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Ironically it was an Spanish politician, Luis de Unzaga, who gave the name to the 13 colonies as "The United States of America" in a letter to George Washington
Spain gave the USA its name, currency (temporarily) and even helped with its independence. The USA in return gave Spain the disaster of 1898, bombardment with (miraculously) unactivated nuclear warheads, pariah status during the dictatorship with no access to the Marshall plan, support to its irredentist neighbour in northern Africa and a pretty Bad reputation on anything Hispanic. I wonder if Gálvez would've done what he did for the USA if he knew how things would turn out in the end.
@@rogeriopenna9014 In 1966, 2 american B-52s had an accident while flying over the small Spanish Town of Palomares, Where 3 nuclear warheads were dropped and another one landed 8km away near the coast, none of the bombs exploded but their nuclear radiation caused environmental contamination of water and soil, which still lingers to this day.
@@BN.ja05 nuclear bombs don't explode unless told too. That's why you need tons of the best Physicists in the world working on Project Manhattan. You must have atomic precision in the picosecond scale for the chain reaction to occur. They have normal explosives to help set of the fission reaction. In that case, they were 3 H bombs (fusion), and thus the fission reaction was used to compress (also picosecond precision) the hydrogen fuel into fusion. I was reading about the incident. It were not two bombers. It was a single b52 that crashed with the fueling airplane while on mid air refueling. The bombs that fell on land had their CHEMICAL explosives detonating on impact, such spread the plutonium field of the fission trigger. Like on Chernobyl, where the exploding WATER STEAM spread nuclear fuel around. In much larger quantities of course. Anyway, it shows how difficult a nuclear bomb is to create. Even though the chemical explosives set off on impact, it did not set of the nuclear explosion The chance of a nuclear explosion by accident was like winning the lottery
As a Colombian I just say that the confusion also comes charged with politics, the relationship of the US with the other countries in the continent(s) has been a mess with a lot of imposition from the US so yes the problem is not just a naming thing, but a lot of us also feel a certain imperialistic tone behind it based on the history between us, like a we own you type of deal, probably not what most people convey when they say it.
Interesting. As a Canadian, I always saw people from Spanish-speaking countries insisting on being called "American" as some sort of glorification of the USA, and a jealously of USA's reputation, and a desire to be associated with that by a technicality. That's why it annoyed me so much that they weren't satisfied with being called by their own country's name, instead insisting on being called by the USA's name. That's how it looks to an English speaker anyway. When an English speaker hears/sees a Colombian say "we're American too", it feels like they're abandoning their identity as Colombians and desperately trying to convince people that they're from the USA.
@@jerotoro2021 wao that's very interesting indeed since the intention is basically the opposite. "We exist too" "You have no right to claim our name as yours just because your military can crush us in a heartbeat like so many times before" would be something more along the lines of what we think. In my case it's just that it creates unnecessary confusion. Come on USA just get a real name, a proper name like Canada for example
@@celeridad6972 That's the thing though, it's not "your" name. Even if you were to call all North and South Americans "American", that still includes USA, you can't create an "all of us against them" situation by using the name "America". And besides, no one identifies with their continent. There is no shared ethnocultural group of Russians, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Israeli, Syrian, Tukish people etc. etc. all calling themselves "Asians". They call themselves by the demonym of their country, so do I, and so do you. What annoys me most is that you are implying that Canadians should be called "American" also, and I absolutely refuse this label. I am in no way American, regardless of what you guys try to insist.
Absolutely. As a US-American it seemed very weird to me that this video ignored that usage is changing in English to reflect that growing numbers of people in the US disagree with our country's dominating power dynamics with the rest of our shared continent(s). So much of language about people groups is about power and it feels like a troubling political choice for this video to ignore that.
In French, we typically call the country "États-Unis" as a short name, but the most common demonym is "américain". "Étasunien" exists, but is uncommon.
As a French student I was actually curious about that because of this exact debate. I was taught that it's but I wasn't exactly sure if that was just because I live in the US. But it makes sense, merci beaucoup ami!
Technically the correct term for USA inhabitants is "statunitensi" in Italian too, since "americano/a" generally refers to someone/something from the American continent(s). However "americano" is used very often as a denonym and, based on context, it's easy to distinguish if it's used to refer to a person/thing from the USA or from the continent.
as an italian, I agree. When speaking we almost never choose the term statunitense over the less correct americano to define someone from the USA. The word statunitense is a little more common in writing though.
There is no such thing as the "American continent". It's two continents called North America and South America. They are on completely different tectonic plates.
Some things to consider: Amerigo Vespucci explored South America on service of Portugal. Never North America. When German cartographer Waldseemüller invented the name and wrote it in his map, WHERE did he wrote "America". Over the southernmost part of the New World (basically Brazilian territory nowadays) I also need to point out that all romance languages use a 5 continent model, including French and Italian, where America is a continent. This can be seen in the Olympic Flag for example, with a single ring for each inhabited continent, one for America. It also needs to be pointed out that even in other European languages, except English, the word America, the same used in those countries for the country, is also used for THE NEW WORLD. And that can be seen in the Wikipedia pages in those languages, where there is always an entry for America, whoever spelled, in the singular, with a map showing the whole New World. As a final point of attention, referring to the New World as AMERICA was also common in English itself until the 19th century at least. The usage of the word for the whole New World in English seems to have lost strength as USA gained strength in the world. This is why even in the US it's common to say Columbus discovered AMERICA in the singular. This is not Americans thinking Columbus explored the US. It's Americans saying the island of Hispaniola is America. As can be seen in this Smithsonian article www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/columbus-confusion-about-the-new-world-140132422/ They use the word America several times, in the singular, referring to the New World.
The Finnish word for United States is the literally equivalent "Yhdysvallat". We could quite easily form the demonym "yhdysvaltalainen", but we still end up calling such a person in most cases "amerikkalainen". We are also taking a trip to "Amerikka" when we go to the United States.
As a Brazilian Portuguese native speaker, I never liked calling US-Americans "norte-americanos". In most cases I use "americanos" and sometimes "estadunidenses" in contexts where "americanos" would cause ambiguity. I really appreciate that you mentioned different geographical perspectives, I often see people using Geography to impose their usage to other languages without considering that different languages/cultures may use different continental models.
For what it's worth, I've been learning Brazilian Portuguese for over three years and have never had a Brazilian call me "estadunidense." Though, I never refer to myself as "americano" first, so as to not offend anyone
Thanks for the great video, Luke! In Brazilian Portuguese, there is a kind of ideological question regarding whether you call someone from the USA "americano" or "estadunidense" (usually people who identify as anti-imperialists will prefer the latter). The more common word is definitely "americano", and in everyday speech that is the prevailing demonym. Over the last 10 years or so, it has become more common to see "estadunidense" being used (mainly in writing, but increasingly in speech as well). And just as you said, since the Americas are viewed as a single continent in Brazil (América), the word "americano" can be used as a reference to the whole continent as well as a reference to people from the USA. This generally doesn't cause any confusion, since usually the context is enough for the two types of "americanos" to be distinguished.
In my view estadounidense is just as common, tho i guess it depends a lot on who the speaker is and wether it's being written, posted on social media, spoken etc. I agree there is some ideological weight. I believe it's because american media is so prevalent it kinda blended into our culture so "americano" can in fact refer to both from the american content or from the US. tho i prefer estadounidense Tho what would never happen in brazil is call the country "América" unless you are REALLY mind washed into worshipping everything US lol
I am German and as you have mentioned in the video we do call people of the United States of America "Amerikaner*innen" (Americans), but there is some ambiguity. In particular, America can refer to the American continent (where you would perceive North and South America as subcontinents) or to the United States of America. Personally, without context I would think of the continent first since the country is usually called "USA" in German. Hence, we also refer to its people as "US-Amerikaner*innen" (US-Americans) to avoid any potential ambiguity. This can definitely vary from person to person, but I feel like "Amerika" is pretty ambiguous, but tends to mean the continent rather than the country whereas "Amerikaner*in" refers to the people of the United States of America almost exclusively. For example, "die Ureinwohner Amerikas" (the native people of America) includes indigenous people of South America such as the Inka since here "Amerika" refers to the continent.
Thats true, but "US-Amerikaner" is used not that often, at least as I perceive it, mostly only to be hyper correct. As Germans, the US is more often refered to than the continent, so it doesn't confuse normally.
In Catalan/Valencian, we refer to an american as "americà" or "nord-americà". We also have the term "estatunidenc", but it's never used. Great video, Luke!
@@robertobahamondeandrade Well, you could say "sud-americà" or just "americà". Normally, you refer to people by their country, not their continent, so I think the most common answer it would be: "Pelé és brasiler", but if you want to refer to him by his continent: "Pelé és sud-americà/americà".
We say both in Brazilian Portuguese: "americano" (extremely common) and "estadunidense" (much less common). The name of the country is "Estados Unidos" or "EUA" and you can obviously say "Estados Unidos da América", but never just "América" to refer to the country. To many countries, including Brazil, "América" is a term reserved only for the name of a single continent that goes from Canada to Cape Horn in Chile. In Brazil, if you say that South America is a continent, most people will think you don't know basic geography. But, sure, some Brazilians are aware that Americans adopt different standards for a lot of things, including continental divisions. We use the terms North America, Central America and South America, but these are what we call subcontinents, since they are within the continent called America. We Brazilians consider ourselves both Americans and South Americans because we belong to America and South America. We don't use the term Americans to refer to ourselves daily, of course, but technically we know we are because of the name of our continent. Btw, many Brazilians don't like to be referred to as "Latinos" or "Hispanic" for several reasons. Going through all reasons would make this comment much longer than it already is. I'll just say two reasons: 1. We don't speak Spanish. How can we be "Hispanic"? 2. We're aware that the term Latino fulfills a segregationist world view typical from US which we don't share in Brazil. So some of us consider the term "Latino", when used by an American, almost a racial slur.
