Guess the Ethnicity Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. Two people use the same ethnic label but follow different traditions and speak different languages. What is the most reasonable inference?
One of them must be using the label incorrectly
Ethnic labels always refer to uniform cultural practices
An ethnic community can contain substantial internal diversity
Language differences prove that they belong to unrelated nationalities
2. Which ethnic community has an ancestral homeland in the western Pyrenees on both the Spanish and French sides of the border?
Sardinian
Breton
Basque
Catalan
3. A consumer DNA service changes a person’s regional ancestry estimates after updating its database. What is the best explanation?
The person’s inherited DNA changed after the first test
The service’s reference samples and statistical model affected the estimates
Regional ancestry percentages are direct records of cultural identity
The person automatically acquired a new ethnicity
4. On a form that asks separately for nationality and ethnicity, which entry is an ethnic-group identification rather than a citizenship description?
Passport holder of China
Citizen of the People’s Republic of China
Chinese nationality
Han
5. A person has family ties to several communities and identifies with more than one of them. Which principle best fits this situation?
Only the father’s background can determine ethnicity
Ethnic identity can be multiple, layered, or shaped by several affiliations
A person must select the community linked to their birthplace
Having several family backgrounds means the person has no ethnicity
6. Sápmi extends across northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Which Indigenous people are connected with this region?
Inuit
Sámi
Nenets
Basque
7. Which Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand are associated with te reo Māori?
Chamorro
Aboriginal Australians
Samoan
Māori
8. A researcher records “Japanese” without clarifying whether participants mean citizenship or ethnic identity. What would most improve the research?
Ask about nationality and ethnic self-identification separately
Treat citizenship and ethnicity as interchangeable in every case
Replace both concepts with the language spoken at home
Assign ethnicity from each participant’s current address
9. Which ethnic group is historically associated with the Pashto language and regions of Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan?
Tajiks
Baloch
Punjabis
Pashtuns
10. Which ethnic community has a traditional homeland spanning parts of present-day Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria?
Amazigh
Tamil
Sámi
Kurdish
11. You are collecting demographic information for a community history project. Which approach most directly and appropriately identifies a participant’s ethnicity?
Use the participant’s country of birth as their ethnicity
Classify the participant from their surname
Let the participant state how they identify, with the option not to answer
Choose a category based on the participant’s appearance
12. At a multicultural event, you hear someone speaking Spanish. What can you reliably conclude about that person’s ethnicity from this clue alone?
There is not enough information to identify their ethnicity
They belong to a Latin American ethnic community
They belong to a Spanish ethnic community
Their ethnicity is the same as their preferred language
13. Which Indigenous peoples are closely associated with the Quechua language family and the Andean region of South America?
Mapuche
Quechua
Guaraní
Maya
14. The Yoruba have longstanding linguistic and cultural roots primarily in which area?
The Horn of Africa around Ethiopia and Eritrea
Southern Africa around Botswana and Namibia
Southwestern Nigeria and neighboring parts of Benin and Togo
The Great Lakes region around Rwanda and Burundi
15. Leila and Noor hold passports from the same country but describe themselves as belonging to different ethnic communities. What does this illustrate?
Nationality and ethnicity are related concepts but are not identical
People with the same nationality must share one ethnicity
Ethnicity is determined entirely by legal citizenship
Only birthplace, not identity, determines ethnicity
16. Someone was born in the United States and speaks Spanish with family. Which conclusion is best supported by those facts?
Birthplace and home language alone do not establish the person’s ethnicity
The person must identify with a single Latin American ethnicity
The person’s ethnicity is American because that is the birthplace
Spanish language use identifies the family’s exact ancestral community