The Orient is a term referring to the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of the term Occident, which refers to the Western world.
In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the continent of Asia – loosely classified into Southwest 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, but later its meaning evolved and expanded, designating also Central Asia, Southwest Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, or the Far East.
The term oriental is often used to describe objects and people coming from the Orient/eastern Asia.[1]
Etymology
Administrative Dioceses of the Roman Empire, c. 300, including the original Diocese of the Orient
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 Armenian: Արեւելք (Armenian Arevelk means "East" or "Sunrise"), "Levant" (< French levant "rising"), "Vostok" Russian: Восток (< Russian voskhodRussian: восход "sunrise"), "Anatolia" (< Greek anatole), "mizrah" in Hebrew ("zriha" meaning sunrise), "sharq" Arabic: شرق (< Arabic yashriqيشرق "rise", shurūqArabic: شروق "rising"), "shygys" Kazakh: шығыс (< Kazakh shyguKazakh: шығу "come out"), Turkish: doğu (< Turkish doğmak to be born; to rise), "xavar" Persian: خاور (meaning east), Chinese:東 (pinyin:dōng, a pictograph of the sun rising behind a tree[2]) 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 (Arabic: شرق "to shine, illuminate, radiate" and "to rise"), from sh-r-q root (ش-ر-ق), referring to the east, where the sun rises.[3][4] Historically, the Mashriq was the southern part of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The opposite term "Occident" derives from the Latin word occidens, meaning west (lit. setting < occidofall/set). This term meant the west (where the sun sets) but has fallen into disuse in English, in favour of "Western world".
Territorialization of the Roman term Orient occurred during the reign of emperor Diocletian (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.
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[5] 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, upon seeing the "oriental beauty" of Moscow, calls it "That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches, holy Moscow!",[6] 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.[7] As late as 1957 Karl Wittfogel included Rome and the Incan Empire in his study of what he called Oriental Despotism, 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.[5] 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.[5] "The Orient" being largely a cultural term, large parts of Asia—Siberia most notably—were excluded from the scholarly notion of "the Orient".[5]
Equally valid terms for the Orient still exist in the English language in such collocations as Oriental studies (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 or "East" (for Asia), and especially of its Eastern culture. It indicated the eastern direction in historical astronomy, often abbreviated "Ori".[8] In contemporary American English, Oriental usually refers to things from the parts of East Asia traditionally occupied by East Asians and most Central Asians 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.[9]
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 in the Philippines, and the French département of Pyrénées-Orientales.
Since the 19th century, "orientalist" has been the traditional term for a scholar of Oriental studies; 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" 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, and used the term to describe a pervasive Western tradition, both academic and artistic, of prejudiced outsider interpretations of the Arab and Muslim worlds that has been shaped by the attitudes of European imperialism in the 18th and the 19th centuries.[10]
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, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore).[11] Judges in the United Kingdom have been issued with guidelines to encourage political correctness where oriental should be avoided because it is imprecise and may be considered racist or offensive.[12][13]
"Asian" in Great Britain sometimes refers to people who come specifically from South Asia (in particular Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Iran, and Afghanistan), since British Asians as a whole make up approximately 9.3% of the population within the United Kingdom, and people of an ethnically South Asian background comprise the largest group within this category.[14] "Orientals" refers exclusively to people of East and Southeast Asian origin, who constitute approximately 0.7% of the UK population as a whole. Of these, the majority are of Chinese descent.[15]Orient is also a word for the lustre of a fine pearl.[16] 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 Southwest Asia, Asia Minor and Near East are often referred to by the term, "Middle Eastern". These can include Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Assyrians, West Asian Armenians, Yezidis, Egyptians (including Copts), Syriac Arameans, Mandeans, Shabakis and Turvomans among others.
In some specific contexts, for example the carpet and rug trade, the older sense of "oriental" to cover not just East Asia but Central Asia, South Asia and Turkey may still be used; an Oriental rug may come from any of these areas.
American English
Harem Pool by the Orientalist painter Jean-Léon Gérôme c. 1876; nude women in harem or bathing settings are a staple of much Orientalist painting
The term Oriental may sound dated or even be seen as a pejorative, particularly when used as a noun.[17]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'",[18] 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 signed New York Congresswoman Grace Meng's legislation H.R. 4238 replacing the word with Asian American in federal law.[19][20]
China
The Chinese word 东方 (東方 dongfang, tungfang) 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, 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.
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.[citation needed]
The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including East, North, and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In modern times, the term Far East has widely fallen out of use and been substituted by Asia–Pacific, while the terms Middle East and Near East, although now pertaining to different territories, are still commonly used today.
The Levant is a term used to define the historical and geographical subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west and core West Asia, or by the political term, Middle East to the east. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in western Asia: i.e. the historical region of Syria, which includes present-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and most of Turkey southwest of the middle Euphrates. Its overwhelming characteristic is that it represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia. In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the Eastern Mediterranean with its islands; that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece in Southern Europe to Egypt and Cyrenaica in Northern Africa.