Only Che Guevara wannabes say "estadunidense", ironically they are the same people who push a "Latin American Identity" in opposition to the North. The first time I heard someone saying "estadunidense" was in a Philosophy class when I was 11 years old. I remember I thought my teacher was dumb, and didn't know that people from the United States were actually called "americanos". 😅
From a European perspective the way Americans use the term Latino is downright bizarre and inconsistent. Sometimes they only refer to people of a specific race, or worse, perceived race (specifically Spanish speaking Native or mix-raced people from Latin America), other times, it's cultural, still other times, it's geographic. These things aren't the same, and when it comes to Spanish people in Europe, or Hispanic people who are purely of white European descent, it completely confuses Americans. You have very confused Americans who look at the Princess of Spain and wonder why is the Spanish princess a white girl? And then when you get to Italy, the literally place with the region of Latium, it confuses them even further.
I know that Hispanic is usually used to refer to people who come from a Spanish speaking country, but what if we take into account that the term comes from Hispania, which was the entire Iberian Peninsula?
@@Ψυχήμίασμαnot to mention latino also means Haiti and Quebec need to be in there by the linguistical definition but its funny because since the word is “latino”, in french that doesnt mean much and would actually need to be rewritten. Further cementing how ambiguous and nonsensical de term is. And in the geographical definition it wouldnt make sense to put the bahamas, Belize, jamaica, Trinidad, etc, and even countries in south america itself including Guyana, and Suriname considering these are english (dutch for suriname) speaking countries. It’s a complete mess of a word, and its why more appropriate terms do exist like Hispanoamerica (Only refers to countries that speak spanish and share hispanic culture in the americas), and then Iberoamerica (all countries in the americas that share the language and culture originated from the iberian peninsula, aka spanish and portuguese). These terms unlike latin america also don’t have questionable history, bc the “Latin America” term was actually first coined by Napoleon III as an excuse to conquer mexico in the 19th century.
In Brazilian Portuguese, the most common denonym is "americano", but "estadunidense" is also used, specially in press. The point is the short name of the country is "Estados Unidos", like "Reino Unido" for UK. The denonym for UK citizens is "britânico", what is geographicly not accurate too.
In Icelandic, we call the United States "Bandaríkjunum", and Americans "Bandarískur". "Banda" can roughly translate to Alliance / United / Group. "Ríkjunum" comes from the plural and definite version of "Ríki" (State), which translates to "The States" We have no separate word for "The" and "a / an" in Icelandic, so instead we have definite and indefinite versions of words. The definite versions of words are the ones you use when you want to have "The" in your sentence. This means a word will have a suffix added such as "-inn", "-ið", "-um", and so on. Which is why there's "unum" at the end of America's name. So Bandaríkjunum is, in a literal sense: "United States The." And Bandarískur is literally "United Stater."
@@helcium_nz It's uncommon, it sounds bad, and it's ideologically charged. You must be some kind of patriot/nationalist/anti-imperialist of some sort either way.
@@english3082 no, I am not. I don't think it sounds bad, yet I see no problem if it is like that for someone else. I like the US, it is a model for economic liberty that I appreciate. I just think it is more accurate to say it like that and I consider myself an American, from the continent of America, just like an African would say as belonging to the African continent, therefore I not from the USA.
In chile we use america for the whole continent north america for mexico, usa, canada, central america for the countries between(not inclusive) south of mexico an northern colombia an south america for the countries (inclusive) between colombia to the north an chile to the south. other countries also use insular america for the caribbean. we use oceania or pacific ocean for our isles. we do use americano for americans and norteamericano for people from usa and canada(tbh mostly we call you "gringos" but not in a pejorative way, gringo just mean outsider, ah an we call the usa "gringolandia" (gringo-land) again with no ill intent) but we also call ourselves americanos as a term of unity between all of the countries of america. the qualms with the term american came from the fact that usa is not the only federal republic, ie:united states, in america there are also mexico, argentina, brazil, and venezuela.
In Brazil, my perception, lliving for half a century in urban Rio de Janeiro, is that calling people born in the USA “americanos/americanas” was never an issue until about some 15 to 10 years ago, when the then-completely foreign “estadunidense” started being pushed down our throats mostly by left-wing leaning people and institutions, clearly borrowing it from Spanish, but with the elision of the “o” in “estado”, since it wouldn't be pronounced anyways. Such move is considered arbitrary and politically loaded, and very much resisted by many -myself included- not only because of the political tone associated with it, but also because Brazil itself was until several decades ago officially called “Estados Unidos do Brasil” (United States of Brazil), and therefore “estadunidense” could theoretically be applied in those days to refer to Brazilians themselves. Also, some other countries, even in the Americas, have had or still have “Estados Unidos” (United States) in their official names, including Mexico (currently), Colombia and Venezuela.
I appreciate the comment! Yes, I think there is some strong politics on the part of Spanish speakers in Latin America. I’m sure we can come to a compromise, if it’s not the one I suggested in this video.
@@polyMATHY_Luke, thanks for the reply. Something else I was think this afternoon is that in Portuguese (and perhaps Spanish, though I am not that familiar with the language) it's not uncommon to use either Latin or Greek roots for words indicating geographic or ethnic origin (e.g. “fluminense” for people born in the State of Rio de Janeiro, “ludovicense” for those coming from the city of São Luís; “soteropolitano” for people born in Salvador, “angelopolitano” for people from Los Angeles). In comparison, “estadunidense” (Port.) and “estadounidense” (Span.) seem very poor, not only for being derived from the vulgar language, but because it ignores the plurals in both “Estados” and “Unidos”. I feel like one could come with a better, well informed and “educated” name from the classical languages, for use not only in Portuguese ans Spanish, but maybe even other romance languages.
It's interesting to listen to your perspective. I'm a Brazilian, and we learn that North America is Canada, USA and Mexico. Then we have Central America (which includes the Caribean countries), and South America starts in Colombia. I would call someone from the USA americano, but that sounds the same as calling someone from Portugal as europeu. And if you use estadunidense (I guess only left-leaning people use that), you also get a problem, as it is a form of political organisation and you could also refer to Mexicans as estadunidenses. There's no perfect way other than saying you are estadunidense americano, but that's a bit too long! :)
I'm Brazilian amd that doesn't sound like calling someone from Portugal European at all. The name of the country is literally United States of America. And we never use such a general word to refer to any one who was born in either of the three Americas, because there's virtually no context in which we would lump, say, a Bolivian and a Canadian together. We generally say either America do Sul or America do Norte, and if we were to say America in general we say Americas (in this case almost always referring to the age of exploration)
@@english3082 "as américas" é uma forma bem anglicisada de falar do continente, (ou como vc falou, se referindo a era da colonizaçao) o mais comum e moderno é com certeza so América, mesmo que podemos tbm distinguir entre sul e norte. E certo, não é comum dizer que uma pessoa nascida em qualquer lugar da america é americano, mas é tambem correto. (E nao consigo ignorar que vc tem uma conta chamada "english" com a foto da bandeira dos estados unidos, o que deixa seu ponto de vista bem peculiar)
In Polish, we just use the English system for the 7 continents and the word American. Amerykanin = male American person Amerykanka = female American person amerykański = American as an adjective All 3 refer to the USA.
In Croatian "Amerikanac" also mostly refers to people from the US. I think that the totality of people from North and South America is just rarely relevant in discourse (similar to e.g. something like "Eurasian").
@@2712animefreak the question is, if a new country called United States of Europe formed, people started calling it just Europe, and it's people Europeans for lack of a better word, and Poland and Croatia were out, would you keep calling yourselves Europeans and saying the entire Europe is Europe? And be a little mad when people outside of "real Europe" don't even recognize Europe as being the continent that includes Poland and Croatia anymore?
🙂This was fun. As a retired New Jersey boy living in Southern Mexico for 37 years I have bumped into these walls several times over. Since Mexico's official name is "Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos" Estadounidense also has it's limits. Luckily we're also called Gringos which although semi-derogatory and also includes Canadians. Those white English speakers from up there, might be a way to translate it. (apologies to Quebec). So now when I feel the language land mine is about to be stepped on I make a complicated joke about it to show that I know what it "should be" and that I'm aware of the 'problemo'. Love the channel, thanks for the fun. Jim,
I Didn't know gringo meant that in mexico. In brazil it means any foreigner from anywhere in the world (debatable if other latin americans are "gringos", some people use that some people don't. I prefer to use "hermanos" for them). It also isn't derogatory at all, tho like most words you use to call people it can be used to "offend", but the word itself is a neutral term.
I love your style of educating and pontificating (I totally just worked that into a real sentence). One day I might even take the plunge into learning Latin but presently have been failing at Japanese for close to 10 years. 😀.
Es cierto. En español cuando decimos americanos nos referimos a todos los humanos que nacimos en las américas. buen video lastima que el viento no dejara escuchar bien todo lo que decías, pero fue muy interesante como cada idioma nombra su región y nacionalidad.
Here in Argentina I've noticed people have taken to refer to people from USA as "yankis", probably for these reasons: -"estadounidense" being too long, clumsy and overly formal. -"americano" and "norteamericano" being both too vague and general, as you mentioned. -"gringo", at least in Argentina, refers specifically to blonde, blue eyed people, regardless of nationality.
In Brazil the word "gringo" applies to any foreigner. We don´t use the word "yankee" (This talk remembers me an old American movie from the 1940s, when a pilot complains to another pilot on the airplane´s radio: "Don´t call me Yankee, I´m from Georgia!")
@@marciocorrea8531I was going to say something similar. Many Americans, particularly in the American South, would have problems with the term Yankee; as in the Southern US it’s a pejorative for a person from the Northeast (of the US) or the North (of the US) in general
I'm Argentinian too, and "estadounidense" is used quite a bit, in my case it's the only one I use, but I admit that the one most used is "norteamericano" here in Argentina. And "americano" I think older people use it more, I only hear them say it to refer to people from the US (apart from using it for ourselves and other countries when we refer to something continental) or movies and actors, "películas americanas" they say for example. Yankis is only used when it is something very informal about them, although not necessarily negative.
