Asiatics

The term 'Asiatics' has been used in English to refer to people from Asia. The noun is the plural form, and the related adjective is 'Asiatic.' The term emerged in early modern English and appeared in ethnographic, travel, and administrative writings as a broad continental label for populations across East, South, and Southeast Asia.

Historically, the term was used within Western writings to categorize people within a racialized framework that grouped diverse cultures under a single label. Such usage reflected the era's assumptions about race and nationality and often lacked precise or consistent ethnographic boundaries.

In contemporary English, the word is rarely used to describe people. Modern usage generally prefers 'Asian' as both an adjective and a noun. 'Asiatics' can be perceived as archaic or pejorative in many contexts, and is usually found only when quoting older sources or when discussing historical terminology. In some technical or biogeographical contexts, the adjective 'Asiatic' survives, but even there 'Asian' is increasingly preferred in everyday language.

See also: Asia; Asian people; ethnonym; colonial anthropology.