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Na·tive American AHD[nāʹtĭv] D.J.[ˈneɪtɪv]K.K.[ˈnetɪv]n.（名词）- A member of any of the aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The ancestors of the Native Americans are generally considered to have entered the Americas from Asia by way of the Bering Strait sometime during the late glacial epoch. Also called American Indian ,Amerindian ,Indian 美洲人：西半球一土著人中的一员，美洲土著人的祖先大概被认为冰川时代晚期的某一时候经由白令海峡从亚洲来到美洲的 也作 American Indian,Amerindian,Indian
Native American adj.（形容词）- The termIndian has always been a misnomer for the earliest inhabitants of the Americas. Many people now preferNative American both as a corrective to Columbus's mistaken appellation and as a means of avoiding the romantic and generally offensive stereotypes associated with phrases such aswild Indian or cowboys and Indians. Certainly there is great merit in a term that distinguishes the peoples indigenous to the Americas from the inhabitants of India,and wherever such confusion might existNative American is an obvious choice. It is also preferred by many contemporary writers when emphasizing ethnic pride,as in"Only the Native American can lay claim to equality in suffering with the Afro-American in this nation" (S. Allen Counter).However, it should not be assumed thatIndian is necessarily offensive or out of date. On the contrary,Indian is firmly rooted in English in neutral terms such as Plains Indian, Paleo-Indian, and Indian summer, as well as in numerous plant and place names, and in locutions of this kind there is no possibility of substitution.Furthermore, many Native Americans and others sympathetic to Native American issues continue to useIndian as a term of pride and respect, as in"It was about this time that [my mother] began to see herself as an Indian. That dim native heritage became a fascination and a cause for her" (N. Scott Momaday)and"The desperate struggles of the Indian people for survival in this century are too widespread and various to be treated in a single volume" (Peter Matthiessen). ·The compound termsAmerican Indian and the less frequent Amerindian offer an unambiguous and unproblematic alternative whereNative American might seem out of place, as in certain historical contexts or in references to groups outside the boundaries of the United States.Indian is also a useful adjunct to the name of a people when it cannot be assumed that the reader is familiar with their cultural identity;thus one might saythe Wampanoag Indians or the Quiché Indians of Guatemala rather than adding a gloss such asthe Quiché, a Native American people of Guatemala. · Native American and Indian are not exact equivalents when referring to the aboriginal peoples of Canada and Alaska. Native American, the broader term, is properly used of all such peoples,whereasIndian is customarily used of the northern Athabaskan and Algonquian peoples in contrast to the Eskimo and the Aleut. 这个词Indian 总被作为最早美洲居民的误称。 现在许多人把Native American 既作为对哥伦比亚的错误命名的一个改正， 也作为一种手段来避免使用和这些词组，如wild Indian 或者 cowboys and Indians 有关的富于浪漫色彩而且常令人反感的陈规滥套。 当然，在一个词里能把印第安居民同土生土长的美国人辨别出来，这是很大的功绩，当这样的混淆存在时，Native American 是一个明智的选择。 当强调种族自豪感时，它也被许多同时期的作家所认可。像在“只有美洲印第安人才能在这个国家在和美国黑人一起经受痛苦时主张平等” (S·艾伦·康特）。然而，我们可以推断出Indian 必然要令人反感的或过时的。 相反，Indian 在中性的字眼里如 Plains Indian，Paleo-Indian, 和 Indian, summer ， 以及在极多的植物和地点名称里和这种的惯用语就不可能用别的词替换。此外，许多美洲印第安人和其他一些人赞成美洲印安人的提议继续把Indian 当做自豪和崇拜的词语来用。 就像在“就在这时 ［我的母亲］ 开始把她自己当作印第安人。 过去的阴暗的民族的遗产对于她来说成为一种魁力，一种理想，” (N·斯科特·莫玛蒂），和“本世纪，印第安人为了生存而进行的垂死挣扎范围太大，种类太多以致于不能简单地对待” （彼得·马蒂尔森）。那样复合词American Indian 和不太常用的 Amerindian 提供了一个明确的不会带来任何问题的可取之道， 在这里Native American 可能看起来不合适， 就像在特定历史联系下及关于美国界外的群体那样。Indian 也是对于一个种族的名称有用的助手， 当作者假定读者不熟悉他们的文化身份的时候；这样人们可以说瓦姆佩诺阿格印第安人 或 危地马拉盖切印第安人 ， 而不用加上一个注释如盖切人，危地马拉的印第安人 。 当提及加拿大和阿拉斯加的印第安人时Native American 和 Indian 不是完全相同的。 Native American 是较宽的说法， 适合用于指所有这样的人，然而Indian 是为了和爱斯基摩人和阿留申群岛的土人相区别而习惯上用来指北部亚大巴斯卡人和阿尔贡金人
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