Talk:Latino (demonym)/Archive 1

message: I believe a "" tag should be added to this article, since there's too much discussion over this on this talk page. I don't agree with that article either. For me, latinos are and always were Latin Americans. Nothing else. Someone who was born in Latin America. That's what a latino is in Spanish, and that's what a latino is in Portuguese. Isn't that the way it works in the United States? I really didn't know this. If that's really used in the US to refer to Latin Americans who live in the US, I think the article should also talk about the use this word has in the rest of America, for example. This doesn't sound right to me.
By the way, I've never heard of "latino" as being offensive or anything. I am Brazilian, and for us, a latino is, again, a Latin American. Nothing else. No offensive connotations.--Kaonashi 17:17, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed 

message: Fantastic. I love how English-speakers come here and claim to know what the word "latino" means in Spanish. They're probably Spanglish speakers.
In SPANISH, "latino" refers to posessing the quality of being Latin. And Latin refers to the language of the Roman Empire. If you ask any EUROPEAN what the "Latin Countries" are, the first ones that come to mind are Italy, Spain, Portugal--and sometimes even Greece, out of cultural similarity, though naturally their linguistic roots differ. 
Now, WHY are Central and South America considered "Latin" America when North America isn't? Is it because the original inhabitants of Central and Southern America aren't also of evolved Mongoloid (classical physical anthropology terminology--four main ethnic groups: Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negroid and Australoide) descent? No, of course not. Is it because Latin was originally spoken in Central and South America and then the language evolved into Spanish, which was later brought to Spain? No, of course not. Yet somehow many fools still use this term incorrectly despite the absence of reason.
Mostly due to the effects of language (most Latin Americans, especially in Central America, have mostly native indigenous "Indian" blood, with some traces of Spanish, Italian or Portuguese blood--which themselves are NOT homogenous--thanks again to the Americans who think that they belong to a "national" European ethnic group), the Americas were "latin-ised"--they inherited a language that evolved from Latin (Portuguese and Castilian) and, in much less measure, some of the culture that was brought over. 
Now, Indians are being called Latins. The Latin countries are mostly in the Mediterranean basin, but by the HAIR-BRAINED definitions used here, the Romans--the very people who began use of the Latin language--would not be considered Latins.
Idiotic. Latinoeuropa 08:37, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Whee!  This is meant to be only at least as much a reprimand to those English-speakers who claim knowledge of the Spanish meaning of "latino" as it is tho User:Latinoeuropa and his/her anonymous co-insultant of English-speakers for the definition of "latino".  Wikipedia is DESCRIPTIVE, not PRESCRIPTIVE.  American English usage has as its PRIMARY usage of the term "latino", the meaning "a Latin American", i.e. an inhabitant of Latin America, which is described as "That part of the Western Hemisphere south of the U.S., in Mexico, Central America, the West Indies and South America, where Spanish, Portuguese & French are the official languages."  (Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language.  The World Publishing Company, New York and Cleveland, 1968.)  Just because you object to the confiscation of the word "latino" by English does not make you authorities on the subject of how it is used, NOR HOW IT SHOULD BE USED.  The word is an ENGLISH word, and any description of it in the ENGLISH Wikipedia should be constrained ONLY by its use in English, NOT by how you feel it SHOULD be used, based on its origin.  Please keep this in mind, in conjunction with the Wikipedia policy of NPOV ONLY articles, when editing this or any other articles in the ENGLISH Wikipedia.  Tomer TALK 09:53, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
Allo Tomer. If you´re going to reprimand anyone, please write more coherently. EMPHASIZING THE SAME THING TWICE ("how it should be used") isn´t going to make you more "right". By the way, when you say that "latino" is an "ENGLISH word"--are you referring to the country known as England? Or the language? You´re not very specific. This isn´t an "English word"--it is a word that English-speakers of American nationality have misappropriated. Several European countries have used the word "birra" from Italian, and when using it in plural, they use their own grammatical rules (often "birras" instead of "birre"), yet nobody is arrogant enough to claim the word as their own, and not an Italian word. If you believe that Wikipedia should limit itself to merely reproducing the most basic sort of definitions, then why don´t you alter the entire Latino article to satisfy the Webster definition? Not everything is neatly etched in stone and an issue may have several dimensions and conflicting contexts. The word "latino" is one of them. Naturally there are differing point of views--what you suggest is the American one should be imposed upon all other points of views by mere virtue of this page being written in the ENGLISH (not American) language. In addition, your reasoning is entirely flawed: does knowledge when language changes? If so, I wouldn´t want to hear you quoting anyone who didn´t write in English (so say goodbye to Kant, Confucius, Leibniz, Homer, Seneca, etc). What some of us wish to do here is to clarify blatant misinformation ("latino" meaning "latinamerican" in Spanish) and to offer an alternative point of view--NOT IN LIEU OF THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE, BUT IN TANDEM. Perhaps you see this as somehow unfair, and you think it gives you the right to reprimand others and PRESCRIBE your own narrow pointn of view while we were DESCRIBING the true complexity of the issue. Pretending disagreement doesn´t exist isn´t going to negate its existence. Plenty of us from the Eastern side of the pond are fed up with the ridiculous categories your US Census invents and the stereotypes we have to deal with from your ketchup-ordering tourists. And as I said before, we are exposing an issue via writing a different point of view ALONGSIDE the American one--not replacing it. And need I remind you that what you seem to wish to for is for your point of view to replace ours. Do we have the same standards or do we not? Latinoeuropa 23:50, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese... 

