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You cannot refute that fact that the term American initially only included the aboriginal inhabitants of the continent therefore your insistence at pointing to a map from 1507 as evidence supporting your point is futile.
Regardless of how America(USA) arrived at it's name isn't germane really, as I pointed out previously outside of Latin America you are not an American you will be identified by you country of origin. America is also a brand associated with the citizens of USA. Try going anywhere on this planet outside of Latin America and explain to someone that you are an American, you would then have to follow up with, Oh, but not I'm not from the USA, you will be met with confusion.
If you aren't from Brazil that really isn't that relevant either you can insert the name of your true country of origin where I typed Brazil and the same principle applies.
By the time the continent received its official name conquerors were just knowing the new continent. As time went by Europeans and Native Americans got children together and started to populate America. Eventually and obviously those became Ameircans.
What makes you think the US has or ever had the right to claim the continent's name for itself?
Was there an agreement with all Americans to give the continent's name to the USA?
...
If the USA really and justly owns "America", why then United Statesians have come up with several demonyms to stop using "American"?
Why then is "United Statesian" consider a proper alternative?
If everything is solved then no other demonym should have ever been proposed, don't you think?
As Joacocanal once said, the USA actually lacks a proper distinct name. Claiming the continent's name for itself is always going to be a headache for the USA and again and again, political correctness will haunt the country.
By the time the continent received its official name conquerors were just knowing the new continent. As time went by Europeans and Native Americans got children together and started to populate America. Eventually and obviously those became Ameircans.
... and Brazilians, Mexicans, Hondurans, Belizeans...
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What makes you think the US has or ever had the right to claim the continent's name for itself?
Was there an agreement with all Americans to give the continent's name to the USA?
...
No, I don't think anyone has ever held an officially sanctioned summit on how to officially handle the usage of denonyms.
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If the USA really and justly owns "America", why then United Statesians have come up with several demonyms to stop using "American"?
Why then is "United Statesian" consider a proper alternative?
If everything is solved then no other demonym should have ever been proposed, don't you think?
An insubstantial minority of people whom no one cares about and wouldn't agree with should they know about it.
Some people read problems into everything and create them where there are none.
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As Joacocanal once said, the USA actually lacks a proper distinct name. Claiming the continent's name for itself is always going to be a headache for the USA and again and again, political correctness will haunt the country.
Except it isn't a headache for the US at all, the United States of America is its proper name, and I've already talked at length about the futility of labeling this as a "political correctness" issue.
The link references the Oxford English Dictionary as the source second paragraph under History. The earliest recorded use of the word American in the English language is from 1568 and is used in reference to the Native inhabitants a century later it was extended to the European settlers and their descendants. The Spanish colonies did not accept the demonym American for two centuries because Spain wanted Colombus to get credit not Amerigo Vespucci.
Most of the stories you can read about United Statesians who were corrected about the correct use of "America" and "American" are well received by United Statesians themselves.
There is no such word in the English dictionary. You should learn how to use proper English.
The link references the Oxford English Dictionary as the source second paragraph under History. The earliest recorded use of the word American in the English language is from 1568 and is used in reference to the Native inhabitants a century later it was extended to the European settlers and their descendants.
there you have then, what you were asking to Haukur. More than a century before the Independence of the USA, "American" was already extended as a denonym for all the people of the American continent.
btw, anyone should read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America...ther_languages . It shows that it isn't true that the word "American" is widely and univocally used around the World to refer to people from the USA, as some people have claimed on this thread.
Originally Posted by the same Wikipedia page you linked to
Alternative terms[edit] The only officially and commonly used alternative for referring to the people of the United States in English is to refer to them as citizens of that country.[15] Several single-word English alternatives for "American" have been suggested over time, including "Usonian", popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright,[16] and the nonce term "United-Statesian".[17] The writer H. L. Mencken collected a number of proposals from between 1789 and 1939, finding terms including "Columbian", "Columbard", "Fredonian", "Frede", "Unisian", "United Statesian", "Colonican", "Appalacian", "USian", "Washingtonian", "Usonian", "Uessian", "U-S-ian", "Uesican", and "United Stater".[18] Nevertheless no alternative to "American" is common in English.
What is a "nonce term?"
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Originally Posted by wikipedia
A nonce word is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.[1][2] The term is used because such a word is created "for the nonce"[3] and is thus "an invented or accidental linguistic form, used only once".[4] All nonce words are also neologisms (newly created words that have not entered the lexicon of a language).[5] Some nonce words have a meaning and may (or may not) become an established part of the language, while others are essentially meaningless and disposable and are useful for exactly that reason, for instance in child language testing.
