Of the People

"They called themselves the Munrungs. It meant The People, or The True Human Beings. It's what most people call themselves, to begin with. And then one day the tribe meets some other people and calls them The Other People or, if it's not been a good day, The Enemy. If only they'd think up a name like Some More True Human Beings, it'd save a lot of trouble later on."

- Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

The Proud Warrior Race of Noble Savages has what the heroes perceive as a simple, possibly even backwards, culture. During their talks or negotiations (or heated battles), however, they'll run into one nearly incomprehensible linguistic and cultural custom: Their name for their tribe is translated "The People", but the name they have for the heroes? "Not-People".

That's right. They don't consider outsiders to be proper people. This might just be a curiosity mentioned in passing, but usually it indicates that their culture has a high degree of xenophobia, isolationism or both. It might just be a benign way of saying "part of this tribe, not a part of this tribe". At worst, it means they have a codified Moral Myopia that makes them view not-people as animals at best. To be put down when dangerous or annoying... or if they're too ugly and they're bored.

A more moderate standpoint might just be that they consider "not-people" to be anyone who doesn't live their way of life, rather than as a biological imperative. In this case, other people or societies that share their values (be it honor, war or harmony with nature) will be considered "of the people". On that note, someone who is Going Native will become "of the people" after adapting to their culture and winning honor.

For some reason, no one argues with their exclusionist views. Alternately, heroes who share similar, unspoken sentiments and act in exactly the same ways may either be called out on it, or fail to notice their own hypocrisy when calling them out on their values.

Speculative Fiction sometimes points out human/alien dichotomy as an example of this trope.

This trope is inspired by—but not the same as—a fairly common occurrence in the names that peoples historically gave to themselves and their neighbors. The most famous example in the West is the autonym (name given to themselves) of the Germans of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, diutisc. Diutisc means "of the people" and is reflected in the modern German word Deutsch ("German", with the meaning "of the people" known only as a curiosity to the linguistically inclined) and the English word "Dutch" (which Netherlandish people haven't used for centuries). Its linguistic opposite was Walha(z), "stranger" or "foreigner", which gave its name to such diverse places as Wallonia, Wallachia, and Wales, which have in common that they were places Germanic people met non-Germanic ones. Similarly, the word "Slav" is derived from a common Slavic word for "speech" or "talk"; the Slavic peoples often applied the term "nemetsi" (or similar terms), meaning "mute", to their neighbors, particularly Germans (resulting in many Slavic languages having derived words for Germany and German—and Persian and Arabic calling Austria Nimsa/Nimse to this day). On a related note, "Inuit" means "the people" in Inuktitut.

Film

 * The Na'vi in Avatar skirt very close to this trope. When Jake finally wins them over and joins the tribe, their ceremony explicitly says he is now "of the people". They also call humans "sky people", so they aren't exactly dehumanizing (hee) us.
 * The Na'vi word for human, "tawtute", is a compound of taw (sky) and tute (individual being).
 * In Little Big Man, the character played by Dustin Hoffman used the term "Human Being" when referring to "The People".
 * In The Gods Must Be Crazy, the Bushman apparently considers non-black people to be some kind of ugly man-child who can't speak normally (since their languages lack the clicking consonants), are illiterate (since they can't interpret the animal tracks) and rude (because they don't greet the Bushman when they meet him), and wear cobwebs for clothes.

Literature
"It is more than just a wall, it is a marker. On one side is the Empire, which in the Agatean language is a word identical with "universe". On the other side is - nothing. After all, the universe is everything there is. Oh, there may appear to be things, like sea, islands, other continents, and so on. They may even appear solid, it may be possible to conquer them, walk on them... but they are not ultimately real. The Agatean word for foreigner is the same as the word for ghost, and only one brush stroke away from the word for victim."
 * The Mri in the Faded Sun Trilogy means "people". What do these cat like aliens call humans and regul? Tsi-mri, "not-people". This makes the entry of Duncan into their society all the more noteworthy, and the inclusion three humans in their holy records unheard of for any other species. They're still unapologetic space elves though (but we like them anyway).
 * Terry Pratchett's The Carpet People. See page quote.
 * This trope is deeply examined by Pratchett's co-authors in the Science of Discworld books, in which Cohen and Stewart refer to the cultural conditioning and education of children as the "Make-A-Human-Being Kit". Every tribe has one exclusive to itself, and if you grew up in a culture that uses a different version of the Kit, your status as a True Human Being is probationary at best.
 * A similar idea is used in Interesting Times, though with countries instead of people:


