One of the most interesting words in the English language is “people.” It can have several meanings. My dictionary (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition) has several definitions, leading with “human beings making up a group or assembly or linked by a common interest.” Fair enough. Basically, it refers to a group of “persons” who have something in common. That definition can be further broken down into specific groups like “all the people at the football game,” as opposed to “all the people who aren’t at the football game.” Or “all the people in the United States,” to be distinguished from “all the people in Great Britain.”
The biggest group is, of course, “all the people in the world,” which just illustrates the somewhat flexible usage of the word, because “people” can be used to include all those the speaker wants, and exclude those he/she doesn’t. Current events show this quite well.
But as a science fiction writer who has developed other worlds with suitable inhabitants living thereon, I find myself wondering if the word “people” can be used to include beings who aren’t of this world. Will we ever come to the point where we need to refer to the “people” of another planet? Since we’ve never seen or heard from beings from outer space, we have to look at fiction to draw comparison. Were there “people” on Mars who invaded Earth in H.G. Wells’ novel, War of the Worlds? Are there “people” who inhabit Middle Earth? Are Klingons “people”? I suppose that is more a matter of how the author(s) views his/her fictional characters, but I’m using the term outside the author’s intent and looking at them in a broader context. What are they? Really.
It’s certainly very likely that we on Earth may be called on to use a word, whether “people” or some other, to refer to the real, non-fictional beings we find on another planet. (If we ever do, of course.) That may be a long time coming, but what if we do? Will they really be “people”? Do we have within us the wherewithal, or even the chutzpah, to call them a term that we have thus far used to refer only to ourselves, in part or whole? Since the word has such a flexible meaning, calling them “people” doesn’t necessarily include them as part of us, other than the fact that they exist in the same galaxy, the same universe, the same time continuum as we. But let us step back and examine ourselves in this matter. How will we view them? How we use the word will be, without a doubt, a reflection of how we really view them. It will be a testament of our regard for them, of what we can distinguish about them. Come to think of it, that’s how we use the word today anyway.