The Orient is a term for the East in relation to
Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the
Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''
Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a
metonym
Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept.
Etymology
The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...
for, and coterminous with, the
continent of
Asia, loosely classified into the
Western Asia,
Southeast Asia,
South Asia,
Central Asia,
East Asia, and sometimes including the
Caucasus. Originally, the term ''Orient'' was used to designate only the Near East, and later its meaning evolved and expanded, designating also the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, or the Far East.
The term ''oriental'' is often used to describe objects from the Orient; however in the
United States it is considered an outdated and often offensive term by some, especially when used to refer to people of
East Asian
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea a ...
and
Southeast Asian
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
descent.
Etymology
The term "Orient" derives from the
Latin word ''oriens'' meaning "east" (lit. "rising" < ''orior'' " rise"). The use of the word for "rising" to refer to the east (where the sun rises) has analogues from many languages: compare the terms "Arevelk" in hy, Արեւելք (Armenian ''Arevelk'' means "East" or "Sunrise"), "
Levant" (< French ''levant'' "rising"), "Vostok" russian: link=no, Восток (< Russian ''voskhod'' russian: link=no, восход "sunrise"), "
Anatolia" (< Greek ''anatole''), "mizrahi" in
Hebrew ("zriha" meaning sunrise), "sharq" ar, شرق (< Arabic ' "rise", ' ar, شروق "rising"), "shygys" kz, шығыс (< Kazakh ''shygu'' kz, шығу "come out"), tr, doğu (< Turkish ''doğmak'' to be born; to rise), "xavar" fa, خاور (meaning east), (, a pictograph of the sun rising behind a tree) and "
The Land of the Rising Sun" to refer to Japan. In Arabic, the
Mashriq literally means "the sunrise", "the east", the name is derived from the verb ''sharaqa'' ( ar, شرق, link=no "to shine, illuminate, radiate" and "to rise"), from sh-r-q root (ش-ر-ق), referring to the east, where the sun rises.
Historically, the Mashriq was the southern part of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Many ancient temples, including pagan temples and the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, were built with their main entrances facing the East. This tradition was
carried on in Christian churches.
The opposite term "
Occident" derives from the
Latin word ''occidens'', meaning ''west'' (lit. ''setting'' < ''occido'' ''fall/set''). This term meant the west (where the sun sets) but has fallen into disuse in English, in favour of "
Western world".
History of the term
Territorialization of the Roman term ''Orient'' occurred during the reign of emperor
Diocletian
Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles ...
(284–305), when the
Diocese of the Orient (
Latin: ''Dioecesis Orientis'') was formed. Later in the 4th century, the
Praetorian prefecture of the Orient (
Latin: ''Praefectura Praetorio Orientis'') was also formed, including most of the
Eastern Roman Empire, from the
Thrace eastwards; its easternmost part was the original ''Diocese of the Orient'', corresponding roughly to the
region of Syria
Syria (Hieroglyphic Luwian: 𔒂𔒠 ''Sura/i''; gr, Συρία) or Sham ( ar, ٱلشَّام, ash-Shām) is the name of a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in Western Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant. Other s ...
.
Over time, the common understanding of "the Orient" has continually shifted eastwards, as European people travelled farther into Asia. It finally reached the Pacific Ocean, in what Westerners came to call "the Far East". These shifts in time and identification sometimes confuse the scope (historical and geographic) of Oriental Studies. Yet there remain contexts where "the Orient" and "Oriental" have kept their older meanings (e.g., "Oriental spices" typically are from the regions extending from the Middle East to sub-continental India to Indo-China). Travellers may again take the
Orient Express train from Paris to its terminus in the European part of
Istanbul, a route established in the early 20th century.
In European
historiography, the meaning of "the Orient" changed in scope several times. Originally, the term referred to Egypt, the
Levant, and adjoining areas
as far west as Morocco. During the 1800s, India, and to a lesser extent China, began to displace the Levant as the primary subject of Orientalist research, while the term also appears in mid-century works to describe an appearance or perceived similarity to "Oriental" government or culture, such as in
Tolstoy's 1869 novel
War and Peace, in which
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
, upon seeing the "oriental beauty" of Moscow, calls it "That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches, holy Moscow!", while in 1843 the American historian
William Prescott uses the phrase "barbaric pomp, truly Oriental" to describe the court life of
Aztec nobility in his history of the
conquest of the Aztec Empire. As late as 1957
Karl Wittfogel
Karl August Wittfogel (6 September 1896 – 25 May 1988) was a German-American
German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, ...
included Rome and the
Incan Empire in his study of what he called
Oriental Despotism
''Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power'' is a book of political theory and comparative history by Karl August Wittfogel (1896–1988) published by Yale University Press in 1957. The book offers an explanation for the despotic g ...
, demonstrating the term still carries a meaning in
Western thought that transcends geography. By the mid-20th century, Western scholars generally considered "the Orient" as just East Asia, Southeast Asia, and eastern Central Asia.
