Is the word "natives" to describe a people native to a country offensive?

[LolSurprise]

As the title says - I am worried I might have used the wrong word unintentionally due to limited vocabulary and caused offence. Do you think the word "natives" as in meaning "people native to that country" (not as in native Americans) is considered offensive? Thanks!

Well said.

”Colonialism - A Moral Reckoning” by Nigel Biggar is a good read on this.

More recent definitely, that’s why we are all hung up on it - much of it is in living memory, also we kept very detailed records. More brutal? Absolutely not. Read the above book.

It's part of the English language
FFS

Actually I'd hear that the opposite way round as in locals v incomers.

Round here there's 'proper village' (grand parent down the pit) and 'new village' (only lived here 40 years).

It is going to depend a little on the context, but it should be fine.

Honestly I just wish people would stop being offended when someone doesn't have all the perfect words at their fingertips.

Being rude for no reason behind your keyboard… think it’s you who needs to get a life my dear

Yes.
Native brits or Spaniards prob ok.

The natives- sounds pretty offensive.

E.g.
I went on holiday to Skegness, found the natives pretty rowdy.

Gonna mix with the natives here in Blackpool.

I think in that context it has the ring of a superiority complex from the person who is saying it.

I think the plural makes a big difference. Referring to "native language" or "native to the region", or even "native Italian" is permissible, if a bit pompous. Referring to "the natives" is offensive, and even more offensive if said "natives" are people of colour or historical victims of British oppression (eg the Irish).

Someone can be native to somewhere without being indigenous.

In certain quarters half the ruddy English language is now deemed offensive
Looking at you Oxfam 🤬

Your context was fine.

I use:

Locals (informal, talking about a trip)
Indigenous (formal, or specifically in places with colonial history)
First Nations (in places with First Peoples)

'Native' I leave for plants and animals. It's worth saying that like the other N word, it's used by people themselves to decolonise the power. And also as slang. A bit like the other I word for North American First Nations.

Yes. This.

Looking at you Oxfam
WTF?

Also agree it depends on context, but probably better to use a different word. Citizens, nationals, locals might all work.

What I am taking from this discussion is that nowadays there are far too many people waiting around looking to find something to be offended by or possibly even pretending to be offended by as I enter my old age I’m noticing it everywhere and I don’t understand why. If it didn’t matter 20 years ago why should it matter now.
Whatever happened to sticks and stones…?
Has humanity really become so mentally fragile as a species because if we have what hope do our children and grandchildren have?

I might have used the wrong word unintentionally due to limited vocabulary and caused offence

Why do you have limited vocabulary OP???

Context is all, but generally as an adjective OK, as a noun definitely not.

Preferred names change over time. For instance Aboriginal Australian is no longer OK, and First Nations is preferred. It is bollocks, as it conflates mainland First Nations (what were Aboriginal/Indigenous Australians, with Torres Strait Islanders (Indigenous Melanesians), two quite separate ethnic groups. I should emphasise I would never air this in public nor use anything except the preferred terms.

It's bit like the umbrella Black designation that scooped up Indian sub-continent British with African and Afro-Caribbean British. It pissed everyone off. Apologies if I haven't got the designations precisely right, it was a long time ago.

What to do? Try and keep up with the changes. It's respectful.

It’s acceptable to use digital natives to describe people who have grown up with computers and the internet, as opposed to people who’ve been around since before them.

It depends how it's said, why wouldn't you use the word indigenous instead?
"Look at the natives" should get you a smack in the head for example, and rightly so

Even these countries aren't the same, there's no need to say natives in India given most people there are Indian ethnicity, different in Australia where they almost anilated the Aborigines. I don't understand why you would use the word, it sounds pretty offensive tbh. I can just imagine it spoken in a "posh" English accent in a black and white documentary - cringe 😬

@Colourfingers2 at last!! Someone talking sense!!

Maybe because racism, sexism etc was more acceptable 20 years ago 🤔 🙄 and it was more acceptable to be ignorant and a bit thick 😉

I wouldn’t think twice. I work with languages and also introduce myself as native English and passive Spanish and French.

Colonising in the sense of moving to a new place, or even invading a new country, has different connotations than colonialism in the way it occurred in the 19th and 20th century.

Colonialism was a system in which a few European countries ruled over and extracted resources from countries on the other side of the world. They didn't admit that this aggression was purely self interest, they built theories of racial and cultural superiority to justify their actions. Among those was denigration of the "natives" as naive, stupid, lazy, greedy, or violent, with weird and ridiculous beliefs and traditions. Racism as a set of beliefs essentially developed to enable the European populations to feel okay about the exploitation of other peoples. Colonial rule was still going on within living memory, so the word still carries those connotations.

'People native to a country' is not the same as 'natives'. It's fine.

In the same way that 'people of colour' is not the same as 'coloured people'.