Etymology
The word "race", interpreted to mean common descent, was introduced into English in about 1580, from the Old French rasse (1512), from Italian razza, which may have been derived from the Arabic Word "ras" "رأس" meaning the head of someone or something. In this context, "ras" points to the root or the head of selected species. The etymology can be further traced back to Latin gens or Arabic "genat" "جينات" meaning clan, stock or people and genus meaning birth, descent, origin, race, stock, or family, and cognate with Greek genos (γένος) "race, kind," and gonos "birth, offspring, stock ." This late origin for the English and French terms is consistent with the thesis that the concept of "race" as defining a small number of groups of human beings based on lineage dates from the time of Christopher Columbus. Older concepts, which were also based at least partly on common descent, such as nation and tribe entail a much larger number of groupings.
During the Age of Enlightenment, Europeans tried to define race as a biological concept, in keeping with their scientific ideas. In the centuries that followed, scholars made attempts to classify and define racial types, and to determine racial origins and correlates. As forensic anthropologists, biomedical researchers, and other scholars have collected and analyzed data on individuals and populations, some maintain that race denotes scientifically practical distinctions.
Read more about this topic: Historical Race Concepts
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)