Talk:Sentinelese

Name of People Living on North Sentinel Island

Good Day, Fellow Editors--

I got to thinking about the name of this article, and I think it could be problematic. The people who inhabit North Sentinel island surely do not call themselves "North Sentinelese" or even "Sentinelese" altogether.

Shouldn't this article's name instead refer to the people who inhabit the place, instead of naming the people after the place? Naming people after the place they inhabit reeks of colonialism. In the United States, for example, it is increasingly common to refer to indigenous peoples by the names they use, not the names assigned to them by colonial powers. (I.E., typing "Chippewa" into Wikipedia's search bar appropriately redirects to the article "Ojibwe".)

Obviously, the People inhabiting North Sentinel Island have not told the outside world what they call themselves--if they refer to themselves as any proper noun at all--but we still owe them respect in our academic circles by naming them in a respectful manner. This also has the peripheral benefit of increasing familiarity with contemporary naming conventions.

I therefore propose to rename this article: "Peoples of North Sentinel Island" and remove all references to "Sentinelese," "North Sentinelese," etc.

I don't ordinarily make substantive contributions to Wikipedia; please let me know your thoughts and be constructive in your critcism.

Best,

Jborgzz (talk) 22:35, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Referring to a people by their location with the common English suffix -ese is no different than referring to them with the much more unwieldly "People of X." They mean the same thing. It's not a failure to show respect, it's a failure to understand English. It's no more disrespectful than using SVO order or pluralizing with the suffix -s. 2601:1C2:4D00:C340:0:0:0:46CF (talk) 05:20, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME 85.164.238.72 (talk) 10:25, 8 December 2022 (UTC)