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== "Pure-blooded" populations being "extinct" ==

Looking for some input into how to handle the "extinct" categorisation in the table at [[Ainu people#Subgroups]]. I have recently replaced the phrasing "pure-blooded" used throughout the table with "sole Ainu ancestry" to try to move it away from what is outdated terminology within anthropology. But I then realised there was somewhat of an issue with the column on "population" where it listed groups as "extinct", this seems to be based on the idea that through the 20th century we saw an increasingly small amount of individuals in the subgroups where they were recorded as having sole ancestry within the subgroup, as reported in recent sources that discuss primary historical documents and reports of the Ainu over the past couple of centuries (see Shibatani (1990). ''The Languages of Japan''. as an example in the aforementioned table).

As an example, the Kamchatka Ainu are listed as extinct in the table, the reason for this is the claim that they were last recorded as a distinct group by Russian explorers in the 1700s, and after that the Kamchatka Ainu were intermixed with the Kamchadal population. But this is complicated further by the fact that members of the North Kuril Ainu and South Kuril Ainu subgroups were in contact with the Kamchatka peninsula all through this time, and per sources in the "Ainu" article and the "Ainu in Russia" article, later during the 19th and 20th centuries you saw much of these two groups move to the Kamchatka peninsula and once again intermix with the local populations of Kamchatka Ainu and Kamchadal ancestry. Now to run this to present day, Keizo Nakamura was born in the early 20th century with ancestry from all three prior mentioned Ainu groups, he was moved to Sakhalin by the Soviets, and there married a Sakhalin Ainu woman, with whom he had a son Alexei Nakamura in the mid-20th century. Alexei Nakamura has since moved back to Kamchatka, where he has organised with other individuals of Ainu ancestry who were still living in Kamchatka, forming what they are calling the Kamchatka Ainu, and engaging in community revitalisation (all covered in news sources detailed in the article "Ainu in Russia").

So, is it right to be listing these subgroups as "extinct" based on sources reporting on even older surveys about the decline of "pure-blooded" individuals, when at the time per the sources, they were in community with individuals of mixed ancestry, and we have present communities of such mixed ancestry identifying themselves as and communally engaging as members of these groups? And does any part of the present text, or my view to change it based on the sources about present communities run into OR? -- [[User:Cdjp1|Cdjp1]] ([[User talk:Cdjp1|talk]]) 22:14, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

:Firstly, you are absolutely right that we should not be using grossly outdated terminology like 'pure-blooded'. And I have my doubts that recent anthropology would use 'extinct' in relation to an ethnic group either (it might well be used in relation to a language). 'Extinction' is something that happens to species, which ethnic groups most definitely aren't, ethnicity being the fluid, contextual and constantly-changing social construct that it is. I'd like to see some very strong evidence from sources that such terminology was being used at all, and would certainly describe it as WP:OR to apply it without sources that explicitly do so. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 22:36, 14 March 2026 (UTC)
::Looking through the sources, Wurm, Mühlhäusler & Tryon (1996) only discuss the extinction of languages, the same for Shibatani (1990), Howell (2005) talks of how the Japanese and European commentators a century ago viewed the Ainu in total as a people doomed to extinction, so not the "extinction" of specific subgroups, he does also say {{tqq|The Ainu of Sakhalin and the Kurils suffered dislocation repeatedly as a result of the drawing and redrawing of international boundaries in their homeland. The dispersal and even extinction of their communities testifies to the disruptive effects of international competition in the region}} which would be the closest, though I'm not sure if it really hits the mark. None of the other sources employed discuss "extinction". They may mention the groups "dying out", but that will have to be a search for later. -- [[User:Cdjp1|Cdjp1]] ([[User talk:Cdjp1|talk]]) 18:14, 15 March 2026 (UTC)
:::I'd say that 'extinction of their communities' isn't really the same thing as extinction of an ethnic group in such circumstances. Not while individuals have 'dispersed' (or been forced to) elsewhere, to within other Ainu communities. It's problematic, because it depends on whether one is discussing the Aniu as an ethnicity, or a subgroup as one: and depending on context, both can clearly apply. I'd have to look into the sources to confirm it, but one concern I have is that the table of 'subgroups' seems to be conflating where Ainu individuals live with their ethnicity, which doesn't necessarily follow at all. A tricky subject. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 19:16, 15 March 2026 (UTC)
::One example of a group supposedly going extinct is the [[Taino people]] [[User:Katzrockso|Katzrockso]] ([[User talk:Katzrockso|talk]]) 22:26, 15 March 2026 (UTC)