OK, my brain is turning to mush from not sleeping and trying to spew out papers. I can’t think of a good word to say “indigenous”. I don’t like that word, it has nasty connotations. I want to refer to the television produced in several different countries and viewed in those countries, their “indigenous” television, as opposed to HIMYM and South Park.
What’s the word I’m looking for? Autochtonous? Thesaurus isn’t helping.
Stupid brain mush:( My ignorance needs fighting, badly.
aboriginal? native? home-grown?
Local?
Domestic? Locally-produced?
Native was the first word that came to mind. In the context you are referring to, I’d probably use domestic.
What nasty connotations does “indigenous” have? I think of it as most often used to describe flora and fauna, languages or peoples rather than man-made things, but it doesn’t have any nasty connotations to me.
Thanks everyone!
Hmm, yeah, when you’re thinking of plants it doesn’t feel nasty at all, but when comparing television I don’t want it to sound like “indigenous” implies some form of lesser development. Maybe it’s just my personal feeling with the word? I agree it’s fine when saying “the indigenous people of the Isle of Johnmace” or “the indigenous plants of the Gracerplains”. Maybe it’s because of associating it with these “natural” words, that makes it seem somehow denigrating towards other countries’ television. I dunno, maybe I’m crazy. Yeah, probably that actually…
There’s nothing wrong with having a personal dislike of a word, but yeah, I don’t get that from that word at all. It just means “native to the given location” to me.
And I was introduced to the word by Khan Noonien Singh, so you’d think I’d find it kind of icky.
That’s ironic, because in most political and academic contexts, at least, it’s considered a neutral term, or even a point of pride, unlike many of the alternatives. precisely because some of those alternatives*, in some societies, still has implications of presumed inferiority.
(For example, you don’t say “indio” in Mexico anymore*, but rather “indigena”.)
But maybe this is a case of creeping perjorativizing, a cyclical linguistic phenomenon in which a euphemism loses its neutrality and needs to be replaced, eventually, with another euphemism. (As in, “handicapped” —> “disabled” —> “differently abled”, etc.)
You are right that “indigenous” is still used occasionally to refer to something (a plant, a bird, a sport) that is “original” or “endemic” in a place or region, not just to a self-identified group of humans who descend in some way from a group which lived in approximately the same place before the arrival of European (or Chinese) colonists traveling across “blue water”. But because it is used so much these days for this latter concept, better to stick with another word for the concept you’re after.
Especially because you are choosing the national (country) boundary as your unit of “localness”, so you’re better off referring directly to that choice. “Domestic” should do the trick, I’d say.
(**Yes, I’m aware that many US Native Americans prefer to use “Indian” to describe themselves and their ethnic identity.)
You are absolutely right (and KneadToKnow too) that it is the creeping prejorativising that makes it sound nasty to me. I think what it’s calling to mind when I think “indigenous television” is television where people do things associated with the idea of “indigenous”, so television about hunting with spears (I know, this is really bad). Of course, for a paper the wording should be understood, but I just worry about the connotations of the word in the context. I don’t think it would seem like that if I said “indigenous plant”.
In the same way I worry about using “domestic” because a lot of what I discuss revolves around soap opera and themes of domesticity. “Domestic television”, or even “domestic soap operas” in that context takes on an additional meaning as well. Again, maybe just to me, as the word is of course completely accurate.
That’s why I was reaching for the totally alien-sounding and connotation-free “autochtonous” (or should it be “autochtonal”?). Oh dear, I think reaching for words like that is probably a sign that I need to stop having crazy feelings about words. :smack:
What if instead of “domestic television” you used a construction like “the domestic television industry” or “the Canadian (e.g.) television industry”?
I believe the first time I heard the word was Spock saying whales are indigenous to plant Earth.
Autochthonous was the word that came to mind from the thread title.
NM, I like native better than “applicable”.
Q