The Middle East is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle East, was one of the many specialties of 19th-century academic art, and Western literature was influenced by a similar interest in Oriental themes.
Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in the Eastern Mediterranean region or locations further east, south or north. The term does not describe a single communion or religious denomination. Eastern Christianity is a category distinguished from Western Christianity, which is composed of those Christian traditions and churches that originally developed further west.
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. North is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Farang is a Persian word that originally referred to the Franks and later came to refer to Western or Latin Europeans in general. The word is borrowed from Old French franc or Latin francus, which are also the source of Modern English France, French.
Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and East Turkestan (Xinjiang). The region is located in the northwest of modern day China and to the northwest of its borders, and extends directly to the east of the Caspian Sea. Turkestan is primarily inhabited by Turkic peoples, as well as Russian and Tajik-Persian minorities. Turkestan is subdivided into Afghan Turkestan, Russian Turkestan, and East Turkistan.
The Near East is a transcontinental region around the East Mediterranean encompassing parts of West Asia, the Balkans, and North Africa; it also includes the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, East Thrace and Egypt. The term was invented by modern Western geographers and was originally applied to the Ottoman Empire, but today has varying definitions within different academic circles. The term Near East was used in conjunction with the Middle East and the Far East, together known as the "three Easts"; it was a separate term from the Middle East during earlier times and official British usage. Both terms are used interchangeably to refer to the same region. Near East and Middle East are both Eurocentric terms.
The Republic of India has two principal official short names, each of which is historically significant: India and Bharat. A third name, Hindustan, is also used commonly when Indians speak among themselves. The usage of "Bhārat", "Hindustān", or "India" depends on the context and language of conversation.
Chinoiserie is the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and other Sinosphere artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, literature, theatre, and music. The aesthetic of chinoiserie has been expressed in different ways depending on the region. It is related to the broader current of Orientalism, which studied Far East cultures from a historical, philological, anthropological, philosophical, and religious point of view. First appearing in the 17th century, this trend was popularized in the 18th century due to the rise in trade with China and the rest of East Asia.
The Asia–Pacific (APAC) is the region of the world adjoining the western Pacific Ocean. The region's precise boundaries vary depending on context, but countries and territories in Australasia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia are often included. In a wider context, Central Asia, North Asia, the Pacific Islands, South Asia, West Asia, and even Pacific-adjoining countries in the Americas can be included. For example, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) includes five economies in the New World. The term has become popular since the late 1980s in commerce, finance, and politics. Despite the heterogeneity of the regions' economies, most individual nations within the zone are emerging markets experiencing significant growth. Sometimes, the notion of "Asia–Pacific excluding Japan" (APEJ) is considered useful.
The word Japan is an exonym, and is used by many languages. The Japanese names for Japan are Nihon and Nippon. They are both written in Japanese using the kanji 日本.
Orientalism is a 1978 book by Edward Said, in which he establishes the term "Orientalism" as a critical concept to describe the Western world's commonly contemptuous depiction and portrayal of the Eastern world—that is, the Orient. Societies and peoples of the Orient are those who inhabit regions throughout Asia and North Africa. Said argues that Orientalism, in the sense of the Western scholarship about the Eastern world, is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies that produced it, which makes much Orientalist work inherently political and servile to power.
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 studies and Asian studies. Traditional Oriental studies in Europe is today generally focused on the discipline of Islamic studies; the study of China, especially traditional China, is often called Sinology. The study of East Asia in general, especially in the United States, is often called East Asian studies.
Asian people are the people of the continent of Asia. The term may also refer to their descendants.
The Eastern world, also known as the East or historically the Orient, is an umbrella term for various cultures or social structures, nations and philosophical systems, which vary depending on the context. It most often includes Asia, the Mediterranean region and the Arab world, specifically in historical (pre-modern) contexts, and in modern times in the context of Orientalism. The Eastern world is often seen as a counterpart to the Western world.
Wog is a racial slur used to refer, in British English, to black and South Asian people, and, in Australian English, to people from the Mediterranean region. Whilst it is extremely derogatory in British English, in Australian English it may be considered non-offensive depending on how the word is used, due to reclamation and changing connotations.
The Occident is a term for the West, traditionally comprising anything that belongs to the Western world. It is the antonym of the term Orient, referring to the Eastern world. In English, it has largely fallen into disuse. The term occidental is often used to describe objects from the Occident but can be considered an outdated term by some. The term originated with geographical divisions mirroring the cultural divide between the Greek East and the Latin West, and the political divide between the Western and Eastern Roman Empires.
Eastern culture, also known as Eastern civilization and historically as Oriental culture, is an umbrella term for the diverse cultural heritages of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies of the Eastern world.
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