The fascinating story behind the word(s) Indian!

Vivek Sharma
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

“Is Indian a bad word?”, this was the very exact question asked from me recently by a very good friend of mine and lead me to discover the fascinating history of this word(s). But before explaining, I would like to give a context. If you are looking just for the answer, just skip past the next paragraph.

I am a Computer Science major and an international student from India and don’t consider myself to be very good socially. This summer, I worked at a Subway and met some of the most amazing people. Almost all of them were from South Korea and I learnt so much from them about Korea and human and social interactions. I had to leave the job for an internship and we went on a company lunch. While eating, a very good friend of mine from Korea asked me this exact question, “Is Indian a bad word?”(Indian is also used to refer to the original native people of North America.) I was very shocked to hear this question and felt a bit offended at first. I have always been very proud of my country and this question was very surprising for me. But having known him from some time, I knew that he wouldn’t ask me anything to offend me. I asked him why he asked me this and he said that another co-worker of ours who belongs to the indigenous(also called aboriginals) told him so. Personally unaware of the answer, I didn’t answer it properly and tried to change the conversation. Then I came home and discovered the history of this word.

The word Indian is actually a Homonym which is a fancy word for same words with different meanings. Read further for the two different meanings and I have a short paragraph on what I learnt from this incident.

Indian as in the inhabitants of India(The country)

The word Indian in this context comes from the word India. The word India comes from the word Indus which is one of the major rivers in India. You might have heard about the word Indus as in the “Indus Valley Civilization” which was one of the oldest civilizations of the world. Before this, India used to be called by many different names including “Bharat”, “Hindustan” etc. The British made the use of the word “India” common.

Indian as in natives of North America

There is a great article on this which I found by Google(https://bit.ly/2LNTrfO) but here is a short summary of this article.

When Columbus started his journey in which he discovered America, he first reached the island of Guana’hanni’. After going back to Spain, he pleaded before the king and queen of Spain about how the Spanish and Portuguese invasion of the islands was negatively impacting the lives of the indigenous people. He said that they were people with “decorous and praiseworthy” manners and without any malice in their hearts. He called them the children of God. The word for children of God in Latin is “Los Ninos de la Endeo” and over the time, this word changed to Indio and then to Indian.

Both the words have a rich history and in no way are “bad”. The very fact that my co-worker considered it bad indicates he would have learnt this from some where. I couldn’t find any such reputable reference on the Internet so I think he learnt it probably from his peers or family. We are very lucky to be born as humans and especially lucky to be born in this information age. The internet enables us to find any information at the click of a button. A small misconception in the mind of my co-worker made him feel bad about his very own history. Research every thing which has been taught to you as good or bad and make your own opinion about it. Nobody is absolutely right or wrong in this world and doing your research will enable you to make good decisions in life.

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