The Chinese name for the U.S. directly translates to English as the "beautiful country". And just some fun facts here, the UK is the "outstanding country", France is the "country of law", Germany is the "country of morals" and Thailand is the "peaceful country".
This has changed over the years. When I took Spanish in high school, we were taught taught that the term for "Americans" was "norteamericanos." My Spanish teacher learned Spanish in Spain. Obviously, this was a while ago, but it's not like it is out of living memory. The long form name of Mexico in Spanish is "Estados Unidos Mexicanos". So why would referring to Americans as "estadounidenses" be any less confusing or ambiguous? The USA was the first independent nation in the Americas to incorporate "America" into its name. Other countries can use whatever exonyms they want, but they have no say in what our endonyms are. We aren't doing so to slight others, it just makes the most sense to us. No matter how much others may insist, we are not going to call ourselves "United Statesians" in English.
@@REALTEXAN_Hispanic, 15th century explorer Amerigo Vespucci was Italian. Just because he went on expeditions funded by Spain and later Portugal does not mean his nationality had changed. German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller was one of the first to use "America" on maps. It was derived from Vespucci's first name.
@@MichaelScheele Para ser precisos, Amerigo Vespucci (Américo Vespucio) nació florentino, ciudadano de la República de Florencia. Ahora se considera italiano. A él le resultaría raro. Eran muy suyos los florentinos. Y qué decir de los genoveses!!! Se llevaban fatal entre ellos. Y peor aún contra los venecianos… en fin. Se naturalizó castellano, o sea, súbdito de la Corona de Castilla y murió en Sevilla, donde tenía un cargo importante (piloto mayor de la Casa de Contratación de las Indias) encargado de las expediciones de exploración del Nuevo Mundo. Como Cristóbal Colón, que nació genovés (o eso dicen), ciudadano de la Serenísima República de Génova, se naturalizó castellano, súbdito de la Corona de Castilla y murió en Valladolid unos 5 o 6 años antes que Vespucio. Tenía un cargo importante, Almirante de la mar océana y Virrey de las Indias. Los dos tenían una edad parecida (Colón dicen que era unos 3 años mayor) los dos se naturalizaron castellanos, se casaron con mujeres castellanas, fueron enterrados en Sevilla… vidas casi paralelas. Si ahora se sostiene que ambos son italianos porque uno nació florentino y el otro genovés, lo cierto es que ambos murieron siendo castellanos, así que podemos decir que ambos son españoles😛
The term "american" was a shorthand used by the british for the people that lived in the 13 colonies. They actually meant "the british americans". In the same way if they wanted to refer to someone from the Spanish american vicerroyalies (New Spain or Peru), they referred to them as the "spanish americans"
That's the problem, USA it's not a proper name, a name like Guatemala, Honduras, Chile, Colombia, México. The United States OF America is like an organisation (many states unified that ARE in America) like the European Union and that's never going to work unless your country is the whole region. Some people say they are "Europeans" meaning their country is in the EU but since the doesn't include all of Europe it creates the same confusion.
It's interesting to note what the Oxford English Dictionary says about the origin of the Americano style of coffee preparation. It is borrowed from Central American Spanish "café americano", which was a derogatory term referring to weak, mild coffee, the way they prepare it in the USA. This was in the mid 1950's. So at least 70 years ago, there is evidence suggesting that Central Americans called people from USA "americano".
In Panama, most people call the country "Estados Unidos" and people from there are often called "estadounidenses". "Americano" is also used but not as often as you might think, and that is speaking about a country which had a part that was, basically, a US colony.
So after studying Spanish in Mexico for a semester and living in Buenos Aires for eight months, I moved to Paraguay. A Paraguayan asked me where I was from and I said, "Soy estadounidense" (It took forever for me to learn to pronounce that but I didn't want to give offense), and the Paraguayan said, "O, Americano."
Indoctrination at its finest. Hey, at least you were considerate to learn & use the right term because after all, America is a continent & an American is from the Continent of America!
I’m ok with having asymmetric terms and concepts in different languages but it just rubs me the wrong way when people think you should change the way your language works because theirs is different. Ex: I saw a Brazilian lady get mad at an American who didn’t understand why the American didn’t think Brazil and the USA existed on the same continent. The Brazilian assumed the American was just ignorant and uneducated. If I saw the reverse happening I would be annoyed too
Latin Americans getting mad at Americans for calling themselves that (in English) is almost as much of a meme as Italians getting mad at foreigners butchering their cuisine 😂
@@fab006omg italians getting mad about their food is hilarious. I understand their food is very good but they take it so seriously they need some chill from time to time lol
Yea, as a Hispanic American, I call myself "American" in either language and so do most others. Everyone knows what it means by the context. You have some Hispanic people who pearl-clutch and pretend that they don't understand that one means a citizen of the USA. There are very few contexts where saying "americano" would be confusing in the context and "estadounidense", "gringo", etc. would be helpful for clarity. If I wanted to be as petulant as the people who pretend not to get that "americano" means from the USA in the context and tell you to use "estadounidense", I'd ask "¿A cuáles estados unidos refiere? Los Mexicanos o los de América?"
Great video, Luke! It's crucial to approach such topics through a relative lens. The appropriate demonym for those from the USA, and the division of the landmass of The Americas, indeed, hinges on perspective. A U.S. citizen might use 'American' and see two distinct continents, whereas an Argentinian might opt for 'Estadounidense' and perceive it as single continent. Each perspective is shaped by its unique cultural, historical, and linguistic context and is equally valid. There isn’t a universal authority to mandate continental divisions or establish demonyms, and it's essential to acknowledge the diverse approaches and the influences shaping them. The early settlements by the Spanish and Portuguese compared to the later British colonization were marked by different methodologies and impacts, reinforcing the notion that our understanding and categorization of the world are intrinsically... relative! 👍
I was warned before traveling earlier this year to Cuba that I shouldn’t call myself Americano but Norteamercano or Estadounidense. That people would be offended. Guess what Cubans In met really asked me when it came to what I was and where I was from? “America?” and “Americano?”…. Meaning from the US. I think this whole America debate is just among highly political people, nationalists and those interested in linguistics. The average person uses America for US in Cuba as well….revolution aside
I lived in South America for years and on the Mexico-US border for decades. My work has taken me all over Central America and the Caribbean. I've had friendships and work relationships with people from EVERY Spanish speaking country. I also have undergraduate and graduate degrees in Spanish/English translating. That being said, I've NEVER heard a native Spanish speaker refer to him/herself or his/her country or culture or the western hemisphere broadly as "American". I've read it in some Spanish political writing comparing the politics of the New World to old European politics. What IS reasonably common is for native Spanish speakers in Latin America who would never use "American" for themselves or their country or culture to complain that people from the US are arrogant for appropriating "American". So, they complain that we've taken for ourselves a word they wouldn't use to describe themselves anyway. I always ask them "Under what circumstances would you describe yourself as "American". After decades of asking this question 100% of the responses have been "never". I then ask them which country is the only one in the world with "America" in it's name. Obviously there is political tension between the US and Latin America, and for good reason. The US has been a dirty player in that region. But THIS is a manufactured controversy.
On the one hand, to say "estadounense" is to reduce the appellation of a country's inhabitants to the political organization of a country, forgetting the geographical reference. The rejection of this word in some of the comments on this video is legitimate. It would be like calling the French "fifth republicans". In the term USA, the A cannot be forgotten to name the inhabitants of this country. But on the other hand, it should be noted that the words estadounidense / étasunien / estadunidense are mostly used in Spanish-speaking America / Quebec / Brazil, while they are rare in Spain / France / Portugal. This indicates a problem with the American word. A Senegalese may say he feels African, a Belgian may say he feels European. But if a Mexican says he feels American, it's confusing. Because the originally continental appellation of the word American has become reserved for a particular country. That's just the way it is. Words and languages are as imperfect as history, of which they are the result. "American" could be the word for the citizens of the United States, and "Americanan" could be the word for the inhabitants of the continent. But saying that, I'm dreaming. Generally speaking, languages are not decreed. Many thanks to PolyMathy for initiating this debate.
Those differences between continental models seem quite interesting. In my native Slovak, we actually have two different terms for a continent with slightly different meanings. The first one is 'kontinent' and it is used for North America, South America and Eurasia among the other ones. On the other hand there is 'svetadiel' (lit. world-part) which includes America, Europe and Asia.
One of the excuses used here in the USA 🇺🇲 is because they are "taught" North America & South America are continents, not America, therefore 'America' *must* be a country then.
Where I grew up (Argentina) we were taught about a single big continent divided in 3 sub continents instead: South, Central and North, with the last one only including the US and Canada. I always assumed that's why "Norteamericano" is used so often to talk about people from the US (and also sometimes Canada).
@@Pablo-Herrero No, en absoluto, México es Norteamérica, el 80% de su territorio está inculso en la zona biográfica del neártico, y es la postura oficial educativa en México que es Norteamérica. Únicamente los yanquis y europeos chauvinistas quieren que sea Centroamérica.
@@VictorBR45 That's true, but there's no term that means "North America apart from México", so when we say North America, given the context, people know what is meant, although we also know that strictly speaking México is also part of North America. (I'm Brazilian)
I think this is also a good gateway to think about the concept of hypercorrectness. I've noticed that some people will fall over themselves in an extreme effort to be precise and correct, ends up being actually _incorrect_ -- that is to say, avoiding the term "American" in the English sense (or equivalent in other languages that follow the English practice), and even correcting others when they do use "American". So once in a while you'll see people say in English something like "U.S.-American". Often it will be Germans doing this. And I suppose it's also an interesting discussion what attitudes to correct terminology a speaker will bring with them from their native language into a secondary language. And to answer your question, in Norwegian we say _Amerikaner_ as the demonym for you and your compatriots, with the same distinction for _Nord-Amerika_ and _Sør-Amerika_ that you have in English. There's basically no semantic difference between English and Norwegian in this area. One interesting sidenote is that countries will parade in alphabetical order in the opening ceremony in the olympics, using the full name of the local language where the games are being held. Since "United States of America" starts with a U, you end up being pretty far back in the parade. But in the 1994 Winter Games in Norway, you were among the first, since the formal name of your country is "Amerikas forente stater". Norwegian doesn't formally use a preposition like "of" to denote posession (although informally people might use "av" in other settings, but that is likely a recent innovation inspired by English).
