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Mongoloid () is an obsolete racial grouping of various peoples indigenous to large parts of Asia, the
Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...
, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race. In the past, other terms such as " Mongolian race", "yellow", "Asiatic" and "
Oriental The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...
" have been used as synonyms. The concept of dividing humankind into the Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid races was introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen School of History. It was further developed by Western scholars in the context of
racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
ideologies during the age of colonialism. The organization has since been renamed the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past." The term ''Mongoloid'' has had a second usage referencing people with Down syndrome, now generally regarded as highly offensive.Keevak, Michael. "Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking". Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. . Those affected were often referred to as "Mongoloids" or in terms of " Mongolian idiocy" or "Mongolian imbecility".


History of the concept


Origins

''Mongolian'' as a term for race was first introduced in 1785 by Christoph Meiners, a scholar at the then modern Göttingen University. Meiners divided humanity into two races he labeled "Tartar-Caucasians" and "Mongolians", believing the former to be beautiful, the latter to be "weak in body and spirit, bad, and lacking in virtue". His more influential Göttingen colleague Johann Friedrich Blumenbach borrowed the term ''Mongolian'' for his division of mankind into five races in the revised 1795 edition of his ''De generis humani varietate nativa'' (''On the Natural Variety of Mankind''). Although Blumenbach's concept of five races later gave rise to scientific racism, his arguments were basically anti-racist, since he underlined that mankind as a whole forms one single ''species'', and points out that the transition from one race to another is so gradual that the distinctions between the races presented by him are "very arbitrary". In Blumenbach's concept, the ''Mongolian race'' comprises the peoples living in Asia east of the Ob River, the Caspian Sea and the
Ganges River The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
, with the exception of the
Malays Malays may refer to: * Malay race, a racial category encompassing peoples of Southeast Asia and sometimes the Pacific Islands ** Overseas Malays, people of Malay race ancestry living outside Malay archipelago home areas ** Cape Malays, a communit ...
, who form a race of their own in his concept. Of peoples living outside Asia, he includes the "
Eskimo Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Siberian Yupik, Yuit) of eastern Si ...
s" in northern America and the European Finns, among whom he includes the " Lapps".