message: Speaking of how not to use the word Latino or Latin, it emphatically does not refer to Greeks. During the time of the Roman Empire, the Greek and Latin cultural traditions remained strongly distinct, indeed occasionally hostile. As much as the Romans were influenced by Greeks, they were always the Greeks' rivals. After the fall of the Western Empire, differences between language and civilization led to the Great Schism between Roman Catholics (who spoke Latin in their church services, and were sometimes iconoclasts) and Eastern Orthodox (who spoke Greek, and made lavish use of icons). For several centuries, there were actually wars between the Venetians, who promoted a 'Latin Empire' in the Balkans, and the Greeks, on whom this quasi crusader state was imposed. Greeks today are not members of the Latin Union. Greek diasporas abroad do not consider themselves Latin-American or Latin-Australian. For all these reasons, I'm removing the wholly spurious mention of Greeks as being Latino. QuartierLatin1968 14:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Greeks

message: Why is this insistence to write this article as USA-centered, I believe it is the ENGLISH version of wikipedia and NOT USAWIKI.
Why it cannot contain other aproaches for the term LATINO, except by that which many use errouneously in U.S.A?
:Can you demonstrate that the word is used differently in English as spoken in other countries?  Tomer TALK  07:48, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  MISNOMER 

message: * Who is Latino?
* Would it be all the Latin-descendents?
* The term should it be used as it is in the original Latin languages?
* Should apply it only for American context?
* Should it be used as same as Hispanic?
* How to neglect Non-Latin cultures in Latin America?
* How to neglect non-Hispanic Latin cultures in the U.S.?
* A Cajun, a chicano, a Spanish-speaking Sephardi Ladino from Turkey or Greece, a Brazilian, an Azorean-American, a German-speaking Paraguayan Mennonite, a Mexican, a Filipino, a guy from Macao, an Indian-Portuguese-American (like Dinesh D'Souza), a (Neo-Latin based) Papiamentu speaker from Dutch Aruba; a Spaniard, a non-Spanish Speaker Mayan from Guatemala... who on earth is a Latino?
I believe that we cannot answer those questions and come to a satisfactory conclusion on Wikipeadia, since its principle of not publishing new scientific discovery or conventions to-be verified, but only mainline-accepted information. On my opinion this article should have:
*Etimology
*Usage in other languages; (check the wiki in those Latin versions)
*U.S. Census use;
**Critique of US use; Since even the dispute is a point of attention
*What it should mean;
--Leonardo Alves 02:02, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What people fail to realize is that this article can easily explain the meaning in the United States (even if it's incorrect in other countries) and then shortly thereafter explain how it is by definition incorrect in other countries. It's as simple as this - no need to simply completely undo what the word means in the United States. Cowman 20:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  ENDLESS DISPUTE 

message: The IP constantly reverting this page appears to have left us, so it might be a good idea to finally add what Latino means in other countries down at the sad lonely subject title at the bottom of the page. Cowman109 15:56, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the IP is blocked for now, let's see if it comes back in a while. Jayjg (talk) 22:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Guess what? They came back. CowmanTalk 01:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alright, the revert war has ended.. now what? 

