Is Asia/Asian meaningful?

This might be informative for you.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asia

It gives no rationale for calling this South Asia or even part of Asia... it could as easily be called the "India zone" or something. And further, quoting from your reference:


So it seems to come down to arbitrary naming of a zone of arbitrarily included regions around India.

I'm afraid I don't understand your problem.

The so-called Indian sub-continent is a part of that portion of the Eurasian continent which has been designated as Asia. This is the land east of the Ural Mountain range which separates Europe from Asia. Therefore the people of India are considered Asian.

Again, what's the problem?

Is this a rhetorical question ?
Your profile indicates you have a good grasp of semantics, which implies that you are aware that all usage is contextual rather than absolute. "Asian" can be used in contrast to "white"....as a geographical term relative to "European"....etc.

The term "Asian" is usually used (particularly in the USA) as a racial term indicating the peoples previously known as oriental. Thus Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc.
In recent years however the term has been used (or "South Asian") to refer to Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians, Afghans, and others.
This categorization fails in my opinion on a number of fronts:
1) Racial: These are different ethnic groups, primarily caucazoid.
2) Geographic: Contiguous land mass doesn't separate Asia from Europe so the division is apparently arbitrary.
3) Plate tectonics: India is on a separate plate from the rest of Europe and what was previously known as Asia; it's on the Indo-Australian plate; with respect to plate tectonics you could even call it a separate continent that just happens to be jammed into Eurasia.

I think it would be clearer and more consistent to speak of the ethnicities as being Asian and Indian (separated) rather than collectively Asian and to refer to the geography as "Asia and the Indian Subcontinent."

I see. You're thinking of 'Asian' as being primarily an ethnic adjective. But that's not the intention at all when we speak of Indians or Pakistanis or Iranians etc. as being 'Asia.' All it means is that they are native to the continent we call Asia. Siberians, too, are Asian, as are Afghans.

You'll notice, also, that there are major differences between the several groups that you are willing to characterize as 'Asian'. And tectonic plates have absolutely nothing to do with any of it.

Cananda, the U.S.A, Central America and South America are all one land mass too.

A continent doesn't have to be separate land masses.

What's your point?

In Britain, we say "Asian" or "South Asian" to mean people of Indian/Pakistani/Sri Lankan/Nepalese origin. To call a British Asian of Pakistani origin "Indian" would be devastatingly stupid and ignorant.

By the way, there are also Mongolian, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Burmese, Thai, Laotian, Cambodian, Korean etc people in London. And more. Described thus. By themselves and others.

Ethnicity is one meaning of "Asian," Tectonics is another... however the term isn't used consistently or meaningfully in any of the domains. As an example, scientists try to determine testing proclivities, IQ and school effectiveness by correlating test scores with racial identification and home addresses. Thus you get statements such as:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/etc/gap.html

But by jumbling so many cultures, countries, ethnicities, and tectonic plates together, the studies are meaningless. Practices common in Japan, China, Korea and Singapore are NOT common in Afghanistan and Iran. Nor are their genetics, diets, religions, languages, cultures or other factors in any way closely related.