In the context of scientific racism

Discussions on race among Western scholars during the 19th century took place against the background of the debate between monogenists and polygenists, the former arguing for a single origin of all mankind, the latter holding that each human race had a specific origin. Monogenists based their arguments either on a literal interpretation of the
biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
story of Adam and Eve or on secular research. Since polygenism stressed the perceived differences, it was popular among white supremacists, especially slaveholders in the US. British biologist Thomas Huxley, a strong advocate of
Darwinism Darwinism is a scientific theory, theory of Biology, biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of smal ...
and a monogenist, presented the views of polygenists in 1865: " me imagine their assumed species of mankind were created where we find them... the Mongolians from the Orangs".Huxley, Thomas. ''Collected Essays of Thomas Huxley: Man's Place in Nature and Other'' Kessinger Publishing: Montana, 2005. p.247. During the 19th century, diverging opinions were pronounced whether Native Americans or Malays should be included in the grouping which was sometimes called "Mongolian" and sometimes "Mongoloid". For example, D. M. Warren in 1856 used a narrow definition which did not include either the "Malay" or the "American" races, while Huxley (1870) and
Alexander Winchell Alexander Winchell (December 31, 1824, in North East, New York – February 19, 1891, in Ann Arbor, Michigan) was a United States geologist who contributed to this field mainly as an educator and a popular lecturer and author. His views on evolu ...
(1881) included both Malays and indigenous Americans. In 1861, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire added the Australian as a secondary race (subrace) of the principal race of Mongolian.Deniker, Joseph. ''The Races of Man: An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography'' C. Scribner's Sons: New York, 1900, p.282 In his ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' (''Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races'', published 1853–55), which would later influence Adolf Hitler, the French
aristocrat The aristocracy is historically associated with "hereditary" or "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some, such as ancient Greece, ancient Ro ...
Arthur de Gobineau Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping to legitimise racism by the use of scientific racist theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Aryan ...
defined three races which he called "white", "black", and "yellow". His "yellow race", corresponding to other writers' "Mongoloid race", consisted of "the Altaic, Mongol, Finnish and Tartar branches".DiPiero, Thomas. ''White Men Aren't'' gid/s work Duke University Press, 2002, p.8 While he saw the "white race" as superior, he claimed that the "yellow race" was physically and intellectually mediocre but had an extremely strong materialism that allowed them to achieve certain results. According to the Meyers Konversations-Lexikon (1885–90), peoples included in the Mongoloid race are North Mongol,
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
& Indochinese, Japanese & Korean,
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...
&
Burmese Burmese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia * Burmese people * Burmese language * Burmese alphabet * Burmese cuisine * Burmese culture Animals * Burmese cat * Burmese chicken * Burmese (hor ...
,
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
, Polynesian, Maori, Micronesian,
Eskimo Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Siberian Yupik, Yuit) of eastern Si ...
, and Native American. In 1909, a map published based on racial classifications in South Asia conceived by
Herbert Hope Risley Sir Herbert Hope Risley (4 January 1851 – 30 September 1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of the Bengal Presidency. ...
classified inhabitants of Bengal and parts of Odisha as ''Mongolo-Dravidians'', people of mixed Mongoloid and Dravidian origin. Similarly in 1904, Ponnambalam Arunachalam claimed the Sinhalese people of
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
were a people of mixed ''Mongolian'' and ''
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
'' racial origins as well as '' Indo-Aryan'', ''Dravidian'' and Vedda origins. Howard S. Stoudt in ''The Physical Anthropology of Ceylon'' (1961) and
Carleton S. Coon Carleton Stevens Coon (June 23, 1904 – June 3, 1981) was an American anthropologist. A professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, lecturer and professor at Harvard University, he was president of the American Association of ...
in ''The Living Races of Man'' (1966) classified the Sinhalese as partly Mongoloid. German
physical anthropologist Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt, an influential proponent of ''Rassenkunde'' (racial studies) in Nazi Germany, classified people from Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, East India, parts of Northeast India, western Myanmar and Sri Lanka as ''East Brachid'', referring to people of mixed ''Indid'' and ''South Mongolid'' origins. Eickstedt also classified the people of central Myanmar, Yunnan, southern Tibet, Thailand and parts of India as ''Palaungid'' deriving from the name of the
Palaung people The Palaung ( my, ပလောင် လူမျိုး ; Thai: ปะหล่อง, also written as Benglong Palong) or Ta'ang are a Mon–Khmer ethnic minority found in Shan State of Burma, Yunnan Province of China and Northern Thailand. I ...
of Myanmar. He also classified the Burmese, Karen, Kachin, Shan, Sri Lankans, Tai, South Chinese, Munda and Juang, and others as having "mixed" with the ''Palaungid'' phenotype. Commenting on the situation of the United States in the early 20th century,
Leonard Lieberman Leonard Lieberman (October 25, 1925February 6, 2007) was an American anthropology professor at the Central Michigan University for forty years. Early life and education Lieberman was educated at the University of California, Berkeley (B.A. - 19 ...
said that the notion of the whole world being composed of three distinct races, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid, seemed credible because of the history of immigration to the United States with most immigrants coming from three areas,
Southeast China The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
, Northwest Europe, and West Africa. This made the point of view of three races appear to be "true, natural, and inescapable." In 1950, UNESCO published their statement '' The Race Question''. It condemned all forms of racism, naming "the doctrine of ''inequality'' of men and races""The Race Question"
UNESCO, 1950, 11pp
among the causes of World War II and proposing to replace the term "race" with "ethnic groups" because "serious errors ... are habitually committed when the term 'race' is used in popular parlance".


Subraces according to Kroeber

Alfred L. Kroeber (1948),
Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, referring to the racial classification of mankind on the basis of physical features, said that there are basically "three grand divisions." Kroeber indicated that, within the three-part classification, the Mongoloid, the Negroid, and the
Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Anthropology *Anything from the Caucasus region ** ** ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region * * * Languages * Northwest Caucasian l ...
are the three "primary racial stocks of mankind." Kroeber said that the following are the divisions of the Mongoloid stock: the "Mongolian proper of East Asia," the " Malaysian of the East Indies," and the " American Indian." Kroeber alternatively referred to the divisions of the Mongoloid stock as the following: "Asiatic Mongoloids," "Oceanic Mongoloids," and "American Mongoloids." Kroeber said that the differences among the three divisions of the Mongoloid stock are not very large. Kroeber said that the Malaysian and the American Indian are generalized type peoples while the Mongolian proper is the most extreme or pronounced form. Kroeber said that the original Mongoloid stock must be regarded as being more like the current Malaysians, the current American Indians, or an intermediate type between these two. Kroeber said that it is from these generalized type peoples, who kept more nearly the ancient type, that peoples such as the
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
gradually diverged, who added the oblique eye, and a "certain generic refinement of physique." Kroeber said that, according to most anthropometrists, the
Eskimo Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Siberian Yupik, Yuit) of eastern Si ...
is the most particularized sub-variety out of the American Mongoloids. Kroeber said that in the East Indies, and in particular the Philippines, there can at times be distinguished a less specifically Mongoloid strain, which has been called the " Proto-Malaysian," and a more specifically Mongoloid strain, which has been called the " Deutero-Malaysian." Kroeber said that
Polynesians Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Sou ...
appear to have primary Mongoloid connections by way of the Malaysians. Kroeber said that the Mongoloid element of Polynesians is not a specialized Mongoloid. Kroeber said that the Mongoloid element in Polynesians appears to be larger than the definite Caucasian strain in Polynesians. Speaking of Polynesians, Kroeber said that there are locally possible minor Negroid absorptions, as the ancestral Polynesians had to pass by or through archipelagoes which are presently Papuo-Melanesian Negroid to get to the central Pacific.