What is a nonce?
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Originally Posted by wikipedia
Cryptographic nonce, a number or bit string used only once, in security engineering
Nonce (slang), a British and Australian slang term for a sex offender, usually a sexual abuser of children
Nonce, time being: the present occasion; "for the nonce" Nonce word, a word used to meet a need that is not expected to recur
The Nonce, American rap duo
Nonce orders, an architectural term
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Originally Posted by Wiktionary
United Statesian (plural United Statesians)
(humorous, nonstandard) An inhabitant or citizen of the United States of America.
Despite your assertions that this term is increasingly common, I, as an American who lived in the US (among generally extremely liberal and "politically correct" people) for (much of) 30 of his 31 years, never heard anyone ever say "United Statesian" in real life, ever. It comes up as a misspelling on Chrome, Explorer, and Word.
Seriously, by all practical standards, these words are gibberish.
there you have then, what you were asking to Haukur. More than a century before the Independence of the USA, "American" was already extended as a denonym for all the people of the American continent.
What did the Spanish and Portugese refer to their colonists and also those of the British and French colonies that would later form the US and Canada at this time?
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btw, anyone should read this: American (word) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . It shows that it isn't true that the word "American" is widely and univocally used around the World to refer to people from the USA, as some people have claimed on this thread.
Likewise, German's use of U.S.-amerikanisch and U.S.-Amerikaner[6] observe said cultural distinction, solely denoting U.S. things and people. Note that these are "politically correct" terms and that in normal parlance, the adjective "American" and its direct cognates are almost always used unless the context does not render the nationality of the person clear. For this reason, the style manual of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (one of the leading German-language newspapers) dismisses the term U.S.-amerikanisch as both ′unnecessary′ and ′artificial′ and recommends replacing it with amerikanisch
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The respective guidelines of the foreign ministries of Austria, Germany and Switzerland all prescribe Amerikaner and amerikanisch for official usage, making no mention of U.S.-Amerikaner or U.S.-amerikanisch.[11]
On the one hand, this is totally true; on the other, "Meiguo" is a transliteration of "American," and not "United States."
Additionally, as a resident of China who speaks Chinese, is engaged to a Chinese woman, watches Chinese news broadcasts, and talks to Chinese people every day, I can tell you that the difference between "Meiguo" and "Meizhou" is quite minor; "zh" in pinyin is equivalent to an English "j" sound (like "jerk"), so you basically have "may-g'wo" and "may-joe," the latter being used probably about 1/100th as often as "Meiguo." In written Chinese, they are quite distinct, but in spoken Chinese, much less so.
China considers North and South America to be separate continents like most other people on earth do, and so they call them "bei meizhou" (bay-may-joe) (North America) and "nan meizhou" (South America).
To denote a person, you would use the suffix "ren" (pronounced either as "ren" in the south, or "z'hen" in the north). Though the difference between "person from the US" and "person from the Americas" is pretty slim in spoken Mandarin, the fact is that the Chinese very infrequently (read: almost never) refer to "meizhou zhen," they will use "bei/nan meiguo zhen" when referring to people from either of the Americas, making it quite clear who they are referring to.
Or, they will use Brazil ("ba shi," bah-she), Mexico ("mo xi ge," moe-shee-guh), etc, + "ren" at the end.
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Korean and Vietnamese also use unambiguous terms, with Korean having Migug (미국(인)) for the country versus Amerika (아메리카) for the continent,[22] and Vietnamese having Hoa Kỳ for the country versus Châu Mỹ for the continent.[citation needed] Japanese has such terms as well (beikoku(jin) [米国(人) versus beishū(jin) [米洲人]), but they are found more in newspaper headlines than in speech, where amerikajin predominates.
I can't comment much on Korean or Viet, but I also speak Japanese, and can tell you that amerikajin, amekojin, and mekojin are all used to varying degrees amongst the genders and age groups in Japan and exclusively refer to citizens of the US and not the Americas.
Also note that the Vietnamese pronunciation of the country is closer to spoken English or Spanish than it is for the continent ("hoa" vs "chau").
Oh, and in Hindi, another language of over a billion people and also my ex wife, the word for US citizen is "Amerika vasinama," while a person from the Americas is "Ameriki vasinama," the more literal translation going to Americans (as the demonym is properly applied in English).
So... in short... call it whatever you want in Spanish or Portugese and no one really cares one way or the other. That's your language, it's your right. But, Spanish and Portugese aren't English, French, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, etc etc etc, and speakers of Spanish and Portugese have no particular right to dictate how those languages should function any more than they, you.
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