message: The unsupported business about "Latino" having some usage other than the much-discussed (in the article) US usage has been sitting in the article for far too long again, now even with my citation request sitting in it.  I'm taking the whole section out again, and at this point, think it safe to consider its uncited reinsertion as vandalism.  Tomertalk 16:33, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Continuation of disputed text 

message: Could some admin look into this? There is no argumentation or explanation provided at all for these reverts, simply the comment "(rv)", so I don't know what to make of it. Maybe someone is being lazy rather than an outright vandal? --Big Adamsky 22:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And as for the usage disputes above, I think it would reasonable to include alternative hypothetical meanings as a matter of trivia or in order to quickly exhaust the subject and direct other meanings to other articles. Clearly, there is a connection between the linguistic descendants of Latin and the etymology of the word Latino as used in U.S. discourse on society and ethnicity. And so, it should be adressed. --Big Adamsky 22:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine.  Write it up.  The problem is, that the anons (and others), keep inserting all manner of assertions that the US usage is wrong, as well as unsupported assertions that the term is used [in English] to mean something other than the US usage, in other parts of the world.  As for the simple comment "rv" and the reverts themselves, that it's POV pushing not laziness, has been pretty well established at this point.  Tomertalk 22:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Systematic reverts by IP's beginning with 207.62.70.XX

message: I find it schoking and completly unappropriate to show a  native indian symbol to represent the term "latino".  We have to remind to the people who choose to put this symbol that in the term "latino-american", "latino" is especially what refers to Europe, while "American" refers to the American continents.  
Pre-colombian culture may be present in some latin-american countries (as well as in USA and Canada by the way), but is far to be applied in all latin-american countries. Anyway, because "latino" comes from "latin" it refers to the Spanish, Portuguese and French parts of latin-american cultures but not native indian one (wich doesn't exists in Argentina, Cuba or Uruguay for exemple) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.59.166 (talk • contribs) 
I, too, find it odd that the Latino page contains a template referring to Aztecs and Mexican-Americans. According to Chicano, Chicano only refers to Mexicans from what I understand, and as such I don't see why Latino should have one template that only refers it to Mexicans. I'll see if I can find the person who added this template and ask them to see the talkpage. CowmanTalk 19:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it was just the image they were objecting to, bandit. It's just that-- with a few exceptions, everything on the template has to do with Mexican Americans, and among the articles linked, there is a heavy emphasis on Chicano stuff. While in theory, the template should appear on every article it links to, I too wonder about its appropriateness on this article. Just because the U.S. Census calls Mexican Americans "Latinos" doesn't mean that we all identify as such, nor does it mean we should try to monopolize the term to refer only to us.--Rockero 06:23, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why an Aztec Calendar? 

message: Apparently we are having an argument about stating what languages Latino is a word in. In my opinion, as I stated in my edit summary, Latino is a word in many languages, and listing each language (at first only Italian was listed) that Latino is a word in is redundant and unnecessary. Instead, further in the article it can easily be explained that in Italian, for example, Latino means Latin. Also, looking at (possibly biased) American Dictionaries, theories point out that Latino may be short for the Spanish word Latinoamericano, meaning those who live in Latin America. If anyone disagrees with my by all means let's discuss this, but at this rate us reverting eachother won't solve anything. Cowman109Talk 02:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is mediation necessary? Have you tried alternatives aside from attempting to reach the user in question? WP:3O For example? It seems to be only one editor who insists on placing the "Italian" info in...I agree with you btw Cowman...--Rockero 17:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well at first I thought I was the only one involved with that, so I went out to the informal mediation to get another opinion (I suppose WP:3O would have made more sense), but it seems more seem to agree with my point of view. I'll remove the mediation request. I did see Wikipedia:Three-revert rule but apparently his edits did not fit the criteria.  I'll look into other alternatives. Cowman109Talk 23:26, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: Please, who is putting that absolutely wrong phrase in the etymology section? First, the word in spanish is "latino" (I'm a native speaker), not "latin". The word is not italian, it's romance: all languages derived from latin have this word.
Etymologically: lat. latinus > (loss of -s and 'softening' of unstressed -u > -o) it. latino. Then, lat. latinum (in accusative!) > sp. latino (loss of -m and 'softening' of unstressed -u > -o). From the same accusative form latinum, fr. latin (stress on the last syllable shows loss of the ending -um or maybe -o). And so on. I don't know which is the process that gave por. latim, but I think it can be the loss of the medial -u- from the accusative (*latinm > latim), but it's only an inference. --Neigel von Teighen 22:04, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: About latim in portuguese. That's not  "latino", but "latin" (the language). "Latino" in portuguese is also "latino". If you want to know, the etym of "latim" is lt. latinem (accusative of latin) > (loss of medial -e- with assimilation of -nm > -m) por. latim. lt. latine (a fosilized ablative meaning "in latin") > latin (loss of final -e) > por. latim (-n > -m). Hope this helps and sorry for all the mistakeful etym I gave. --Neigel von Teighen 21:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look above at Talk:Latino#Etymology, we also agree with you that Latino should not be listed as only Italian. We're looking into our options to settle this, as the user Henrymark is unresponsive. Cowman109Talk 23:32, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italian??? 