 * The Artemis Fowl fairies refer to themselves as The People. Even the few humans who have contact with them, such as Artemis, use that name. They refer to humans as Mud Men.
 * The Atan people of David Eddings' Tamuli are a bog-standard Proud Warrior Race, so naturally it's mentioned at one point that they consider everyone else to be non-humans. In a bit of a twist, though, they've long since sold themselves as slaves to the Tamul Empire, because without an external interest directing their warlike tendencies they would quickly devolve into constant civil war.
 * Diane Duane's Trek novel Spock's World gives many details of the history Vulcan, including "The Sundering." "United Federation of Planets" translates into Rihan (aka Romulan) as "Them, from There." And Klingon Empire as "More of Them, from Somewhere Else."
 * In Mary Doria Russell's speculative fiction novel, The Sparrow, one of the two species of aliens present in the work refer to themselves as the "Runa," which simply translates into "the people." However, the Runa seem very tolerant of the differences of outsiders. When a group of humans make first contact with some Runa, the villagers dub them "foreigners," using a word that literally means "people from the next river valley."
 * The aliens inhabiting Jupiter in Isaac Asimov's short story "Not Final!" alternate between this and comparing humans to vermin.
 * Treecats in Honor Harrington call themselves The People and call humans "two-legs". This is not out of disdain; they are in fact rather in awe of humans.
 * To be fair they had known no other sapience before humans arrived and it took several generations before there had been enough contacts for each to acknowledge the sapience of the other. After this they had a fruitful relationship and fortunately there had been no accidental atrocities done by one mistaking the other for an animal (no human tried to make a treecat into a fur coat for instance and no cat tried to eat a human at least not successfully). Furthermore Cats lived in preserved forest on a sparsely settled planet. Thus they got off lucky without any resentments to harbor.
 * Steven Brust renders this attitude by having Dragaerans (elves, more or less) and Easterners (humans, apparently), referring to themselves as "humans", and considering the other group not humans.
 * The Ai-Naidar of Kherishdar consider themselves people, and everything else including aliens "other" - humans are in some way lumped in with rocks and animals (and gods, oddly enough).
 * In Speaker For The Dead, it's explained that there are four words for the varying kinds of 'people' that by the end of the book have become commonplace- one for the person of your own tribe/family/city, one for the person of another country/city/world, one for the person who is of another species, and one for the alien.
 * The Temuji of the Ranger's Apprentice series have named themselves The People. Anyone who isn't them isn't a person, and so they have no more qualms about killing others - no matter how old or young - than we have of stepping on an ant.

Religion and Mythology

 * Inversion in The Bible. There are several words translated "nations" and at least one means primarily gentiles-Jews, it is implied don't get a generic.

Tabletop Games

 * In Traveller the Aslan name themselves Fteir which means "People of honor". Which doesn't mean non-aslan are not people, just that they are dishonorable.
 * A non-Aslan can theoretically be honorable so long as he adheres to a code that is roughly similar to one an Aslan does.
 * Forgotten Realms elves use simple terms "the people" and "not people". Usually more often than not the latter term have no elitist subtext attached, but depending on context may annoy even some elves. Funny part is that after drow were "divorced" from the main elven community, both began to call each other "not people".
 * Dolphins in Rifts refer to Humans and only Humans as "Land People". Non-humans who also happen to be landlubbers are only referred to as "Others". Taking it a step further, Humans who live and work on the sea are given an extra step up and called "Boat People".
 * In older versions of Dungeons & Dragons, Halflings in their own language refer to themselves as "The People" and use other words (not all complimentary) for other races. This is used to justify why their general name is a bit of a slur against their height whereas other races have names derived from their own languages (in general).
 * Among the various names for the Uratha is "the People."

Theater
"Roxane: Nay, but I felt a terror, here, in the heart, On learning yesterday you were Gascons All of your company... Cyrano: And we provoke All beardless sprigs that favor dares admit 'Midst us pure Gascons—(pure! Heaven save the mark! They told you that as well? Roxane: Ah! Think how I Trembled for him! Cyrano: (between his teeth): Not causelessly!"
 * Cyrano De Bergerac: At act II Scene VI, Roxane and Cyrano discuss this trope about the attitude the Gascon Cadets take if you want to be part of the regiment not being a Gascon. The Genre Savvy Roxane ask Cyrano his help to avert this trope with Christian. At Act II Scene IX, we see this trope played straight: Christian is from Touraine, and that means he is not a Gascon, so he is ostracized, is being given an Embarrassing Nickname, and he is subjected to the charming Initiation Ceremony (condoned by the otherwise benevolent Captain Carbon!) consisting of a Dare to Be Badass to Bully The Dragon by mentioning the word “nose” to Cyrano.

Live Action TV

 * In the Star Trek TOS episode Return of the Archons, outsiders were said to be not of the body.
 * In the 1982 Doctor Who serial Kinda, the Kinda refer to themselves as "we" and outsiders as "not-we".
 * Some Doctor Who fans refer to non-fans as "the not We".

Webcomics

 * The People in Ursula Vernon's Digger (a tribe of semi-anthropomorphic hyenas) operate this way. A little more significant than some of these examples because it determines whether or not you're fair game to be lunch.