Indigène is in biology an adjective which qualifies a endemic species whose evolution was done in the place about which one speaks.

More generally, its employment in the field of social sciences and histories a long time had (and has sometimes still) in French a pejorative connotation related to the semantic evolution which he knew during the colonial period. Familiarly a native designated “an individual not civilized” or “whom was not full citizen of the nation” (see on this subject statute of the indigénat), so that the indigenous term is often preferred to him. Nevertheless, native has seemed for a few years to know a rehabilitation by the means of English “indigenous” which preserved in this language its etymological direction of “individual originating” in the place where he saw.

For the same reasons, the vernacular use of Language or indigenous language will be preferred with that indigenous language, and this contrary to the english-speaking who preserved the expression in indigenous language.

With the Quebec the term indigenous S, Amerindian or natives is also more often employed, if they profit from the official statute. In New Caledonia, the Accords of Noumea recognize a usual statute with the populations Kanak.

The term be indígena is of official employment in several countries of Latin America.

The Antonyme of native is alien.

See too

• the film in 2006 by Rachid Bouchareb: Indigenous
• International Survival

Zh-min-nan: Goân-chū-bîn