“US-Americans” is increasingly used by English speakers as a disambiguator when there are speakers of Spanish (or other languages) present. It’s just an acknowledgment that not all languages use “American” to mean the English meaning of US persons. However, using “US-Americans” in certain situations doesn’t imply that “Americans” is incorrect.
in english i always call the country "the US", use "US" as an adjective, and call the people "US american", which can also serve as adjective. in castilian i call the country "estados unidos" (without the definite article since it's a proper noun), the adjective and demonym are "estadounidense". an alternative to calling the continent "america" is the native name "abiayala"
In Denmark we also use the term americans, which in danish tounge is: 'amerikaner'. I am very impressed of your knowledge and your video channel, that I finde both educational and entertaining. You are a true polymath.
I've just read all the comments and I'm making a synthesis and some remarks. Spanish: americano / estadounense French: américain / étasunien Portuguese: americano / estadunidense Italian: americano / statunitenso Icelandic: ameriskt / Bandaríkjamaður Finnish: amerikkalainen / yhdysvaltalainen In all these languages, the form based on "american" is much more common than the form based on United States, which ranges from rare to minority. The places where this form is most successful are not in Europe, but on the American continent: Estadounense in Spanish-speaking America and Etasunien in Quebec. Another interesting note. In the 21st century, automatic translators are the law of the language exchange game. Of course, they translate Spanish americano into américain in French. You'd expect them to translate estadounense into étasunien. Not at all! I've just tried to translate all the words in the right-hand column above into every other language that has an equivalent. The answer from googletranslation and DeepL is to translate any word based on "United States", into a word based on "american". I've tried everything, nothing works. I wonder.
There are also other countries that can have confusing and different names in other languages. For example the United Kingdom is often named just "England" in may other countries and languages (well, the local language equivalent of "England"). Something that some citizens of certain parts of the United Kingdom might not be completely fond of.
@@helsby1797 Well, technically speaking he _is_ the king of England. Sure, he's also the king of a bunch of other places, but England is one of them. Also, "King of England" is more succinct and clearer than "His Majesty Charles the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith".
When people claim that "estadounidense" is better because it unambiguously could only refer to the United States of America, I like to point out that there is also the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos).
Also Brazil ("Estados Unidos del Brasil", now deprecated). BUT goal of a demonym is to identify. Mexicano can be used for Mexicans, brasileño for Brazilian, no other good name for people from the United States, no it is not really unambigous. Similarly done here: Santiagués: from Santiago (de Compostela, Spain). Santiaguino: from Santiago (de Chile). Santiagueño: from Santiago (del Estero, Argentina). Santiaguero: from Santiago (de Cuba)
It's a much better term precisely because of that While México's full name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos, whenever someone says they're Mexican everyone immediately associates him with that country, since hardly anyone refers to that country by its full name This isn't the case for the US from the point of view of Spanish speakers, since americano refers to anyone born anywhere on the continent, not just the US
I came to the US for grad school and many people asked me "When did you come to the States?", and actually fewer people asked me "When did you come to America?". I guess even within the US people call themselves differently or maybe it was just the academia environment I was in. Many people will say "I'm US citizen" instead of I'm American to me (I am very obvious a foreigner to them). Although I observe that happens more often with non-white American.
There are a lot of varations for the US in the US. Pretty much all centered around using parts of "Unity States of America". But specifically for the denonym for people from the US, in English at least, "American" is the only word for it. Like there's no alternative other than expanding it into "from the United States" or something.
More educated people are less likely to use “America” to refer to the US, as they may consciously or unconsciously understand “the States” is more neutral and less confusing for foreigners. So it makes total sense what you were asked. Unfortunately there is no widely accepted alternatives to “American” for US persons.
0:50 We Finns do the same kind of thing; but, to be even more confusing, a lot of us (particularly, older people and rural folks) call the USA: _”Ameriikat”,_ meaning: ”The Americas” (in most old-school and rural dialects) 😅.
In Icelandic the USA it is "Bandaríki Norður Ameríku" or "Bandaríkin", literally The United States. for short. You would be a Bandaríkjamaður -- a man of the United States. Sometimes however we would use "Kani", short for Ameríkani, but that is slang.
In Canada, it's called "the States", not "America". In English, you do have a word for "estadosunidense" and it's "US-citizen", and style-guides are slowly changing to reflect this. In Argentina, you're all just "yanquis", regardless of if you're from the North or the South.
I’m rather familiar with Canadian speech, and I can count on both hands the number of times I remember Canadians referring to America and Americans, meaning USA. The affectionate term “the States” is also used by Americans in certain contexts; this is a situation where Canadians have adopted an Americanism in their speech. “US citizen” is fine, and certainly correct, but that’s the equivalent of “Canadian citizen” not “Canadian,” which is the demonym. The demonym in English is “American.”
@@polyMATHY_Luke that's well enough. And considering that you're fifty united states and not simply one state, then you have fifty unique demonyms, without laying claim to the entire continent as you do with "Americans" and its related "America's backyard".
When the United States of America was founded the "American".was up for grabs. Everyone else was either subjects of European monarchies or their particular indigenous identity, so it wasn't issue in the 1700s. Ironically, the only other name for consideration was "Columbia" and it got taken by another country eventually anyways, lol. But the obvious answer to me is that's it's pretty easy to infer from context what is meant by "American" and anyone from Aleutian Islands to Patagonia is free to use whatever they want as they see fit. I have no problems saying "Soy estadounidense" in Spanish. "Statesian" does not roll of the tongue in English as well it does in Spanish.
People just need to accept that English and Spanish are different languages and have a different word for everything and words with common roots are often misleading English: American = citizen of USA; Spanish: americano = person from North or South America. English: North American = person from any of the countries of North America; Spanish: norteamericano = citizen of the USA. N.B In Spanish demonyms are not capitalized. Also, nobody in Latin America actually calls themselves "americanos" as much as they claim they do except in conversations like this. They call themselves and think of themselves as mexicanos, guatemaltecos, colombianos, etc.
Well, in Spanish writings from the XIX century both from Spain and Spanish America (the one continent as traditionally seen by hispanic culture), we can see authors referring to anyone born in the continent as american (americano), from north to south. They didn't call themselves "latinos" as nowadays many latinos would call themselves, rather they called themselves "americanos". for instances, you see it in writings from Simon Bolivar referring to himself and colleagues as "americanos". So I'd say it was europeans in general, the spanish, the portuguese, the english, the french, etc. who would call anyone coming from the american colonies as "american" bc they all regarded "the two continents" as one, that's why the country's name is "The United States of America" and not "The United States of the Americas" or "The United States of North America". We also need to consider that the majority of independent states as we know them today didn't exist yet or were in the process of being created as new countries and, of course, the names of today's nationalities didn't exist either, therefore everyone from "the continent" referred to themselves as "american". Now in English the term has evolved to refer specifically to someone from "the United States of America" bc the short version of the country's name english speakers came up with was "America", while in "Latin America" it has remained with the original perception. However, many people from Latin America, both Spanish and Portuguese speakers, call people from the USA "americanos" due to the english influence from the USA, yet the spoken and written official norms of the two languages don't recognise that usage as correct. The idea of two separate continents is quite new, that's why you see the term "Latin America" and not "Latin Americas" even though Latin America extends from Mexico (North America) to Argentina (South America). If we were to be "correct" in English the term "Latin America" should refer to the parts of the USA with Hispanic, French or Portuguese heritage and not to the countries it refers to from north to south.
The term latin america exists now and didnt exist then, bc its origin has quite the history. It was first coined by the french and Napoleon III to justify the invasion of Mexico in the 19th century. From there it became the term that the Europeans and the people from the US would start using, to now where its everywhere. But the thing is, and as you even somewhat mention the term is very inconsistent between one person to another, because it legitimately is super reductive while so ambigous and broad. By some definitions Quebec and Haiti count as a part of it, while in others only Haiti would, while in others countries that have nothing to do would get grouped in like Jamaica, Belize, Guyana, Suriname, Bahamas, etc, simply because of the geographical location. If instead of making up random parameters there were words that could with one swoop regulate what is and what isn’t that would be the ideal. And there actually are words for this. Hispanoamerica and Iberoamerica. The former by what it suggests signals to countries of spanish-speaking and hispanic cultural origin, it is by some definitions of latin america what most consider the place to be, which rounds it off nicely and no quebec nor haiti nor jamaica no brazil get in the way there. The other word is Iberoamerica, which instead of just hispanic culture expands itself to countries with culture and language originating from the iberian peninsula in the americas. In this term essentially what is added is Brazil and so now its even more complete and its also well defined. What it comes down to in the end though is just being able to see things for how they are more than the groupings we’re taught in school or by the media. Both of these sources will always have their biases so words like the ones I just mentioned don’t even show up since I for example first learnt them because Im a native spanish speaker and read and listen to media there.
