“You act like a native!”, “Aren't you ashamed at all?” The natives even behave more educatedly! ”,“ How the natives came from a hungry island! ”
Have you heard such phrases? Sure, yes. And everyone who heard them certainly wondered who the natives were, for whom they should be ashamed, and what the word “native” means.
Origin of the word
Initially, this term did not have a negative connotation. It descended from the now-Slavic unknown word, from which, in turn, the ancient Slavic “Tzemtsy”, “Tozemtz” originated.
Upon closer examination, you can see that the word consists of two "that" - that is, that; and "zemtsy" - that is, the earth. Thus, in ancient Slavic, a native is a resident of that, not ours, land. Until about the fifteenth to sixteenth century, the word was identical to a foreigner.
It is currently found in Bulgarian and Belarusian. An indirect synonym for this word is the word "aborigine" - aborigine, native - in English.
How the word began to carry a negative meaning
Around Ivan III, Russia began to pursue an active foreign policy, moving from collecting land from the disintegrated principality of Kiev to cooperation with close and not very close states.
John Vasilievich attracted many Italian masters to work in Muscovy, which caused the need to somehow designate them. It was then that the word “foreigner” —that is, a resident of another country — comes into use. The word is divided into two - “ino” - another, different; and “stranger” - belonging to the country.
Foreigners were richly dressed people, versed in different, often not subject to local residents, sciences, speaking their own language, whose knowledge the princes and others with power and high position in society boasted of. In turn, it was then established that the native is a local, poorly educated savage, something mumbled in his low language.
The meaning of the word only became firmly established at the beginning of the development of Siberia under Ivan the Terrible, as local tribes began to call, much less educated, primarily in military terms, than the Slavs who had reached the state system.
In culture
Thanks to the cinema of the 20th century, a stable association has emerged that a native is not just a representative of a poorly educated tribe, but also a representative of a southern poorly educated tribe. Chukchi, Koryak, Aleuts under this definition no longer fall.
A native is a resident of wild Oceania or wild Africa. Although this definition is not quite true, it is precisely it that is enshrined in the mass consciousness.
Mandatory attributes of the native in the mass representation is also a skirt of palm leaves and a leopard skin on the shoulders of the leader.