Why Capitalizing “Native American” Matters
Capitalizing the “N” in Native American might seem like a small stylistic choice, but it carries real historical and cultural weight. The capital “N” recognizes Native American as a distinct identity, not just a general description. Without it, the meaning changes.
Here at Dictionary.com, our lexicographers have distinguished between native Americans and Native Americans. The first version, with the lowercase n, applies to anyone who was born here in the United States. After all, when used as an adjective, native is defined as “being the place or environment in which a person was born or a thing came into being.” If you were born in the United States of America, you are native to the country. Lowercase native American is an adjective that modifies the noun American. The lowercase native American is a noun phrase that describes someone as being an American citizen who is native to the United States.
Simply being born in the good old US of A doesn’t make someone a Native American (capital N). Those two words are both capitalized because, when used together, they form what grammar experts refer to as a proper noun, or “a noun that is used to denote a particular person, place, or thing.” The term Native American is a very broad label that refers to a federally recognized category of Americans who are indigenous to the land that is now the United States (although some also extend the word’s usage to include all the the Indigenous Peoples of North and South America), and they make up at least two percent of the US population. They’re not just native to this area in the sense of having been born on American soil, but they have established American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry. As a general term, Native American is often used collectively to refer to the many different tribes of Indigenous Peoples who lived in the Americas long before the arrival of European colonizers. In reality, Native Americans are not a monolith, and they belong to many different tribes with their own cultures and languages. Note the words Native American should always be used together. It’s considered disparaging and offensive to refer to a group of people who are Native American simply as natives.
Common vs. Proper Nouns: How Capitalization Changes Meaning
There are many examples in English where using a common noun instead of a proper noun changes a word or phrase’s meaning. Take New York City, for instance. With a capital “C,” it refers specifically to the five boroughs that make up this famous city. But with a lowercase “c,” as in “a New York city,” it could mean any city located in New York State. The same is true of White House vs. white house. As a common noun, a white house is simply a house painted white. As a proper noun, the White House refers to the official residence of the U.S. president in Washington, D.C.
