Current usage
British English
In British English, the term Oriental is sometimes still used to refer to people from East and Southeast Asia (such as those from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, Brunei and Laos).
[11]
"Asian" in Great Britain sometimes refers to people who come specifically from
South Asia (in particular Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Iran, and Afghanistan), since
British Asians as a whole make up approximately 9.3% of the population within the United Kingdom, and people of an ethnically South Asian background comprise the largest group within this category.
[12] "Orientals" refers exclusively to people of East and Southeast Asian origin, who constitute approximately 0.7% of the UK population as a whole. Of these, the majority are of Chinese descent.
[13] Orient is also a word for the lustre of a fine
pearl.
[14] Hong Kong, a former British colony, has been called "Pearl of the Orient" along with Shanghai. In the UK, and much of the commonwealth, it is not considered a pejorative term, with many East Asian people choosing to use it themselves - notably in the names of East Asian businesses such as restaurants and takeaway outlets.
People in the United Kingdom from
Southwest Asia,
Asia Minor and
Near East are often referred to as the colonial term "Middle Eastern" or Asian. These can include Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Assyrians, West Asian Armenians, Yezidis, Egyptians (including Copts), Syriac Arameans, Mandeans, Shabakis and Turvomans among others.
American English
The term
Oriental may sound dated or even be seen as a
pejorative, particularly when used as a noun.
[15] John Kuo Wei Tchen, director of the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute at
New York University, said the basic criticism of the term began in the U.S. during a cultural shift in the 1970s. He has said: "With the U.S.A.
anti-war movement in the '60s and early '70s, many Asian Americans identified the term 'Oriental' with a Western process of racializing Asians as forever opposite 'others'",
[16] by making a distinction between "Western" and "Eastern" ancestral origins.
This is particularly relevant when referring to lands and peoples not associated with the historic "Orient": outside of the former Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire and Sasanian Empire (Persia), including the former
Diocese of the Orient, as well as others lands sharing cultural legacies with the
Oriental Orthodox churches and
Oriental Catholic Churches. In contrast, regions of Asia further East, outside of the cultural domination of Abrahamic religions, do not share these same historical associations, giving way for the term "oriental" to have different connotations.
In 2016, President
Obama signed New York Congresswoman
Grace Meng's legislation H.R. 4238 replacing the word with
Asian American in federal law.
[17][18]
China
The Chinese word 东方 is translated as "oriental" in the official English names of several entities, e.g.
Oriental Art Center,
Oriental Movie Metropolis. In other cases, the same word is more literally translated as "eastern", e.g.
China Eastern Airlines.
Uruguay
The official name of
Uruguay is
Oriental Republic of Uruguay, the adjective
Oriental refers to the geographic location of the country, east of the
Uruguay River.
The term
Oriental is also used as Uruguay's
demonym, usually with a formal or solemn connotation. The word also has a deep historical meaning as a result of its prolonged use in the region, since the 18th century it was used in reference to the inhabitants of the
Banda Oriental, the historical name of the territories that now compose the modern nation of Uruguay.
German
In German, Orient is usually used synonymously with the area between the Near East and East Asia, including Israel, the Arab world, and Greater Persia.
The term
Asiaten (English: Asians) means Asian people in general. Another word for Orient in German is
Morgenland (now mainly poetic), which literally translates as "morning land". The antonym "Abendland" (rarely: "Okzident") is also mainly poetic, and refers to (Western) Europe.