message: Henrymark has changed it to simply not mentioning where the language occurs at all... is everyone happy? I'm baffled myself. Cowman109Talk 21:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, he has transferred the link to romance languages in the Usage in the United States section. It's a good idea to stop this finally. --Neigel von Teighen 20:45, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I believe the mention of Latino more widely being associated with those who speak Romance languages has always been there. He simply removed the word occasionally, of which personally I see no problem with. The statement simply says that in the United States, Latino refers to some people, but elsewhere (more widely) it means something else. Cowman109Talk 22:15, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Then, let's say this is over. --Neigel von Teighen 18:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

text: No way to put the etym under Latin. The words "latino" and "latin" have different origins (but obviously related). About the lead that you talk about, it seems to be much encyclopaedic-like, isn't it? I like it. --Neigel von Teighen 23:20, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, then, it appears this isn't over afterwards. I have looked to WP:3RR to deal with this in the past but the edits by the users in question, including Henrymark, are not exact reverts. I'm not quite sure what procedure to follow for this, myself. I was thinking along the lines of request for page protection, but this would inevitably come back again. Cowman109Talk 18:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uh - is it over? 

message: He insists in writing that Latino (from Spanish "Latinoamericano) is an Italian word. He also wants the word Latin to appear as much as often in the article to the point that Latin Americans no longer speak Spanish but Latin. He also wants it to be made clear that Canadian Quebecois are as "Latin" as anyone... This all seems pretty childish and pathological. When he is done editing can someone please revert his modifications to the article? --Burgas00 18:38, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate your concern for the quality of the article but please be careful. Accusing someone of "pathological vandalism" could be construed as a personal attack. The concern is valid - if Latino is defined as a speaker of a Romance language, which it may be or may have been at some place at some time. That needs to be determined through research rather than affirmation, however. I think our friend is just having a hard time figuring out how to constructively contribute. Let's assume good faith as long as we can, shall we?--Rockero 08:31, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont agree with Rockero, HenryMark was clearly acting out of bad faith and rejecting any attempts to establish communication with him. As for the etymology of the word, it is important, in my opinion, so that the word Latino is clearly distinguished from the word latin. They are 2 completely different words with different meaning and different origin.--Guzman ramirez 11:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, if you look at some of Henrymark's earlier edits, he clearly tries to explain his edits by making slight additions to each revert he did. We must be careful in calling someone a vandal, as in his eyes we're likely people who are simply disagreeing with him. And it's just that - we have a content disagreement here, though it appears Henrymark is not familiar with Wiki policy. Cowman109Talk 14:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strange pathological vandalism by "Henry Mark" 

message: I've always found odd to refer to Romance-language speakers as "latinos". Latin was spoken by the ancient Romans and has been a dead language since the early Middle Ages. The modern Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, etc...) have evolved from Latin (which forms the basis for their vocabulary), but are clearly no longer Latin. In fact, a modern Romance speaker cannot even ordinarily understand Latin . In particular, the  grammar of most Romance languages is far simpler than Latin grammar (no noun or adjective inflection for case, only two grammatical genders as opposed to three, fewer tenses and irregular verbs, etc...). Calling Spaniards, Lusos, Italians or Frenchmen "Latin" as if the Roman empire had never fallen and they all still spoke Cicero's language is a complete nonsense. Using the same criteria, should Englishmen, Dutchmen, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians, etc...  be all generically called "German" for speaking languages that belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family ? 200.177.8.146 00:45, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be true that the modern-day use of the word Latino is odd, but the languages are based on Latin, and so it seems logical. Nobody thinks, from the word "Latin" used in that context, that people in Latin countries are actually speaking the language Latin. ConDemTalk 01:59, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Or rather, a difference between people who speak a Latin-based language and Spanish-speaking Latin Americans. ConDemTalk 17:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: On the use of the word Latino