Humans vs. People

I've thought about this before. "People" seems proper for any sentient creature, but it seems to be used for humans alone. The various Star Wars Expanded Universe novels are full of sentient non-humans, and the preferred term is "being." I use "people" to refer to sentient nonhumans, but "people" can be a little ambiguous, which is why i like the term "beings."

 

I don't have an issue with the term people referring to only humans, nor do I care if it is used to refer to other than humans. I wouldn't tend to call talking frogs in movies "people". The talking frog lobby may pettiion their local congressman for peoplehood, but thus far I don't they've gotten anywhere.

 

It depends on how its used. Non-humans might be a people, but they're not necessarily the people, if that makes sense. So the example in the Little Mermaid annoys me because it assumes people = human whereas if a book uses people to mean "people like us" as an exclusive group and that happens to be people, I'm okay with people being used to exclude non-human races. I suppose it all comes down to intent. If you're going to refer to one sentient race as people and another as not, then you should consciously be making a statement as to how one group views the other. For example in the book I'm reading a group of evolved cats refer to themselves as "the People" and you certainly get the idea that they regard themselves as above the other evolved species.

 

To be fair, "people" is a word that describes humans. It's not like we use it to describe anything else. So that just carries over into fiction, where we use people to denote the difference between like-us and unlike-us. I don't see any issues with using people to describe humans, but I also don't see any issue with using it to describe non-humans.

It's just that it would seem weird to call a group of sapient gophers "people", wouldn't you say?

 

But I'd bet actual money [well... not really] that the Gopher word for themselves would boil down to them being "the real "people" and us not so much...
The Navajo [from the Spanish "Apaches that farm"] word for themselves is Diné or "The People". I feel that any group or society's word for "us" will ultimately decode as "People".

Very true. Do not do unto others as you would have then do unto you... Their tastes may differ... as I once read.

Always worth it.

 

I've been trying to imagine what will happen when one day the very real people of Earth gain awareness of some planet elsewhere that is populated by sentient beings.

Would someone on Earth naturally say, "I wonder what those people are like?"

I don't think so, unless we discover that they look and act very much like us. (Convergent evolution.)

But then, the word those sentient beings use for themselves might not be used by them to refer to us, either.

 

So at this link....http://lapostexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Assembled-Apes-FB.jpg

...do you see "people" (plural) or only "person" (singular)?

 

I got to Star Trek VI
Chekov Human]: We do believe that all planets have a sovereign claim to inalienable human rights.
Azetbur [Klingon]: 'In-alien...' If you could only hear yourselves. 'Human rights.' Why, even the very name is racist.

 

Wrath of Khan

Kirk: Of my friend, I can only say this: Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most.... [voice breaks] human.

On a side note, it's interesting that with all the progressive inclusiveness of the Federation and the Star Trek world in general–at least, that's the stereotype of "Star Trek"–these examples of blatant racial bias pop up.