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From: rajeev@sftri.UUCP (S.Rajeev)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: Re: Native Americans
Message-ID: <402@sftri.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Apr-85 23:21:21 EST
Article-I.D.: sftri.402
Posted: Sat Apr 13 23:21:21 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Apr-85 01:13:47 EST
References: <2522@hplabsc.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Summit N.J.
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Arvind Kumar's query about the preferred term for addressing native
Americans reminds me of a pet peeve of mine: the tendency among
US historians to refer to inhabitants of India as "Hindus" or "East
Indians". (Not all Indians were ever Hindus, and the East Indies
refers to the Malaysian-Indonesian archipelago.) Now this
is not only inaccurate but I also resent our name being taken away
just because that silly man Christofero Colombo got confused!
Enough bandying about of our name, I say: "India ink", "Indiarubber"...

Actually, the etymology of India is "Sindhu" (land of the Indus) ->
"Hindu" (because ancient Persians couldn't pronounce the "s") -> Hind
-> India, if I remember right. Now that the Indus no longer runs 
through India much, perhaps we should give up all claims to the word,
and go back to only using Bharat?! :-)
-- 
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Sri Rajeev, SF 1-342, Bell Labs, Summit, NJ 07901. (201)-522-6330.