From my point of view, I don't have any issue with people from the U.S using "Americans" as their nationality, it just makes sense to them and easier. However, what I find obnoxious about Americans it's that they dimiss the rest of the continent by referring to the country as "America" which then sounds bizarre for me because it generalises too much a whole continent (at least for me that I'm Hispanic) it becomes a bit obnoxious because it feels sometimes like they're the only ones who matter and besides the U.S everything else is not the "real" America, and an example of that is that clip that you put refering to the Panama Canal which idk if it was a joke or is it a actually something that they put in a documentary or movie , it is funny regardless but it becomes a little bit offensive and obnoxious when in real-life Americans refer to the country as America itself , I'd rather when they call it simply the U.S but I understand also that for them it has been normalized so much to say America as the whole country as well which from my Hispanic point of view of understanding the geography and language in both English and Spanish still sounds wrong but I'm glad you pointed out both perspectives . Greetings , love your content 👍🏽
No American refers to the USA and think it is the whole continent itself. It's like New York City vs. the State of New York. They know they're referring to the USA, and they know the American is a whole continent. Besides, the rest of the world uses the term this way too, not just Americans.
You know the country's name is literally United States of AMERICA, right? Also a single lexical item can have multiple meanings. Search for homonyms, I'm sure you'll feel better.
I am allways cautious with Canadians I meet in Europe who are so often confused with the peoples south of them. They are politely offended by the contagion and rightly so
@@english3082 I'm not sure Homonyms is a good argument to justify it, simply because you're referring to your whole country as a continent itself, Homonyms are supposed to have different meanings and on this Americans calling the country "America" sounds just lazy and weird, at least from the outside , I have American friends that just say for example "here in the U.S" or in the states but saying "Here in America" it's generalising a bit too much I think . But that's just how I feel
We don't use America in the geographic sense really. If we're referring to geography, not limited to the borders of our country, we'll say North America, South America, or the Americas collectively.
Thanks for this video. It’s SO OFTEN that you see arguments from Latin Americans in YT comments or Reddit taking offense to the word “American” without realizing it’s a linguistic thing
As an Italian I use the term "American" interchangeably to describe the citizens of the country or the continent. To me using North American or South American always seemed silly.
Speaking as a Brazilian, the question of whether to use "americano" or "estadunidense" is a politically charged one. "Americano" is generally favored by conservatives and "estadunidense" is generally favored by progressives. But both sides agree that "América" should never be used to refer to the country, it's always "Estados Unidos da América" or "Estados Unidos", but never just "América".
In italian we use both "americano" and "statunitense". The first one more often than the second. If you say "americano" everyone will assume you are from the US.
Here's another fun fact! If *America* is a country & an American is from America, that means states like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, etc., are in South *America.* You're a South *American* like me!
I thought the Spanish term for Americans was gringo! (I'm kidding.) I actually had no idea that this difference existed, so thanks for the video. I find it interesting that American cultural dominance starting in the 20th century didn't change the linguistic patterns. I assume that Anglicisms and Americanisms are more readily adopted when they don't relate directly to cultural identity.
I am Argentinian, and I think that while explaining the different conventions of different languages should end the debates, and I think they do, that doesn't mean we should dismiss the "Why?" historical-political of that use of the words America and Americans in English. The American historian David Tollen says that although the official history of the United States says that ONE country was born on July 4, 1776, this is not true, but rather a confederation of SEVERAL countries was born. That's right, what was born on that date were "13 sovereign states" that is, countries, not just one; That is why the name is more appropriate for a continental institution (The United States of America) than for a nation, since in the English language also in those times the word "America" was used to refer to a single continent. Evidence that it was a confederation of several countries of America ("the Americas" in today's English) in its first decades of existence can be seen in names such as "Continental Congress" and "Continental Army" (later renamed US Army). If later, when considering themselves a single country, they did not look for a new more appropriate name (because the customs are strong), it is something that has already remained that way. And the best thing is to rely on respect for the current different conventions on the use of those words in different languages, it seems to me. And regarding the fact that the demonym United Statian (which could also be United Stater) "doesn't sound" so good in English, it's not really that it doesn't sound good, but rather, as you yourself explain, "tradition" is what makes it "sound good." I, who am a Spanish speaker, can still tell you that "estadounidense" is not such a fluid word in itself, however, I am very used to it and pronouncing it fluently is something that after so many years of doing it comes out well. *Here is David Tollen's article on this: pintsofhistory.com/2014/10/23/why-the-u-s-has-no-name/
Being a speaker of both English and Spanish, it can get a little tiresome when Spanish speakers claim that the English usage of the demonym is "wrong" since I often take the time to explain to them that Spanish _americano_ and English 'American' are very much false friends which, despite their common etymology, take very different meanings that are valid only to their respective languages. And personally, even I hesitate to use the word _estadounidense_ to describe myself because it sounds just as dweeby to my Spanish ear as "United Statian" would sound to my English ear. Tbh I'd much rather just use _yanqui_ (Yankee) or even _gringo,_ which may come off as self-deprecating, but they just sound better to me. Edit: One more point that just came to me: There is no written rule of geography dictating that a smaller geographic region can't share a name with the larger geographic region in which it resides. Try telling New Yorkers from NYC that they can't refer to themselves as such because it can also apply to anyone outside of NYC within the bounds of NY state. You'd receive a very "colorful" reply, I'm sure.
That’s a great comment, thanks for sharing it. The NY, NY example is especially clear. I get that a lot of Latin Americans dislike America, but their irritation with the demonym seems as petty as those who claim “Latin American” is “wrong” since the Latins were from Latium in Italy (thus modern Latins (laziali in Italian) should be Italian. Terms like “Latino” and “America” are perfect examples of how terminology is used in different ways, and is often imprecise and asymmetrical.
The only thing "wrong" with this is when people claim folks from the USA 🇺🇲 are the *only* Americans on the Continent of America. Americans are Americans in Spanish, just not the only ones on the Continent of America!
@@CaptainAmerica001I think in Spanish, claiming that only people from Spain are Spanish since the name Spain comes from Hispania which referred to the whole Iberian peninsula long before Spain formed as counttry and long before Spanish as a language arose. I don't see you argueing about that.
@@CaptainAmerica001 Why do you call Spain _Spain_ when the ancestor of the word referred to the whole Iberian Peninsula which is a larger area than Spain now occupies, which included Portugual, and it referred to that before Spain as a country was established and before Spanish as a distinct language existed. Why do the Spanish get to call themselves the only Spanish folks on the peninsula?
You gotta ask Tom Scott for tips on how to shoot a video in vastly different locations without the script feeling jumbled and repetitive. I don't know how he does it but he's really mastered this.
I am from Mexico, although most of the time we refer to people from the United States of America as "estadounidenses" it is not enterily wrong to say "americanos" or "norteamericanos" in some contexts. But to avoid any kind of confusion you can allways call them "gringos". It is also funny how of the official name " United States of America" the people from that country shortened to America while we use the United States part. Also an interesting thig is that in the first formal plan of independence of Mexico it did not say Mexico it said "America Septentrional" so we could ended up being Northamericans.
the point is not what they say in Spanish the point is in the English speaking world "American" means person from the US and that's fine and not only is there no point in changing that it's also unnecessary and disrespectful to try to
As a Swede I always call US people “Americans”. I have mixed background. When I went to Spain to study I stayed with an elderly couple, I was 19 and rented a room from them. When I told them I have immigrant background on my father’s side and my grandpa was a native Colombian they shouted “ERES AMERICANO!!” I’ve never heard that one before 😅
This is why I think it is important to learn multiple languages; this process trains our brain to think in different ways. Geographical names are one example, and I remember our Spanish teacher, Sra. Mullins, repeatedly instructing us not to call ourselves americanos, but rather norteamericanos. It frustrated trendy teenagers, who constantly try to shorten their words, but the long name makes sense in Spanish as it reflects the pan-American identity embedded in the language. Let's move on to consider how in Arabic, that two is not considered plural. There is the singular, the dual form, and the plural form of nouns. Plural in English is 2 or more, but in Arabic it is three or more. Here's a more shocking example that I would like to conclude my comment with: in my mother tongue (Hindi / Urdu), there is no word for the definite article "the," and yet "the" is the most common word in the English language.
Exactly!!! Regarding this topic though, what should be the default? What's the issue? Continental models? The official name of the United States of America USA 🇺🇲? People think/call/believe America is a country & 'American' a nationality/citizenship? The definition/interpretation of the word 'continent'? This *should* be a simple solution if you use logic, common sense, intelligence, critical thinking, etc. Want to go through the motions!?😁
Suggestion for when there is a lot of wind and it's hard to hear you : You could add subtitles in those scenes to help us make sure we understand what you're saying. You don't need to add them to the whole video if there are scenes where we can more clearly hear what you say. In French, it's weird, because we're like in-between. I'm from Québec, and here, the term "Amérique" only means North and South America, and it's a common meaning in French in general, but elsewhere, like in France, "Amérique" can also mean specifically the US, while here in Québec, we only use "États-Unis" for that. And then there's the demonym, "Américain", which is generally used for people from the US, but can technically be used for the continent as a whole as well, even though it's relatively rare from my experience. Interestingly, we also have the demonym "Étasunien" (other spellings exist), which according to Ngram, gained a lot of traction in the 21st century, but peaked in 2007 before starting to fall down in use drastically. What's also interesting is that we can also say "Amériques", plural, to mean specifically the continent, like taking "Amérique du Nord" and "Amérique du Sud" as two different places, and counting them together as plural instead of as a unit, but I think that's something that's also done in English as well.
To a brazillian like me, we are taught Oceania is the continent, and Australia is a country in oceania 😅 i guess we really dislike using the same name for continents and countries
@@petrus9067 The definition of a continent is a ‘major, continuous land mass’. Oceania is not a land mass at all. It is a geographical region consisting mainly of water (the Pacific Ocean).
@@TheHappypunkrock Oceania is a “geographical region” - like Southeast Asia, or the Middle East, or Central America. It is treated as a ‘continent’ in a geopolitical sense by some (mainly American) countries, to neatly group all the countries in the world into ‘continents’. But many island nations - especially in the Pacific - are not close to any particular major land mass (continent), one continent (Australia) is part of a single nation, and another continent (Antarctica) has no nations at all. To which ‘continent’ would the Kerguelen Islands ‘belong’?
