Shahbaaz Bashir Shah
Ethnicities can be defined as a group of people which have a common culture background. It can be associated with shared traditions, language, religion and geographic origin. Culture and Ethnicity are intersecting concepts, different but overlapping ways to categorize human populations. While as culture refers to a group’s way of life, including the shared system of social meanings, values and relations that is transmitted between generations. It incorporates such traits as language, religion, clothing, music, legal sports, sports – indeed all learned behaviour.
Ethnicity typically denotes a group of people who strongly identify themselves as belonging together based on specific common traits they share. These type of traits are largely involuntary – skin, color, clan or tribe membership, or actual common ancestor, shared history or language and even disability or sexual orientation. Those traits which may be chosen, abandoned or changed; includes the culture, religion or sect, age, dialect, marriage into group. We can say that the boundaries of ethnic identification keep shifting, it is virtually impossible to name and number all the ethnic groups in the world. However the list would have over 10,000 entries, which include the Mardu approximately 700 aboriginal people living in Western Australia as well as Han, numbering over 1 billion in China.
Language is the most typical marker of ethnicity, but there are exceptions, many speakers of Chinese cannot understand each other at all. Example yet they may feel they all belong to the Han Chinese Ethnic group. Many people of course, consider themselves to be “Hyphenated” numbers of more than one group such as Italian Americans or Welsh Canadians
Some of few examples are mentioned below:-
1. African American (Black) : African American includes all individuals who identify with one or more nationalities or ethnic groups originating in any of black racial groups of Africa. Example Jamaican, Haitian, Nigerian, Ethiopian and Somali.
2. Punjabi, Pashtun and Sindhi : Punjabi people are considering as a largest ethnic group in the Pakistan. The Punjabi originated from the Indo-Aryan ethnic group. The most significant population of the Punjabi people practice Islam as their primary worship.
Pashtun are mainly found in North Western parts of Pakistan. Pashtun people kept animals and they migrate from one place to another for the purpose of food and water..
Sindhi people come from Sindh province in South East Pakistan. They all are involved in agriculture is a way of life.
3. Romani (Indian People) : They are those people which have a knowing name Roma, a group originated in North West India and are currently found in Europe. Researchers believe the Romani originated in Rajasthan of India around 500 CE and they entered in Europe around 1100 CE.
4. Sami : Indigenous people of the Northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia with a unique language and culture.
5. Zulu : An ethnic group from Southern Africa primarily found in South Africa.
6. Arabs : Arabs people who trace their roots to the Arabian Peninsula, spreading Arabic and sharing cultural elements.
7. Igbo : An Ethnic group primarily from South Eastern Nigeria with rich cultural history.
These are the few examples of Ethnic groups which are presently found in this world. There are so many examples which can be mentioned in Ethnic groups.
“Large or Small, each ethnic group regards itself as a – people”.
Author hails from Gurez and is a student at Darul Uloom NadwaTul Ulama. He can be mailed at shahbaazshah469@gmail.com