Coon's ''Origin of Races''

American anthropologist
Carleton S. Coon Carleton Stevens Coon (June 23, 1904 – June 3, 1981) was an American anthropologist. A professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, lecturer and professor at Harvard University, he was president of the American Association of ...
published his much debated ''Origin of Races'' in 1962. Coon divided the species '' Homo sapiens'' into five groups: Besides the ''Caucasoid'', ''Mongoloid'', and '' Australoid'' races, he posited two races among the indigenous populations of sub-Saharan Africa: the ''
Capoid race Capoid race is a grouping formerly used for the Khoikhoi and San peoples in the context of a now-outdated model of dividing humanity into different races. The term was introduced by Carleton S. Coon in 1962 and named for the Cape of Good Hope.'' ...
'' in the south and the ''Congoid race''. Coon's thesis was that ''
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...
'' had already been divided into five different races or subspecies. "''Homo Erectus'' then evolved into ''Homo Sapiens'' not once but five times, as each subspecies, living in its own territory, passed a critical threshold from a more brutal to a more ''sapient'' state." Since Coon followed the traditional methods of physical anthropology, relying on morphological characteristics, and not on the emerging genetics to classify humans, the debate over ''Origin of Races'' has been "viewed as the last gasp of an outdated scientific methodology that was soon to be supplanted."


Disproof by modern genetics

The fact that there are no sharp distinctions between the supposed racial groups had been observed by Blumenbach and later by Charles Darwin. With the availability of new data due to the development of modern genetics, the concept of races in a biological sense has become untenable. Problems of the concept include: It "is not useful or necessary in research", scientists are not able to agree on the definition of a certain proposed race, and they do not even agree on the number of races, with some proponents of the concept suggesting 300 or even more "races". Also, data are not reconcilable with the concept of a treelike evolution nor with the concept of "biologically discrete, isolated, or static" populations.


Current scientific consensus

After discussing various criteria used in biology to define subspecies or races, Alan R. Templeton concludes in 2016: " e answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no."Templeton, A. (2016). EVOLUTION AND NOTIONS OF HUMAN RACE. In Losos J. & Lenski R. (Eds.), ''How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society'' (pp. 346–361). Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. . That this view reflects the consensus among American anthropologists is stated in: See also:


Features


General appearance

The last edition of the German encyclopedia Meyers Konversations-Lexikon (1971–79, 25 volumes) lists the following characteristics of the "Mongoloid" populations of Asia: "Flat face with a low nasal root, accentuated
zygomatic arches In anatomy, the zygomatic arch, or cheek bone, is a part of the skull formed by the zygomatic process of the temporal bone (a bone extending forward from the side of the skull, over the opening of the ear) and the temporal process of the zygomati ...
, flat-lying eyelids (which are often slanting), thick, tight, dark hair, dark eyes, yellow-brownish skin, usually short, stocky build."


Skull

In 2004, British anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson gave a description of "Mongoloid" skulls in her book on forensic facial reconstruction: "The Mongoloid skull shows a round head shape with a medium-width nasal aperture, rounded orbital margins, massive cheekbones, weak or absent
canine fossa In the musculoskeletal anatomy of the human head, lateral to the incisive fossa of the maxilla is a depression called the canine fossa. It is larger and deeper than the comparable incisive fossa, and is separated from it by a vertical ridge, the ...
e, moderate prognathism, absent brow ridges, simple cranial sutures, prominent zygomatic bones, broad, flat, tented nasal root, short nasal spine, shovel-shaped upper incisor teeth (scooped out behind), straight nasal profile, moderately wide palate shape, arched sagittal contour, wide facial breadth and a flatter face."