In Switzerland I’ve been called American and it felt weird, I was talking to a Swiss friend about stereotypes and I said: a shared stereotype Brazilians have with Americans is that we are loud and like to party all the time. The Swiss said: you’re an American I said: sorry? Swiss: the same way I’m European, you are American I said: ewww don’t call me that. It’s not because I hold any grudge against Americans, it’s just because I felt like it was stripping away my nationality 🤣 But yeah, more than often I refer to Americans as US-americans/US people/people from the US/US citizen, when I’m speaking, but online I just say Americans
The problem with the mic sounds to me like that common noise inherent to the effort of communication between individuals from different cultural origins. But, as did have said the great portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa "Tudo vale a pena se a alma não é pequena." (Everything’s worth doing If the soul of the doer isn’t small.). Parabéns pelo trabalho. Saudações brasileiras aos estadounidenses. (Congratulations for the work. Brazilian greetings to the americans.)
The use of the term americano/americana also depends on the contact that Latin Americans have with people from the States. The more frequent the contact, the more likely the Latins will adopt the term americano for people from the United States. Personally I prefer the term gringo to be specific. Some claim that this word is a slur, but I have not found that to be the case. I also have found that neither gringo nor americano is used to describe people who are know to have originated from Canada. In addition, you will find in many countries various organizations including 23 chambers of commerce that use the term American, such as the Costa Rica-American Chamber of commerce.
As a brazillian, gringo to me means any foreigner, even from europe or asia (tho some people say it's for the global north) it's not a synonym to "US-ian". And "americano" is more commonly used for americans ofc, but it's not incorrect to use for other countries in America. To me americano is more like a "classifier", not used in everyday speech it just means where someone was born.
In Greek we call people from the USA: Americans (Αμερικανοί) and many times we call the USA, America (Αμερική) but we also call the continent America. The concept of North and South America as two separate continents is quite recent in Greek. We usually call the whole continent America. But we would never call another nation from the continent "American". We would call them Latin Americans (Λατινοαμερικανoι) or even Latins (Λατίνοι) if they where from a latin speaking country. Canadians we would call only Canadians (Καναδοί) I guess. I wouldn't call any Canadian American, not even North American. But maybe some Greeks do? Not sure.
In Dutch we use America to refer to the entire continent (with North- and South-America as subcontinents) and 'Verenigde Staten' (United States) as the short name for the USA. However, when referring to the people of the 'VS'/US, we exclusively call them Americans, the way it is in English. When we say American to refer to people, we almost never mean Canadians and Mexicans or Brazilians, Venezuelans, etc. (those we would also call South-Americans) or people from the Caribbean. It's the middle point between the English way and the German way.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this to everyone outside of the US. I have spent much of my adulthood trying to explain it to people. I think more emphasis could be placed on the fact that we have the oldest Constitution in the New World and we got to the "United States of AMERICA" first. Thus Brazilians come from the United States of BRAZIL and Mexicans come from the United States of MEXICO.
👍 I have spent much of my adulthood clarifying this perspective to individuals within the US as well, emphasizing the concept of relativity. Every country has its unique set of reasons leading to the establishment of their notions, just as the US does. Given there’s no central authority arbitrating these matters, it is sensible to try and look at things from the other person's perspective.
The argument of "we got the name first" makes absolutely no sense. no one is trying to have their own country called America. It is just a matter of perception and relativity. The country is America in English simply because it was the name people used and it stuck in the constitution etc etc. The thing I believe he failed to mention in his video is that there is a bit of a confusion about this whole America thing in latin american countries. Even though, as he explained, the USA is called America in English because it is the name people used for it (later made official in the constitution), in latin america we grow up seeing the effects of and learning about american imperialism, and the anti-imperialist sentiment gets fused with the naming thing. So a lot of people think that the USA calling itself "America" is a way to erase the importance and existance of other countries in the continents (NA and SA). Even though I am an anti-imperialist myself, I understand that it is simply a matter of practical use of a language. It has no ideological conotation. But that is not transfered very smoothly to spanish and portuguese. The slogan "America for Americans" does not make a lot of sense when translated directly: "América para americanos" in spanish and portuguese seems like it is referring to the continents... and in those languages we are also "Americanos" and because of the long history of american involvement and imperialism in both north and south america, people tend to understand it in the negative way. does that make sense? Most people are not well informed enough (and are usually not willing to look it up) to understand the absence of a connection between american imperialism and the fact that "America" and "Americans" refer exclusively to the USA in english. I hope this makes sense :)
@@guimourap704What you say makes perfect sense, but I think the Latin Americans that lament our usage of the term for ourselves do so out of a rather petulant sense of political grievance; and you admit as much. The United States is culturally and politically far, far more influential (and, though I hate the classless connotations of the word, "relevant") than any other country in NA and SA. (Consider that a Japanese person, entirely without malice, does not think of you when he hears the word "Amerikajin".) Therefore, we get to have the name, and there is no changing it on the global stage. Crying about it, or decrying imperialism (which essentially all people groups have engaged in at one point or another), just seems whiny to the rest of the world.
Aja, but the names Mexico ( Meshico ) and Brazil (Brasil) existed before the republics were founded. The Mexican "united states" thing was literally done by copying the US model. The previous name of the United States was that of the 13 colonies, not America
I'm Puerto Rican. When I was in the US Army I worked with the Canadian Army; the Canadian Captain I was assigned to would always call me "You Americans" when we disagreed on procedures. I had a chance to work with the Colombian Army and they would call me "gringo", when I objected they said, no all US Americans are "gringo". Over the years I would hear other US citizen Spanish speakers call other white Americans, "Americanos". 😅
Good observations. In america we call non-immigrant Americans “americanos”. I think “americanos” is common throughout Latin America especially with any communities that deal with Americans more for whatever reason. People know it’s not “correct” but it’s shorthand useful in context. Also sometimes Americans get called norteamericanos by South Americans, like Brazilians do. I find that older non-US Latinos or those from more isolated communities tend to use norteamericano more than americano. And estadounidense is used when being more specific especially when it makes grammatical sense. Like if you are talking about being a citizen of the US, youd say “ciudadano estadunidense”, because it would be weird or ambiguous to say “citizen of America”
Same in Finnish: Yhdysvallat = The United States Yhdysvaltalainen = "united statian" (American) Also we have seperate words for Indians: Intiaani (Indian, a Native American) Intialainen (Indian, a person from India)
I'll say something funy but somehow it suits in Albanian language we say Amerik= a mer ik A or Ha = eat Mer(r) = get Ik = leave So eat everything get everything and leave the place and what did spaniols english did they went there eat their food rob their gold and left to their homes.
Left to their homes? Actually the settlers were the ones who created most of the sovereign States in America /in the New World, with only some exceptions. The “Liberators” of Hispanic America (like Bolívar) were normally of European descent, & so were their political elites in the 19th-century.
That is not correct. You are writing in English, therefore you are obliged to understand that America is synonymous with the United States of America in this language, while North America and South America are two different continents. This was very clearly explained in the video. Es diferente en español.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Hello Luke. I absolutely understand that "America" in English means "United States", I respect that and that's the way I say it in your language. But my point wasn't that, I was saying something that has nothing to do with languages, but with geography and geopolitics, and it is the fact that the American continent is just one. The Panama Channel didn't exist before, and it is not a reason enough to separate America in two. If America are two different continents because of a channel, a river, or whatever, then it should be an Arabian continent between Iraq and Egypt, and a Patagonian continent as well... We can't deny that historically, the British and Americans didn't want an alliance between the Hispanics. "Divide et impera"... All the best, and I hope you understand my point.
You can bring the same subject to people from Germany. Germans, Deutsche, Alemanes, Niemcy, Saksalaiset... anyways, you will find different reasons and it tells you a story. Being a Brazilian, I grew up having lectures about "imperialism", why Americans call themselves Americans and the moto "America for Americans" had to be a chant for domination over other [continental] Americans. Well, we don't really care, we have multiple synonyms for a chair - and this is the heritage of old roman dudes with a lot of time to think -, so... estadunidense, americano, norte americano, all of these are part of our lexicon without any intention to segregate, divide, get attention or anything. There will be some hysterical people saying "the correct terminology is:", but in reality, it has no difference. Unfortunately, I can't speak for our hermanos around our beloved South America, a sub continent of the Great America (we should call it Great America and end this worthless debate).
Here in Germany, we don't often use "US Amerikaner"... it's more common to simply say "Amis" (as a short form of "Amerikaner") for people from the United States of America. On a related note, what I still find interesting is how different people talk about "continents" and assume that their idea of it is somehow based on scientific "truths" about the world rather than being equally as fluid and made up as the rest of our sociopolitical divisions. The only scientific approach would be to talk about the continental plates, but I've never seen anyone divide "the continents" up in the same way as the continental plates!
That’s absolutely right; such naming divisions are arbitrary. When I learned that in some places they teach only 6 continents I was floored, but that was just my own bias.
America is a continent, not a country. An American is from the Continent of America. Concise & accurate! 'America', in the official name of the United States of America USA 🇺🇲, has represented a continent for the past 247yrs, even 269yrs before the USA 🇺🇲 existed. The Continent of America has not changed name in 516yrs. As you can clearly see & read in the official name of the United States of 👉America👈, there's a continent named America but no country named the United States of North America & South America (USNASA) or the United States of the Américas! Countries change their names officially, not by indoctrination or appropriation!
The United States of America was/is named using 3 English words & 1 Spanish/Portuguese word, *AMÉRICA* !!! The name & term "America/American" did not change overnight & has *not* . There's no country named America the country or América of the United States! If America is a country *simply & lazily* by reducing the official name of the United States of America USA 🇺🇲 to just 'America' denoting a location, then that logic can be applied to the Republic of South Africa 🇿🇦. Congratulations 👏👏👏 Africa is now a country & 'African' is a citizenship. But wait, if America is a country, according to *this* logic, places like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, etc., are in South *America* . That would mean New Mexicans are also South *Americans* !
