Posted 24 November 2005 - 03:40 AM
I'm your basic male Caucasian, born in England, now living in Canada.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The term Caucasian race is used almost exclusively in North America to refer collectively to people whose ancestry can be traced back to Europe, North Africa, West Asia (Middle East), South Asia (the Indian subcontinent), Central Asia, East Asia, South America and Central America. (All of these regions except possibly Europe have both Caucasian and non-Caucasian indigenous peoples.) In the United States, it is currently used primarily as a distinction loosely based on skin color alone for a group commonly refered to as Whites, as defined by the American government and census bureau. It was once considered a useful taxonomical categorization of human racial groups based on a presumed common geographic, linguistic, and/or genetic origin.
The term itself derives from measurements in craniology from the 19th century, and its name stems from the region of the Caucasus mountains, itself imagined to be the location from which Noah's son Japheth, traditional Biblical ancestor of the Europeans, established his tribe prior to its supposed migration into Europe.
Caucasoid is a term used in physical anthropology to refer to people falling within a certain range of anthropometric measurements.
In the British Isles, "Caucasian" follows the North American definition, but in continental Europe, "Caucasian" currently refers almost exclusively to people who are from the Caucasus.
In New Zealand the term Caucasian is the most prevalent term for white people other than Pākehā. Caucasian is most often used in official forms or in news articles, whereas pākehā is more common in general language.
Interesting, now I know what it means.