Human and human, or Mugdarran vs mugdarran, and so forth is a linguistic convention adopted among the English speakers and writers of Galfarran settled worlds to best maintain propriety when discussing the various races and species of the universe.
The convention itself does become confusing, and while speaking even rather useless, though some try to ‘pronounce’ the capital via emphasising the initial syllable. It is, however, very necessary as words like hominid, humanoid, and so on are considered rude, and words such as primate, canine, etc. are ghastly racist and could lead to duels over insulted honour in some circles. It goes very much against the Galfarran mind to ever speak in such a manner regardless of the language.
In Galfarran one uses a diminutive form of their own race when speaking of another race that either strongly resembles his own physically or simply if a particular trait being discussed is similar between the two. Thus a Mugdarran might be said, by a Xentorn, to be of xentorn form, or she might say that a Glophnokt has a xentorn nose, despite the Glophnokt being a semi-upright hexipodal creature most similar in form to certain flatworms found at the sites of some of the nuclear attacks after Earth’s third world war.
Now, if one is trying to discuss a race that has no notable similarity to your own you are correct in choosing another race of similar form to use as the descriptor instead. Thus a Human might refer to one of the Klifdress as being an eldraxi race, due to the Eldraxi and Klifdress both being seed eating, flight capable, avian species.
The use of scientific taxonomical terms such as avian is to be avoided except in situations where one is clearly giving a clinical evaluation of data. The same goes for saying species rather than race. Races are intelligent, species are animals. Galfarran speakers are aware that they are of their species, but it is considered rude to not make the distinction that they are evolved, the word race, and speak casually of them as a species thus indicating they are no better than animals – uncouth, or boorish. In this regard one would never say an avian race, this is insulting. As avian is a clinical taxonomy it would be used to describe bird species, and may be used to collectively include bird-like races.
It should be noted that how a race is referred by a Galfarran speaker generally denotes that speaker’s opinion of them. For example: many a Galfarran speaker who fought in the Dichidian war are known to refer to Dichidians as lizardmen, reptiles, or reptilian rather than something more polite.