@@CaptainAmerica001 No, logic doesn't work. Republic of what? *South Africa.* United states of what? *America.* It would still be called _South Africa._ That logic doesn't dictate they're in South America. If it does, any country in the southern part of Africa are all South Africa. You said you have logic, problem solving, and critical thinking, yet you can't even conceive of the idea that _South America_ doesn't refer to the south of the US, and Calling the US _America_ would mean that in the minds of speakers Texas, being in the southern US are on South America. All you're showing everyone in the comments is you clowning yourself.
@kijul468 I know your logic doesn't work, it's *illogical* !!! 'America', in the official name of the United States of America USA 🇺🇲, has represented a continent for the past 247yrs, even 269yrs before the USA 🇺🇲 existed. The Continent of America hasn't changed name in 516yrs. In conclusion, America definitely is not a country or a nation. Therefore, 'American' is not a nationality or a citizenship. Anyone who uses these 2 terms as such is due to ignorance, conceitedness, laziness, stubbornness, indoctrination, and/or arrogance! Furthermore, an American is from the Continent of America. If America is a country & 'American' is a citizenship, then your logic says Africa is a country & African is a citizenship. Same exact logic! 😎
I'm Puerto Rican and live in the US. Typically, I call the country "America" in informal speech in both English and Spanish (and the other languages I speak), and if I need to be more specific/formal, I'll say the equivalent of "United States (of America)" in those languages (Estados Unidos, Arcot HaBrit, Les Êtats Units, Farïnixte ẞtatn, etc.). However, for the demonym I only use the equivalent term for "American" and never something like "Usonian" or "Unitedstatian". I think ultimately it's up to the people within that group to decide what they themselves want to be called, and most Americans wouldn't recognise what you're saying if you asked if they were Usonian or something. Americans are also not saying that we're the only true Americans who live on the American continents, but that's just what our preferred demonym is, just like how Argentinans prefer to be called Argentinans rather than something like Patagonians (which would make no sense to them I assume), or Mizrahim preferring being called Mizrahi and not "Arab Jews" (which is both inaccurate and offensive, unless they are an actual mix of Jew and Arab, which does happen but isn't very common). Also, I've only ever heard of this standard for Americans, and never heard of any other national group constantly being asked to change their preferred demonym. It makes me wonder why though do some people get very angry at the usage of the term "American" for someone from the USA (and yes, I have seen people get really heated from this topic and insisting that those who disagree are wrong and dumb)?
In my language we also refer the people of USA as Americans while knowing this term can mean all people of North and South Americas. However I'd like to thank you for the info about how this self-defined identity of "Americans" emerged, that it was a way how to unify people from various new-born states in before USA was actually constituted. This is very good point! Never thought about it in this way. I'm from Europe and I think we're on the similar way to declare ourselves as Europeans, just the progress is quite slow due the fact we speak many languages in many rather small countries.
It would be interesting to know if in countries that don't speak English or Spanish or Portuguese, textbooks talking about Columbus say he discovered America or Americas in the plural.
Once upon a time I got a little public street dialogue with someone who didn't realize the meaning of being an American. After hearing this debate of being the real American with others in the street. The question was reiterated "What nationality are you?" amongst the crowd. I replied "I am Vespuccian (or better Vesputian)"... the reply from them was "What?" You are what? I repeated the same. And they didn't comprehend. So I said if one was truly American, then they will ought to know what's Vespuccian or rather Vesputian which is better Latinate. So I will carry on this argument ad nauseam. Vivant Vesputiani semper!
Adding upon this thought. Columbia has a similar relationship with Columbus (Κολόμβος) cognomen with regards to the country in South America and also the Federal District in USA, etc. It was originally spelled Columbia in Latin maps and later Colombia in Castellano.
Can you please watch a 3min video? It's titled, "I am not American" by the Arrogant Worms. It's about Canadians knowing they're Americans & *wanting* to be called Americans! America is a continent, not a country or a nation. Therefore, 'American' is *not* a nationality/citizenship, officially. Furthermore, an American is from the Continent of America! No need for cardinal points to tell me where countries are in America, do you? I get it if you need to answer it that way for a test, but if we're in the habit of shortening things up, no need for the North/South, right? Those crazy "South American" Canadians. Greetings from the USA🇺🇸, fellow American!
Yo vivo en España y lo normal es decir americano. La palabra estadounidense no es desconocida pero se puede decir sin exagerar que prácticamente no tiene ningún uso aquí. El vídeo es excelente pero era necesario hacer esta corrección.
The name in English is :Turtle Island. A Dutchman from Vlissingen learned this name from the First Nations. Amerigo is probably from Gothic, an East Germanic tribe that occupied parts of southern Europe for a short while. There is a town in Germany named 'Emmerik' in my language. Probably the same etymology as Amerigo.
As a Dutch speaking Belgian, I have the problem that, because the country of the Netherlands claims the demonym of 'Nederlanders' and the accompanying adjective 'Nederlands' (Netherlandish), suddenly I can't call myself 'Nederlands' anymore, because that would imply that I'm from the Netherlands, even though I speak 'Nederlands' (Dutch). For a long time, we Dutch speaking Belgians were called just that, Dutch speaking Belgians, but recently, we've started calling ourselves Flemings that speak Flemish, to have our own simple name, even though this Flemish is just the southern variant of the Dutch language. We could've simply just kept calling ourselves Belgian, though not all Belgians speak Dutch... Or just Dutch, but we're a separate people from the north... The bottom line is that the Netherlands was originally a geographical name, referring to the low lying lands of Northwestern Europe, and it wasn't meant to denote a people's nation or language group. My brain longs to bring symmetry to this whole situation, but it just seems impossible at this point... It's all just a big mess caused by politics and time.
Bonus: Belgium is the historical latin name for the Netherlands, so in some way the Netherlands and Belgium are both called the same. At some point in time, Flanders was used to refer to all of the Low Countries (which in some languages like Spanish, it still is used in this way), because the historic county of Flanders was so rich and influential, much the same as today Holland is used by foreigners to refer to all of the Netherlands, even though it's only a small part of it (even Flemings/Dutch speaking Belgians do this).
Double bonus: the Dutch language originated as the native language of the Frankish tribe of whom its leaders founded the kingdom of the Franks, later called France. The name of course lived on in modern day France, but in a way, Dutch is the only survivor of the original language of the Franks, thus you could call it true French... Ofcourse, no one does this as the country of France claims this demonym, but in a sense I feel historically robbed of both the Netherlandish demonym and the Frankish demonym, leaving poor little Belgium with nothing 😂
In Brazil we consider that there is just one continent named America, from Alaska to Patagonia. But almost everybody call people from the United States americanos. Mostly because "estadunidense" sounds really weird.
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You braved the mighty breezes (and construction sounds) of 3 historic USA cities to make this video for us. 😂
I'm sure there must be an AI that eliminates the noise on an audio file. Think in the future!
Did you just fall back to using the camera mic?
Did you consider just rerecording the whole thing?
Greetings from a Mestizo.👋🏽
Americans don't know basic history.
Ironically it was an Spanish politician, Luis de Unzaga, who gave the name to the 13 colonies as "The United States of America" in a letter to George Washington
Spain gave the USA its name, currency (temporarily) and even helped with its independence.
The USA in return gave Spain the disaster of 1898, bombardment with (miraculously) unactivated nuclear warheads, pariah status during the dictatorship with no access to the Marshall plan, support to its irredentist neighbour in northern Africa and a pretty Bad reputation on anything Hispanic. I wonder if Gálvez would've done what he did for the USA if he knew how things would turn out in the end.
@@BN.ja05 nuclear warheads in 1898? What?
@@rogeriopenna9014 In 1966, 2 american B-52s had an accident while flying over the small Spanish Town of Palomares, Where 3 nuclear warheads were dropped and another one landed 8km away near the coast, none of the bombs exploded but their nuclear radiation caused environmental contamination of water and soil, which still lingers to this day.
@@BN.ja05 nuclear bombs don't explode unless told too. That's why you need tons of the best Physicists in the world working on Project Manhattan.
You must have atomic precision in the picosecond scale for the chain reaction to occur.
They have normal explosives to help set of the fission reaction.
In that case, they were 3 H bombs (fusion), and thus the fission reaction was used to compress (also picosecond precision) the hydrogen fuel into fusion.
I was reading about the incident. It were not two bombers. It was a single b52 that crashed with the fueling airplane while on mid air refueling.
The bombs that fell on land had their CHEMICAL explosives detonating on impact, such spread the plutonium field of the fission trigger.
Like on Chernobyl, where the exploding WATER STEAM spread nuclear fuel around. In much larger quantities of course.
Anyway, it shows how difficult a nuclear bomb is to create. Even though the chemical explosives set off on impact, it did not set of the nuclear explosion
The chance of a nuclear explosion by accident was like winning the lottery
@@rogeriopenna9014 Exactly, but it's impressive still how "Lost arrows" don't explode once hitting the ground after being dropped from such heights.
Interestingly enough, the old "Usonian" proposal of a moniker got fossilized in Esperanto, as "Usono" (the country) and "Usonano" (the inhabitant)
Thanks for this... I have been struggling which language this was from
As a Colombian I just say that the confusion also comes charged with politics, the relationship of the US with the other countries in the continent(s) has been a mess with a lot of imposition from the US so yes the problem is not just a naming thing, but a lot of us also feel a certain imperialistic tone behind it based on the history between us, like a we own you type of deal, probably not what most people convey when they say it.
Interesting. As a Canadian, I always saw people from Spanish-speaking countries insisting on being called "American" as some sort of glorification of the USA, and a jealously of USA's reputation, and a desire to be associated with that by a technicality. That's why it annoyed me so much that they weren't satisfied with being called by their own country's name, instead insisting on being called by the USA's name. That's how it looks to an English speaker anyway.
