All inclusive racial terms in a multi-racial society.

So you got your Humans with their Humanity, their Human douchebaggery/kindness/insertnounhere.

And when there's other races (Elves, Dwarfs (Dwarves?), Orcs, Hobbits, etc etc etc), they are referred to by their own sets of nouns and pronouns.

What if you want to call everyone as a collective instead of referencing one single race? What kind of word would that be?

edited 2nd Jul '14 12:05:30 PM by Eagal

It really depends. Why would the different races need their own pronouns? Would this be a feature of every language, or just one? More background info could help.

-Edit-

I think if you're referring to multiple groups, you're likely to be using plural pronouns. In which case, use "they". It works because we refer to non-humans and inanimate objects that way too. "They" is kind of as multipurpose as you get.

edited 2nd Jul '14 2:44:08 PM by earzo700

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking for a counterpart to the group noun "humanity" but inclusive of all races? I can think of one way to handle it; Borrow from science fiction, where you'll often find "sophonts" used to refer to "creatures who think". Combine that with "-kind", meaning "the group of" (as in humankind, elvenkind, dwarvenkind) to get "sophontkind": the group of creatures who think.

In addition to the above, you could also borrow from sci-fi "sentients" or "sapients". (The former being roughly "those that are conscious/aware" and the latter "those that are wise".)

Expanding those with "-kind" as above, we get "sentientkind" and "sapientkind": the groups of creatures that are conscious or wise, respectively.

If you want something else, perhaps "volitive"—"of or related to free will"—or "volitient"—"having free will"—as a rough equivalent to "the free peoples", the latter fitting into the pattern of the above two.

Again expanding those with "-kind" we get "volitivekind" and "volitientkind": the group of creatures that have free will.

More simply, you could go with "people" and "personkind".

edited 2nd Jul '14 4:09:31 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

I myself go with "mortals" and "mortalkind". It's not very accurate, obviously, but I feel it works enough for my purposes. You don't call animals or plants "mortals" even though they are - you call humans and, in fantasy, other sentient beings that.

And for the others, words like Dwarvenkind and Elvenkind fulfil their purpose quite well enough.

edited 6th Jul '14 12:18:23 PM by Nadir

I go with "humanity" as a general term for sapient races of terrestrial origin that have a shared history; after all, what is humana but the Latin word for "person"? Other beings are a more complicated matter.

I would say that humans is already an all inclusive term in regards to humanity. Are you looking for something that refers to everyone? Because we also have the world "people" that could serve as well for sapient aliens and humans.

I'd argue "person"/"people" is the best option. It may be a little clunky in some cases, but it DOES let you (kinda) substitute "humanity" with "personhood" (eg. "That evil act stripped him of his humanity!" vs "... stripped him of his personhood!") among other things.

But then there's little quirks like "humane" ("persane" sounds off), but that could be replaced with a more straightforward term like "compassionate."

Earthling (or insert your planet name as necessary), but this depends on whether the 'other' in this society is extraterrestrial.

If they are all created by humanity(as is usual in my world), using different pronouns could be considered offensive, some of the inhabitance are technically statues turned to flesh but if you dare refer to them as anything less then human(Even if they have an animal head or have a body that stops below the belt)you are probably going to be on their bad side.

edited 1st Aug '14 2:30:57 PM by GreatKaiserNui

I tend to throw around the term "mortals", "mortalkind" and "the Mortal Races" but that refers to any thinking being with a finite natural life span. This does fit humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs (H.E.D.O.?) but also includes things like Krackens and non-elder dragons.

Hominids work but it's a bit cerebral.

I've always been fond of the word 'folk'.