Cold adaptation

In 1950,
Carleton S. Coon Carleton Stevens Coon (June 23, 1904 – June 3, 1981) was an American anthropologist. A professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, lecturer and professor at Harvard University, he was president of the American Association of ...
,
Stanley M. Garn Stanley Marion Garn Ph.D. (October 27, 1922 – August 31, 2007) was a human biologist and educator. He was Professor of Anthropology at the College for Literature, Science and Arts and Professor of Nutrition at the School of Public Health at the Un ...
, and Joseph B. Birdsell proposed that the relative flatness of "Mongoloid" faces was caused by adaption to the extreme cold of subarctic and arctic conditions. They supposed that "Mongoloid" eye sockets have been extended vertically to make room for adipose tissue around the eyeballs, and that the "''reduced''" brow ridges decrease the size of the air spaces inside of the brow ridges known as the frontal sinuses which are "''vulnerable''" to the cold. They also supposed that "Mongoloid" facial features reduce the surface area of the nose by having nasal bones that are flat against the face and having enlarged cheekbones that project forward which effectively reduce the external projection of the nose. Still, in 1965 a study by A. T. Steegmann showed that the so-called cold-adapted Mongoloid face provided no greater protection against frostbite than the facial structure of Europeans.


Legal use of the concept in the United States

In 1858, the
California State Legislature The California State Legislature is a bicameral state legislature consisting of a lower house, the California State Assembly, with 80 members; and an upper house, the California State Senate, with 40 members. Both houses of the Legisla ...
enacted the first bill of several that prohibited the attendance of " Negroes, Mongolians and
Indians Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...
" from
public schools Public school may refer to: *State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government *Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England and ...
.Burns, John F. & Orsi, Richard J. (2003). ''Taming the Elephant: Politics, Government, and Law in Pioneer California.''
Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...
& Los Angeles: University of California Press. Pages 115 & 116
Google Books link
In 1885, the California State Legislature amended its code to make
separate schools In Canada, a separate school is a type of school that has constitutional status in three provinces (Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan) and statutory status in the three territories ( Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut). In these Canadi ...
for "children of Mongoloid or
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
descent." In 1911, the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization was using the term "Mongolic grand division," not only to include Mongols, but "in the widest sense of all," to include
Malays Malays may refer to: * Malay race, a racial category encompassing peoples of Southeast Asia and sometimes the Pacific Islands ** Overseas Malays, people of Malay race ancestry living outside Malay archipelago home areas ** Cape Malays, a communit ...
,
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
, Japanese, and Koreans. In 1911, the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization was placing all "East Indians," a term which included the peoples of " India,
Farther India Farther India, or Ultraindia, is an old term, now rarely used, for Southeast Asia, seen in colonial days from Europe as the part of the Far East beyond the Indian subcontinent, but south of China. It refers to Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, Myanma ...
, and Malaysia," in the "Mongolic" grand division. In 1985, Michael P. Malone of the FBI Laboratory said that the FBI Laboratory is in a good position for the examination of Mongoloid hairs, because it does most of the examinations for Alaska, which has a large Mongoloid population, and it conducts examinations for the majority of
Indian reservation An Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a federally recognized Native American tribal nation whose government is accountable to the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs and not to the state government in which it ...
s in the United States. In 1987, a report to the
National Institute of Justice The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice. NIJ, along with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Juvenil ...
indicated that the following skeletal collections were of the "Mongoloid" "
Ethnic Group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
": Arctic
Eskimo Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Siberian Yupik, Yuit) of eastern Si ...
, Prehistoric North American Indian, Japanese, and Chinese. In 2005, an
article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...
in a journal by the FBI Laboratory defined the term "Mongoloid," as the term is used in forensic hair examinations. It defined the term as, "an anthropological term designating one of the major groups of human beings originating from Asia, excluding the Indian subcontinent and including Native American Indians."


As a term for Down syndrome

"Mongoloid" has had a second usage, now generally avoided as highly offensive: until the late 20th century, people with Down syndrome were often referred to as "Mongoloids", or in terms of " Mongolian idiocy" or "Mongolian imbecility". The term was motivated by the observation that people with Down syndrome often have epicanthic folds. Coined in 1908, the term remained in medical usage until the 1950s. In 1961, its use was deprecated by a group of genetic experts in an article in '' The Lancet'' due to its "misleading connotations". The term continued to be used as a pejorative in the second half of the 20th century, with shortened versions such as ''mong'' in slang usage. In the 21st century this usage of the term is deemed "unacceptable" in the English-speaking world and has fallen out of common use because of its offensive and misleading implications. The terminology change was brought about both by scientific and medical experts as well as people of Asian ancestry, including those from Mongolia.


See also

*
Craniofacial anthropometry The history of anthropometry includes its use as an early tool of anthropology, use for identification, use for the purposes of understanding human physical variation in paleoanthropology and in various attempts to correlate physical with racial ...


References


External links

** {{DEFAULTSORT:Mongoloid race Pseudoscience Biological anthropology Historical definitions of race Anti-Asian slurs Pejorative terms for people with disabilities