2,407 articles
Shebeen
Shebeen: township drinking establishment, from Irish sibín, historically illegal under apartheid, now partly licensed as taverns; an estimated 180,000–250,000 unlicensed South African outlets persist.
Sherpa people
Sherpa people (Tibetan shar pa, 'eastern people'): a Tibetan-origin ethnic group of Nepal's Khumbu region near Everest, migrated from Kham about 400-600 years ago; Nyingmapa Buddhist, Tibeto-Burman language, famed high-altitude mountaineers, not a job title.
Shi Ping
Shi Ping (施平, born Shi Eryi, 1911-2024) was a Chinese Communist Party educator and supercentenarian, world's oldest verified living man (April-June 2024), former Party Secretary of Beijing Agricultural University and East China Normal University, grandfather of Shi Yigong.
Shona people
The Shona are a cluster of Bantu-speaking peoples of the Zimbabwe plateau (Karanga, Zezuru, Manyika, Ndau, Korekore), about 80.9% of Zimbabwe's 2022 population, with a standardized language, Great Zimbabwe heritage, and ancestor-centered religion.
Shoshone
Shoshone (Newe) are Native Americans of the Great Basin, Rocky Mountains, and northern Plains, divided into Western, Northern, and Eastern groups; their Central Numic Uto-Aztecan language has about 5,000 speakers and is endangered, with major reservations at Wind River and Fort Hall.
Shriners
Shriners, or Shriners International (Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine), a Masonic fraternity founded 1872 in New York, known for red fezzes and for founding Shriners Children's hospitals in 1922.
Shtetl (שטעטל)
Shtetl (שטעטל, shtetlekh): Yiddish for "little town"; small pre-WWII Eastern European market towns with large Yiddish-speaking Jewish populations, often Jewish-majority, destroyed in the Holocaust and central to Jewish memory and literature.
Shuar
The Shuar are a Chicham (Jivaroan)-speaking indigenous people of southeastern Ecuador and northern Peru, related to the Achuar, Aguaruna, and Huambisa, known for the Shuar Federation (1964), tsantsa shrunken heads, and conflicts over mining and oil on their territory.
Shudra
Shudra (शूद्र): fourth varna of the classical Hindu fourfold order, associated with labour and service. Covers Vedic origins, textual disabilities, regional variation where Shudras could be kings, and modern anti-caste politics.
Shunning
Shunning is deliberate, sustained social withdrawal used as discipline by communities such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Amish, and Exclusive Brethren; a formalized form of ostracism with documented pain, need threat, and long-term psychological harm.
Sicilians
Sicilians: natives and inhabitants of Sicily, Italy's largest island region. Identity (sicilianità) shaped by Siculi, Greek, Arab, Norman layers; Sicilian language; large diaspora; special 1946 autonomy.
Siddi
Siddi (Habshi, Sheedi): Afro-descendant community of South Asia, mainly in Gujarat, Karnataka, and Hyderabad, descended from Bantu peoples brought by Arab and Portuguese traders; about 67% African ancestry, Scheduled Tribe status in Karnataka since 2003.
Sierra Leonean refugee crisis
The Sierra Leonean refugee crisis was the mass displacement of Sierra Leone's population during the civil war of 1991 to 2002, which drove about 460,000 refugees into Guinea and Liberia.
Sigma Chi (ΣΧ)
Sigma Chi (ΣΧ) is an international social fraternity founded June 28, 1855 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio by seven former Delta Kappa Epsilon members, with over 255,000 living members, Evanston, Illinois headquarters, and a documented record of chapter hazing sanctions.
Sikhism in Canada
Sikhism in Canada: the Sikh religion and community in Canada, from early Punjabi migration to British Columbia, the 1908 continuous journey regulation and Komagata Maru, to 771,790 Sikhs (2.1%) in the 2021 Census, the largest Sikh population outside India.
Silent Generation
The Silent Generation is the American cohort born 1928-1945, between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers. Named by TIME in 1951, it is small (about 19 million), conformist and civic-minded in image, and the most Republican living generation.
Silla Bang
Silla Bang (신라방) were self-governing communities of Silla expatriates in Tang China, formed from the 8th century on the Shandong Peninsula and Jianghuai region, anchoring Yellow Sea trade.
Sindhis (سنڌي)
Sindhis (سنڌي) are an Indo-Aryan people of Sindh in the lower Indus valley, Pakistan, speaking Sindhi; split by the 1947 Partition into a Muslim majority in Pakistan (14.31% of the 2023 census) and a Hindu diaspora in India and worldwide.
Sindhis in India
Sindhis in India: the Hindu Sindhi community, about one million people, who migrated from Sindh, Pakistan, after the 1947 Partition; deterritorialized refugees known for trade, language shift, and Sindhi's Eighth Schedule status.
Singaporeans
Singaporeans are the citizens of Singapore, independent since 9 August 1965. Covers the resident and total population (6.21 million in June 2026), CMIO ethnic classification (74.3% Chinese, 13.5% Malay, 9.0% Indian in 2020), multiracial nation-building, four official languages, and the National Pledge identity.
Sinhalese people (සිංහල ජනතාව)
Sinhalese people (සිංහල ජනතාව), Sri Lanka's largest ethnic group: Sinhala-speaking, mostly Theravada Buddhist, 74.12% of the 2024 census population, tracing origins to Prince Vijaya and shaped by caste, kinship, and Sinhala Buddhist nationalism.
Sino-Mauritian
Sino-Mauritian refers to Mauritians of Chinese ancestry, descended mostly from Hakka migrants from southern China who settled on the island in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Sinti
The Sinti are a Romani people of Central and Western Europe, distinct from the Roma by self-identification and the Romanes language; a recognized national minority in Germany since 1995, targeted in the Nazi genocide.
Sioux
The Sioux (Oceti Sakowin, Seven Council Fires) are Northern Plains Native peoples in Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota divisions; "Sioux" is a French adaptation of an Ojibwe word meaning enemy, still used in treaties and tribal legal names.
Siranudh Scott
Siranudh 'Psi' Scott (สิรณัฐ สก๊อต), born 1996, Thai-Scottish marine conservationist and fourth-generation Bhirombhakdi heir to the Singha beer empire; founder of Sea You Strong, endurance swimmer, and in 2026 accuser of his brother Sunit Scott of sexual abuse.
Sister Cindy
Sister Cindy (Cindy Smock, nee Lasseter), American open-air evangelist of Campus Ministry USA with late husband Brother Jed; preaching on campuses since 1979, TikTok-famous since 2021 for "Ho No Mo" abstinence sermons.
Siyaram Baba
Siyaram Baba (सियाराम बाबा), Hindu ascetic saint of Bhatyan Ashram, Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, on the Narmada; Hanuman devotee who took only Rs 10 donations; died 11 December 2024, officially aged 94 despite viral claims of 110 to 188 years.
Skinhead
Skinhead: youth subculture from working-class London, late 1960s, offshoot of mods with Jamaican ska and reggae influence; later split into racist, traditional, and anti-racist (SHARP) factions worldwide.
Skræling
Skræling (Old Norse skrælingi) is the derogatory Norse term for the indigenous peoples of Vínland and Greenland, first written in the Íslendingabók (c. 1122–33), possibly from skrá 'dry skin', later meaning weak or wretched person in Norwegian.
Skuf
Skuf (скуф) is Russian internet slang, since about 2018, for an unkempt, passive middle-aged man; it derives from Dvach moderator Aleksei Skuf'in, spawned derivatives like skufidon and oskufit'sya, and placed second in the 2024 word-of-year results.