2 years, 2 months ago
Why are Chinese said to be yellow?
As far as I know there are hardly any Chinese people left that have that yellowish skin
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M$1 Answer
The original color was "luridus" which is Latin for pale yellow. Carl Linneus, the great Swedish botanist and biologist who founded modern taxonomy made his life's work the classification of plants and animals in an organized and scientific way. He included humankind, which got him into a lot of trouble with the churches.
Humans he put as Mammalia.Primates.Homo.Sapiens. We are still Homo Sapiens today. But he went further and described four races:
Americanus, which was rufus (red)
Europeus, which was albus (white)
Asiaticus, which was luridus (pale yellow)
Afer, which was niger (black)
and Monstrosus which were a collection of mythological humanoid variations that he had heard of but later turned out not to exist.
This division into races has been debatable every since; but, so are most biological divisions into races. It was a handy way to briefly describe people from different parts of the world and has remained popular. Much abused, of course, and often considered politically incorrect; but, still perhaps somewhat useful. With the long history in popular speech and writing it is not going to be changed anytime soon.
Humans he put as Mammalia.Primates.Homo.Sapiens. We are still Homo Sapiens today. But he went further and described four races:
Americanus, which was rufus (red)
Europeus, which was albus (white)
Asiaticus, which was luridus (pale yellow)
Afer, which was niger (black)
and Monstrosus which were a collection of mythological humanoid variations that he had heard of but later turned out not to exist.
This division into races has been debatable every since; but, so are most biological divisions into races. It was a handy way to briefly describe people from different parts of the world and has remained popular. Much abused, of course, and often considered politically incorrect; but, still perhaps somewhat useful. With the long history in popular speech and writing it is not going to be changed anytime soon.
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