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An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural or national experience. Unlike most other social groups, ethnicity is primarily an inherited status. Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language and/or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, and physical appearance. Ethnic groups, derived from the same historical founder population, often continue to speak related languages and share a similar gene pool. By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, it is possible for some individuals or groups to leave one ethnic group and become part of another (except for ethnic groups emphasizing racial purity as a key membership criterion). Ethnicity is often used synonymously with ambiguous terms such as nation or people. Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership, the following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified: * Ethno-linguistic, emphasizing shared language, dialect and/or script — example: Flemings * Ethno-national, emphasizing a shared polity and/or sense of national identity — example: Soviet people * Ethno-racial, emphasizing shared physical appearance based on genetic origins — example: Afro-Brazilians * Ethno-regional, emphasizing a distinct local sense of belonging stemming from relative geographic isolation — example: South Islanders * Ethno-religious, emphasizing shared affiliation with a particular religion, denomination and/or sect — example: Sikhs In many cases – for instance, the sense of Jewish peoplehood – more than one aspect determines membership. The largest ethnic groups in modern times comprise hundreds of millions of individuals (Han Chinese being the largest), while the smallest are limited to a few dozen individuals (numerous indigenous peoples worldwide). Larger ethnic groups may be subdivided into smaller sub-groups known variously as tribes or clans, which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy and/or physical isolation from the parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a pan-ethnicity, and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity. Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis. On the other hand race means group of people who possess some common ansestral traits strictly to be followed by its successors with keeping intact the earlier feelings, brotherhood ,social laws and parental consent ==Terminology== The term ''ethnic'' is derived from the Greek word ἔθνος ''ethnos'' (more precisely, from the adjective ἐθνικός ''ethnikos'',〔(ἐθνικός ), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus〕 which was loaned into Latin as ''ethnicus''). The inherited English language term for this concept is ''folk'', used alongside the latinate ''people'' since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ''ethnic'' was used to mean heathen or pagan (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian oikumene), as the Septuagint used ''ta ethne'' ("the nations") to translate the Hebrew ''goyim'' "the nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews".〔ThiE. Tonkin, M. McDonald and M. Chapman, ''History and Ethnicity'' (London 1989), pp. 11–17 (quoted in J. Hutchinson & A.D. Smith (eds.), ''Oxford readers: Ethnicity'' (Oxford 1996), pp. 18–24)〕 The Greek term in early antiquity (Homeric Greek) could refer to any large group, a ''host'' of men, a ''band'' of comrades as well as a ''swarm'' or ''flock'' of animals. In Classical Greek, the term took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as "nation, people"; only in Hellenistic Greek did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or "barbarous" nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan").〔(ἔθνος ), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus〕 In the 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. The sense of "different cultural groups", and in US English "racial, cultural or national minority group" arises in the 1930s to 1940s,〔''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second edition, online version as of 2008-01-12, "ethnic, a. and n.". Cites Sir Daniel Wilson, ''The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland 1851' (1863) and Huxley & Haddon (1935), ''We Europeans'', pp. 136,181〕 serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological racism. The abstract ''ethnicity'' had been used for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953). The term ''ethnic group'' was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972.〔Cohen, Ronald. (1978) "Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology", ''Ann. Rev. Anthropol.'' 1978. 7:379-403; Glazer, Nathan and Daniel P. Moynihan (1975) ''Ethnicity – Theory and Experience'', Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press. The modern usage definition of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' is: (Oxford English Dictionary Second edition, online version as of 2008-01-12, s.v. "ethnic, a. and n.") 〕 Depending on the context that is used, the term nationality may either be used synonymously with ethnicity, or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state). The process that results in the emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis, a term in use in ethnological literature since about 1950. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ethnic group」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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