USA, at least, it means we don't understand first hand some of the c**p that colored people put up with. I'm white. I've never been stopped for it. Two of the black people I worked with in the Information Technology department have been stopped, when they were younger, for "Driving While Black".

Answer 7

If you're referring to this group a people, then yes Caucasian could be considered ethnic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_of_...