Using "aboriginal" to describe white people

Aboriginals is an accurate word in this context. But it does have those associations, so what will you do when someone says you shouldn't use it for white people?

You're absolutely correct both about the strict definition, and about the connotations. It's perfectly appropriate for the situation, and will summon up a very specific frame of reference for some of your readers, some of whom won't necessarily understand the word's wider associations.

Because I'm a philology nerd: aboriginal has a history that long predates its present associations. Its formation is Latin ab origine, literally "from the beginning", and was used very early to describe the group of people who were native to an area... Or, well, not quite. The Romans called the primeval tribe who drove the Siculi out of Latium and founded the city of Rome aborigines in Latin; if you were to clumsily literalize its meaning into English, it means "the from-the-beginning people". Of course, those "first people" actually drove out the people who were already there in order to become "first", so make of that what you will.

Personally, I'd be totally comfortable with reading it in your context. You may want to have a good concise explanation lying around for what you meant by it, but I wouldn't worry.

If you did worry, one way of avoiding undesirable associations is to switch from Latin words to Greek ones that mean exactly the same thing. The Greek equivalent of aborigines is (I don't know if this is going to display properly on AW...) οἱ αὐτόχθονες, "the autochthons", the literal meaning of which is "those who sprang from the earth", and therefore the first people to inhabit an area. Autochthonous is also a super-cool sounding English word, which is a bonus.

I'd avoid aboriginal, indigenous or native, unless the group is based on a group called that in our world. For example, indigenous is used for some European ethnic groups such as Basques and Sami. But it's not commonly used for Vikings and their descendants. I think you already know the reason for avoiding it, as it's in your question. These are words that are used to describe particular marginalised ethnic groups, many of them non-white. You can't avoid those connotations by quoting the dictionary. It'd be easy enough to come up with a nickname for the group that would work just as well.

Do be cautious if this is a discrimiflip story though (brown colonisers invade the home of the white people, steal their land, ban their languages, and so forth). It's hard to do that sort of story well. Most end up coming across as emphasising stereotypes from our world (brown people are evil and violent; white people are noble, good and in danger from scary brown people).

Are all your other terms from the same language roots? If so it might well fit in, if not it strikes me as a strangely obscure term to choose versus native, indigenous etc.

It's linguistically correct, so it would make sense to me, as long as you're not doing any of the blatantly stupid things that Polenth mentioned.

Be very careful of unfortunate implications.

I'd also expect the group to be marginalized compared to the migrant group. If they're the dominant ethnic group, it would seem unnecessary to me.

veinglory said:

Are all your other terms from the same language roots? If so it might well fit in, if not it strikes me as a strangely obscure term to choose versus native, indigenous etc.

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That was my thinking too. To my knowledge most native groups aren't referred to as "aboriginal" outside of an academic context unless you're talking about Australia.

You could autochthonous. Classical Greek for earth-born with the implication of a people springing from the native soil.

Seconding indigenous or maybe even "local" or "traditional" people?

In Australia "Aboriginal" has a very strictly defined legal definition so Aboriginal Vikings (COOOLL!) are perhaps a fantasy never to be realised. (Although my Aboriginal friends would love it, ha!)

I like indigenous. it makes me think of phrases like "indigenous wildlife" or "indigenous flora" so I personally think it comes with less baggage than Aboriginal.