Asian = Oriental, etc.

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:01 PM -0600 2/8/01, Mark Odegard wrote:
>The *scholarly* usage of 'oriental' has not been mentioned. Oriental studies
>and oriental languages refer to the Middle East, as with the Oriental
>Institute of Chicago. Ancient Near East[ern], Semitic Studies, Sumerology,
>etc, are the more modern terms, but 'oriental' is still sometimes used this
>way.

I believe "Near East(ern)" is sometimes objected to for the same
reason as "Oriental"--it implies a Euro-perspective.  "Far East(ern)"
similarly, and a number of departments, including Yale's have shifted
from "Far Eastern" to "East Asian".  In our case, though, we've
retained "Near Eastern" (rather adopting than the marginally more
neutral "Middle Eastern"), maybe because it's mostly historical.  Our
departmental library used to be housed in the Oriental and Indic
Seminar Room, but now it's just the Ling(uistic) Sem(inar).

>
>I discover that 'East Asia[n]', along with NE Asia, SE Asia, North Asia and
>Central Asia are enormously useful as general terms. NW Asia is Siberia. SW
>Asia is the Caucusus. All these terms can be used for geographic, ethnic,
>linguistic or cultural descriptions.

Isn't Southwest Asia sometimes (or sometimes inclusive of) "Asia
Minor", i.e. Turkey?

larry