As recently as the early 20th century, the term "Orient" often continued to be used in ways that included North Africa. Today, the term primarily evokes images of China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia, and peninsular Southeast Asia.
"The Orient" being largely a cultural term, large parts of Asia—
Siberia most notably—were excluded from the scholarly notion of "the Orient".
Equally valid terms for the Orient still exist in the English language in such collocations as
Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studi ...
(now Asian Studies in some countries).
The adjectival term Oriental has been used by the West to mean cultures, peoples, countries, Asian rugs, and goods from the Orient. "Oriental" means generally "eastern". It is a traditional designation (especially when capitalized) for anything belonging to the
Orient
The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the c ...
or "East" (for Asia), and especially of its
Eastern culture. It indicated the eastern direction in historical astronomy, often abbreviated "Ori". In contemporary American English, ''Oriental'' usually refers to things from the parts of East Asia traditionally occupied by
East Asian
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea a ...
s and most
Central Asians
Central Asia is a diverse land with many ethnic groups, languages, religions and tribes. The nations which make up Central Asia are five of the former Soviet republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, which have ...
and
Southeast Asians racially categorized as "
Mongoloid". This excludes
Jews, Indians,
Arabs, and most other South or West Asian peoples. Because of historical discrimination against Chinese, Korean and Japanese, in some parts of the United States, some people consider the term derogatory. For example,
Washington State prohibits the word "Oriental" in legislation and government documents and prefers the word "Asian" instead.
In more local uses, "oriental" is also used for eastern parts of countries such as
Morocco's Oriental Region." Oriental" may also be used as an synonym of "eastern", especially in
Romance languages. Examples include the "oriental" and "occidental" provinces of
Mindoro and
Negros
Negros is the fourth largest and third most populous island in the Philippines, with a total land area of . Negros is one of the many islands of the Visayas, in the central part of the country. The predominant inhabitants of the island region a ...
in the Philippines, and the French
département of
Pyrénées-Orientales
Pyrénées-Orientales (; ca, Pirineus Orientals ; oc, Pirenèus Orientals ; ), also known as Northern Catalonia, is a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France, adjacent to the northern Spanish frontier and the Mediterranean Sea. ...
.
Since the 19th century, "orientalist" has been the traditional term for a scholar of
Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studi ...
; however, the use in English of "Orientalism" to describe academic "Oriental studies" is rare: the ''
Oxford English Dictionary'' cites only one such usage, by
Lord Byron in 1812. "
Orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
" is more widely used to refer to the works of the many 19th-century artists who specialized in "Oriental" subjects and often drew on their travels to North Africa and Western Asia. Artists, as well as scholars, were already described as "Orientalists" in the 19th century. In 1978, the Palestinian-American scholar
Edward Said published his influential and controversial book, ''
Orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
'', and used the term to describe a pervasive Western tradition, both academic and artistic, of prejudiced outsider interpretations of the
Arab and
Muslim worlds
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...
that has been shaped by the attitudes of European
imperialism
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
in the 18th and the 19th centuries.
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).
"Asian" in Great Britain sometimes refers to people who come specifically from
South Asia (in particular Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and sometimes Afghanistan), since
British Asians make up approximately 6.9% of the population within the United Kingdom.
"Orientals" refers exclusively to people of East and Southeast Asian origin, who constitute 0.7% of the UK population as a whole, and 5.3% of the non-European population. Of these, the majority are of Chinese descent.
''Orient'' is also a word for the lustre of a fine
pearl.
[orient: definition of orient in Oxford dictionary (British & World English)](_blank)
Oxforddictionaries.com. Retrieved on 12 April 2014. 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
Western Asia,
Asia Minor and
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
are often referred to as "Middle Eastern". These can include Arabs, Israelis, Kurds, Iranians, 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 taken as
pejorative by some, particularly when used as a noun.
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'", 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
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
signed New York Congresswoman
Grace Meng's legislation H.R. 4238 replacing the word with ''Asian American'' in federal law.
["APAs in the News/News Bytes: Legislation to Remove 'Oriental' From Federal Law Passes Senate, '' Pacific Citizen,'' May 20 – June 2, 2016, p. 4"]
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
A demonym (; ) or gentilic () is a word that identifies a group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (hamlet, village, town, city, region, province, ...
, 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
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
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.
See also
*
Orientalizing Period of Archaic Greek art
Notes
Further reading
*
nkerl, Guy''Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western'' (INUPRESS), Geneva, 2000.
*
External links
The American Oriental Societyat University of Chicago
On ''Asian'' and ''Oriental'' Model Minority posting by Alan Hu.
''The Critic in the Orient''by George Hamlin Fitch
German Orient Gate''What's the Matter with Saying the Orient?''by Christopher Hill fo
"About Japan: A Teacher's Resource"
{{Authority control
Geography terminology
Ethnic and religious slurs
Asia-Pacific
Orientalism
Historical regions
English words
Eastern culture