Allochtoon

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For the geological term see Allochton.

Allochtoon (plural: allochtonen) is a Dutch word (derived from Greek ἀλλο (allo), other, and χθον (khthon) earth/land), literally meaning "originating from another country". It is defined as the opposite of the word autochtoon (in English, "autochthonous" or "autochthone"; derived from Greek αυτο (auto), self) literally meaning "originating from this country".

In current Dutch society the word has several meanings.

[edit] Definitions

The Dutch Government Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) makes a distinction between first- and second-generation newcomers.

A first-generation "allochtoon" is a person living in the Netherlands but born in a foreign country, and who has at least one parent who was also born abroad.
A second-generation "allochtoon" is a person born in the Netherlands with at least one parent born in a foreign country.

As a consequence of this definition, most members of the Dutch Royal Family are officially allochtonen, one of their parents being a Royal and his or her spouse being of foreign extraction. The only exception are the children of Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and her commoner husband Pieter van Vollenhoven.

Residents whose parents were born in the former Dutch East Indies or in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) are also "allochtonen" in the sense of the CBS definition. This usage, however, deviates from the common use in popular speech, where people refer to someone as allochtoon only when that person is an immigrant or an asylum seeker who is clearly distinct in appearance ('race') or behaviour from the traditional Dutchman. However, in the official sense, the largest group of "allochtonen" are of German ancestry. The groups that people usually think of when they hear the word 'allochtoon' are those of Turkish, Moroccan and Surinam ancestry. As of 2006, these groups comprise roughly 350,000 people each, together constituting just over 6% of the population. [1] A new term was introduced that lies closer to that meaning, 'niet-westers allochtoon', which excludes 'allochtonen' from Europe, Japan (a westernised country) and Indonesia (a former colony), but not those from the Netherlands Antilles and Surinam, which seems odd because the Antilles are still part of the kingdom of the Netherlands and those from Surinam immigrated when that country was still part of the Netherlands. Hoewever, many Indonesian allochtones are white (former colonists), while most Surinam and Antillian allochtones are black (former slaves), so this definition coincides better with people's conception of the word.