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White people is a racial classification specifier, depending on context used for people of Caucasian ancestry. The contemporary usage of "white people" or a "white race" as a large group of (mainly European) populations contrasting with "black", "colored" or non-white originates in the 17th century. It is today particularly used as a racial classifier in multiracial societies, such as the United States (White American), the United Kingdom (White British), Brazil (White Brazilian), and South Africa (White South African). Pragmatic description of populations as "white" in reference to their skin color predates this notion and is found in Greco-Roman ethnography and other ancient sources. Notions of different races, including of a European race or races, thus arguably pre-exist the 17th century, meaning that the rise of the term "white" does not necessarily signify the first emergence of European racial identity or identities. == Antiquity and Middle Ages: Physical description == In the literature of the Ancient Near East and Classical Antiquity, descriptions of the physical aspect of various nations or peoples in terms of color is commonplace. The Ancient Egyptian (New Kingdom) funerary text known as the ''Book of Gates'' distinguishes "four races of men". These are the Egyptians, the Levantine/Canaanite peoples or "Asiatics", the "Nubians" and the "fair-skinned Libyans".〔"The first are RETH, the second are AAMU, the third axe NEHESU, and the fourth are THEMEHU. The RETH are Egyptians, the AAMU are dwellers in the deserts to the east and north-east of Egypt, the NEHESU are the Cushites, and the THEMEHU are the fair-skinned Libyans" ((chapter VI ), translated by E. A. Wallis Budge, 1905).〕 The Egyptians are depicted as a light reddish brown, the Nubians (modern Sudan) as black skinned, the Semites from the Levant (modern Syria) and Canaan (modern Lebanon, Israel and Jordan) as light skinned, and the Berbers of ancient Libya as similarly fair. Xenophon described the Aethiopians (Nubians) as black and the Persian troops as white compared to the sun-tanned skin of Greek troops.〔(Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments, Xenophanes, J. H. Lesher, University of Toronto Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8020-8508-3, p. 90. ); ''Agesilaus''〕 Herodotus similarly used ''Melanchroes'' "dark-skinned" for the Egyptians.〔Herodotus, ''Histories'' 2.104.2.〕 He described the ''Aithiopes'' as "burned-faced", for the Aethiopians (Nubians). Herodotus also described the Scythian Budini as having deep blue eyes and bright red hair.〔Herodotus 4.108 trans. Rawlinson.〕 These color adjectives are typically found in contrast to the "standard" set by the own group, not as a self-description. There is no general global historical study of ideas of race. There is substantial debate about when such ideas arose, why they did so, and how older ideas of race (if they existed) intersected with modern classifications like "white". Some writers have claimed that notions of race did not exist in the ancient world, with classicist James Dee claiming "the Greeks do not describe themselves as "white people"—or as anything else because they had ''no'' regular word in their color vocabulary for themselves."〔James H. Dee, "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White'?" ''The Classical Journal'', Vol. 99, No. 2. (December 2003 – January 2004), pp. 162 ''ff.''.〕 Other writers have, by contrast, suggested that colour prejudice did indeed exist in the ancient world, in the sense that it was believed that different groups of people had inherent differences arising from their climate, including skin colour, and that environmental conditions made some groups innately superior or inferior. Assignment of positive and negative connotations of ''white'' and ''black'' date to the classical period in a number of Indo-European languages, but these differences were not always applied to skin color ''per se''. Religious conversion was sometimes described figuratively as a change in skin color.〔 Similarly, the Rigveda uses ''krsna tvac'' "black skin" as a metaphor for irreligiosity.〔Michael Witzel, "Rgvedic History" in: ''The Indo-Aryans of South Asia'' (1995): "while it would be easy to assume reference to skin colour, this would go against the spirit of the hymns: for Vedic poets, black always signifies evil, and any other meaning would be secondary in these contexts"〕 The pseudo-Aristotelian ''Physiognomica'' (2nd century BC) in keeping with the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean postulates that the ideal skin tone was to be found somewhere between very dark and very light. Similar views were held by a number of Arabic writers during the time of the medieval Caliphate period. Some Arabs at the time viewed their "swarthy" skin as the ideal skin tone, in comparison to the darker Sub-Saharan Africans and the fairer "red people" to the northeast (which included the native inhabitants of Spain, the Greeks, Persians, and other peoples of the Mediterranean). Racial prejudice was not unknown in classical Arabic civilization. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「white people」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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