Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Most of Europe considers North and South American to be two separate continents and citizens of US are known as Americans in almost all European countries. I grew up in Bulgaria and went to school there. We studied 7 continents. If you say American (американец), nobody will ever think of a Brazilian or Colombian. They are called South Americans or Latinos.
Last edited by Botev1912; 04-04-2015 at 02:44 PM..
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?
Well, the text you brought says that, during the XVII century (a century after the first recorded use of the word "America", dated in 1568), "Americans" was already the word used for indigenous people of America/The Americas and the European settlers and descendants. So...
Quote:
Actually, it says...
Anyway, what the article shows is that several languages, including the most widely spoken ones, have different denonyms for America/the USA, and America/Americas, the continents, making the distinction through the use of suffixs and other linguistic elements. Brazilians do the same when differentiating paulistanos (from the city of Sao Paulo) and paulistas (from the state of the same name). So, people from the city are paulistanos and paulistas, but people from the state are only paulistas. And Mexicans too: Mexicanos (for the country) and Mexiquenses (for the State of Mexico, which surrounds the Distrito Federal). Maybe the "Unitedstatesian" thing isn't even necessary, you just could call yourselves "Americanians" or something similar.
Last edited by joacocanal; 04-04-2015 at 06:44 PM..
How come the term "Hispanic America" refers to the countries in America/The Americas with Spanish roots, and not to the Hispanic "part" of the USA? Isn't "America" a country? Why not "Hispanic Americas"?
Anyway, what the article shows is that several languages, including the most widely spoken ones, have different denonyms for America/the USA, and America/Americas, the continents, making the distinction through the use of suffixs and other linguistic elements. Brazilians do the same when differentiating paulistanos (from the city of Sao Paulo) and paulistas (from the state of the same name). So, people from the city are paulistanos and paulistas, but people from the state are only paulistas. And Mexicans too: Mexicanos (for the country) and Mexiquenses (for the State of Mexico, which surrounds the Distrito Federal). Maybe the "Unitedstatesian" thing isn't even necessary, you just could call yourselves "Americanians" or something similar.
and in most of those languages, the most direnct transliteration of "American" is used as a demonym for a US citizen. You guys keep asserting that this isn't the case, that it's only Americans that use the term this way, but even the links you provide show you are wrong.
It doesnt matter anyway since these languages arent English and English is the de facto language of the US. Again, speakers of other languages can define it however they want and it doesn't matter to us. The only "problem"occurs when non-English speakers tell us that our usage is wrong, arrogant and offensive so we should change it to something they think is better. It's extremely arrogant and the more you get into the debate, the more it boils down to people trying to enforce their cultural norms on others.
How come the term "Hispanic America" refers to the countries in America/The Americas with Spanish roots, and not to the Hispanic "part" of the USA? Isn't "America" a country? Why not "Hispanic Americas"?
Because the US' predominant language isn't Spanish, and even in the areas where there are large communities of Spanish speakers, they are still less than 50%. "Latin America" or "Hispanic America" is used to differentiate Spanish-speaking countries as a geographic and cultural entity in the Americas from the English-speaking US and Canada. The shared cultural traits of post-Spanish colonial parts of the Americas are closer to each other than they are to post-British colonial parts of the Americas.
It's not really all that hard to understand.
You are trying to apply a scientific usage of logic to language, which is more a cultural phenomenon than a scientific one. Language functions primarily as a result of its speakers' understanding of it; how literal a word or terminology is, is less important than how it's used, and this is certainly the case in all other world languages as well. An English-speaking North American (or, for that matter, a person from the UK and Australia) understands the term "Latin America" or "Hispanic America" to refer to the Spanish-speaking parts of the Americas, since "America" is used to describe the US.
This is also part of the reason that the term "Central America" is commonly used in the English speaking world; because they share a language as well as more cultural traits with the US and Canada than Mexico, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, etc, and the US and Canada take up something like 80% of the North American landmass, "North America" is most commonly applied to refer to the US and Canada as a collective whole, while "Central America" differentiates the Spanish speaking region from it. People are aware that these countries are part of North America and don't dispute that, but it's a more accurate way of describing them, such as using "North Africa" to differentiate the culturally and ethnically distinct part of Northern Africa from the Central and Southern parts, or using terms such as "Central Europe," "Northern Europe," "South Asia," "East Asia," etc.
I don't care about people from the USA calling themselves Americans, but when they refer to themselves as North americans I feel like they were sweeping Canada off.
I don't care about people from the USA calling themselves Americans, but when they refer to themselves as North americans I feel like they were sweeping Canada off.
lol, so when Germans call themselves Europeans, they sweep every other European nation off by the same logic.
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.
"United Statesian" is correct and proper.
American only means continentality, it has been so since 1507 and it hasn't changed since then. History is on America's side and the USA needs to align with it instead of creating its own line of history which is by now arbitrary and arrogant when refusing to acknowledge history.
And I repeat it again. political correctness will alwasy haunt the US until the country officially embraces any of the proposed demonyms suggested by United Statesians themsleves such as United Statesian.
United States: country.
America: container -> continent.
American only means continentality, it has been so since 1507 and it hasn't changed since then. History is on America's side and the USA needs to align with it instead of creating its own line of history which is by now arbitrary and arrogant when refusing to acknowledge history.
And I repeat it again. political correctness will alwasy haunt the US until the country officially embraces any of the proposed demonyms suggested by United Statesians themsleves such as United Statesian.
United States: country.
America: container -> continent.
There is no point in having a further discussion with you regarding your position on the subject. All of your arguments have been successfully refuted and anyone interested can verify that on this thread.
You can repeat your position 1,000 times, stompt your feet, pull your hair out, scream and cry it doesn't matter. You'll have to continue your pissing contest on your own.
America = the United States of America to most of the world and will continue that way.
What's the correct term, in Spanish, to call yourself when in South America? Is it "estadounidense". As much as I'm annoyed by people's anger over the use of "American", I still want to respect other people's opinions when I'm visiting their country. I don't want to be the arrogant American (I mean United States of American).
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You'll have to continue your pissing contest on your own.