When an English speaker hears/sees a Colombian say "we're American too", it feels like they're abandoning their identity as Colombians and desperately trying to convince people that they're from the USA.
@@jerotoro2021I guess you think like this because you're not taught that America is not the name of the country but the continent(s)
@@jerotoro2021 wao that's very interesting indeed since the intention is basically the opposite. "We exist too" "You have no right to claim our name as yours just because your military can crush us in a heartbeat like so many times before" would be something more along the lines of what we think.
In my case it's just that it creates unnecessary confusion. Come on USA just get a real name, a proper name like Canada for example
@@celeridad6972 That's the thing though, it's not "your" name. Even if you were to call all North and South Americans "American", that still includes USA, you can't create an "all of us against them" situation by using the name "America". And besides, no one identifies with their continent. There is no shared ethnocultural group of Russians, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Israeli, Syrian, Tukish people etc. etc. all calling themselves "Asians". They call themselves by the demonym of their country, so do I, and so do you.
What annoys me most is that you are implying that Canadians should be called "American" also, and I absolutely refuse this label. I am in no way American, regardless of what you guys try to insist.
Absolutely. As a US-American it seemed very weird to me that this video ignored that usage is changing in English to reflect that growing numbers of people in the US disagree with our country's dominating power dynamics with the rest of our shared continent(s). So much of language about people groups is about power and it feels like a troubling political choice for this video to ignore that.
In French, we typically call the country "États-Unis" as a short name, but the most common demonym is "américain". "Étasunien" exists, but is uncommon.
As a French student I was actually curious about that because of this exact debate.
I was taught that it's but I wasn't exactly sure if that was just because I live in the US. But it makes sense, merci beaucoup ami!
I didn't know about 'étasunien', I will use it now
Technically the correct term for USA inhabitants is "statunitensi" in Italian too, since "americano/a" generally refers to someone/something from the American continent(s). However "americano" is used very often as a denonym and, based on context, it's easy to distinguish if it's used to refer to a person/thing from the USA or from the continent.
Exactly!
as an italian, I agree. When speaking we almost never choose the term statunitense over the less correct americano to define someone from the USA. The word statunitense is a little more common in writing though.
@@mymo82 I use "statunitense" just as much as "americano", so I think it's a geographical difference (sono del sud)
There is no such thing as the "American continent". It's two continents called North America and South America. They are on completely different tectonic plates.
@@eodyn7 man did you even watch the video?
Some things to consider:
Amerigo Vespucci explored South America on service of Portugal. Never North America.
When German cartographer Waldseemüller invented the name and wrote it in his map, WHERE did he wrote "America". Over the southernmost part of the New World (basically Brazilian territory nowadays)
I also need to point out that all romance languages use a 5 continent model, including French and Italian, where America is a continent.
This can be seen in the Olympic Flag for example, with a single ring for each inhabited continent, one for America.
It also needs to be pointed out that even in other European languages, except English, the word America, the same used in those countries for the country, is also used for THE NEW WORLD.
And that can be seen in the Wikipedia pages in those languages, where there is always an entry for America, whoever spelled, in the singular, with a map showing the whole New World.
As a final point of attention, referring to the New World as AMERICA was also common in English itself until the 19th century at least.
The usage of the word for the whole New World in English seems to have lost strength as USA gained strength in the world.
This is why even in the US it's common to say Columbus discovered AMERICA in the singular.
This is not Americans thinking Columbus explored the US. It's Americans saying the island of Hispaniola is America.
As can be seen in this Smithsonian article
www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/columbus-confusion-about-the-new-world-140132422/
They use the word America several times, in the singular, referring to the New World.
The Finnish word for United States is the literally equivalent "Yhdysvallat". We could quite easily form the demonym "yhdysvaltalainen", but we still end up calling such a person in most cases "amerikkalainen". We are also taking a trip to "Amerikka" when we go to the United States.
As a Brazilian Portuguese native speaker, I never liked calling US-Americans "norte-americanos". In most cases I use "americanos" and sometimes "estadunidenses" in contexts where "americanos" would cause ambiguity.
I really appreciate that you mentioned different geographical perspectives, I often see people using Geography to impose their usage to other languages without considering that different languages/cultures may use different continental models.
Same. "Norte-americano" takes the worst of both worlds. It's not the most usual choice AND it's imprecise.
For what it's worth, I've been learning Brazilian Portuguese for over three years and have never had a Brazilian call me "estadunidense." Though, I never refer to myself as "americano" first, so as to not offend anyone
But isn't your country called the "United States of Brazil"? So isn't "estadunidenses" just as ambiguous as "americano" ?
@@bhami No, it's called "Federative Republic of Brazil".
@@bhami You're probably thinking of México, however it's official name translates to United Mexican States.
Thanks for the great video, Luke! In Brazilian Portuguese, there is a kind of ideological question regarding whether you call someone from the USA "americano" or "estadunidense" (usually people who identify as anti-imperialists will prefer the latter). The more common word is definitely "americano", and in everyday speech that is the prevailing demonym. Over the last 10 years or so, it has become more common to see "estadunidense" being used (mainly in writing, but increasingly in speech as well).
And just as you said, since the Americas are viewed as a single continent in Brazil (América), the word "americano" can be used as a reference to the whole continent as well as a reference to people from the USA. This generally doesn't cause any confusion, since usually the context is enough for the two types of "americanos" to be distinguished.
In my view estadounidense is just as common, tho i guess it depends a lot on who the speaker is and wether it's being written, posted on social media, spoken etc. I agree there is some ideological weight. I believe it's because american media is so prevalent it kinda blended into our culture so "americano" can in fact refer to both from the american content or from the US. tho i prefer estadounidense
Tho what would never happen in brazil is call the country "América" unless you are REALLY mind washed into worshipping everything US lol
@@petrus9067 I haven't yet read a text written from anyone who had'nt leftist or antiamerican views with the term estadunidense
I am German and as you have mentioned in the video we do call people of the United States of America "Amerikaner*innen" (Americans), but there is some ambiguity. In particular, America can refer to the American continent (where you would perceive North and South America as subcontinents) or to the United States of America. Personally, without context I would think of the continent first since the country is usually called "USA" in German. Hence, we also refer to its people as "US-Amerikaner*innen" (US-Americans) to avoid any potential ambiguity.
This can definitely vary from person to person, but I feel like "Amerika" is pretty ambiguous, but tends to mean the continent rather than the country whereas "Amerikaner*in" refers to the people of the United States of America almost exclusively. For example, "die Ureinwohner Amerikas" (the native people of America) includes indigenous people of South America such as the Inka since here "Amerika" refers to the continent.
laß das Sternchen sein. Amerikaner kann männlich wie weiblich sein
Thats true, but "US-Amerikaner" is used not that often, at least as I perceive it, mostly only to be hyper correct. As Germans, the US is more often refered to than the continent, so it doesn't confuse normally.
Aztecs and mayans and incas
In Catalan/Valencian, we refer to an american as "americà" or "nord-americà". We also have the term "estatunidenc", but it's never used. Great video, Luke!
Thanks for the comment! I appreciate knowing these data points
How do you call people from the New World? I.e.: "Cristiano Ronaldo is European, Drogba is African and Pelé is ....."
@@robertobahamondeandrade Well, you could say "sud-americà" or just "americà". Normally, you refer to people by their country, not their continent, so I think the most common answer it would be: "Pelé és brasiler", but if you want to refer to him by his continent: "Pelé és sud-americà/americà".
We say both in Brazilian Portuguese: "americano" (extremely common) and "estadunidense" (much less common).
The name of the country is "Estados Unidos" or "EUA" and you can obviously say "Estados Unidos da América", but never just "América" to refer to the country.
To many countries, including Brazil, "América" is a term reserved only for the name of a single continent that goes from Canada to Cape Horn in Chile. In Brazil, if you say that South America is a continent, most people will think you don't know basic geography. But, sure, some Brazilians are aware that Americans adopt different standards for a lot of things, including continental divisions.
We use the terms North America, Central America and South America, but these are what we call subcontinents, since they are within the continent called America.
We Brazilians consider ourselves both Americans and South Americans because we belong to America and South America. We don't use the term Americans to refer to ourselves daily, of course, but technically we know we are because of the name of our continent.
Btw, many Brazilians don't like to be referred to as "Latinos" or "Hispanic" for several reasons. Going through all reasons would make this comment much longer than it already is. I'll just say two reasons: 1. We don't speak Spanish. How can we be "Hispanic"? 2. We're aware that the term Latino fulfills a segregationist world view typical from US which we don't share in Brazil. So some of us consider the term "Latino", when used by an American, almost a racial slur.
Only Che Guevara wannabes say "estadunidense", ironically they are the same people who push a "Latin American Identity" in opposition to the North.
The first time I heard someone saying "estadunidense" was in a Philosophy class when I was 11 years old. I remember I thought my teacher was dumb, and didn't know that people from the United States were actually called "americanos". 😅
From a European perspective the way Americans use the term Latino is downright bizarre and inconsistent. Sometimes they only refer to people of a specific race, or worse, perceived race (specifically Spanish speaking Native or mix-raced people from Latin America), other times, it's cultural, still other times, it's geographic. These things aren't the same, and when it comes to Spanish people in Europe, or Hispanic people who are purely of white European descent, it completely confuses Americans. You have very confused Americans who look at the Princess of Spain and wonder why is the Spanish princess a white girl? And then when you get to Italy, the literally place with the region of Latium, it confuses them even further.
I know that Hispanic is usually used to refer to people who come from a Spanish speaking country, but what if we take into account that the term comes from Hispania, which was the entire Iberian Peninsula?
Romans were the "latinos" (LoL). If I am a "latino", where I should go to vote for a Tribune?
@@Ψυχήμίασμαnot to mention latino also means Haiti and Quebec need to be in there by the linguistical definition but its funny because since the word is “latino”, in french that doesnt mean much and would actually need to be rewritten. Further cementing how ambiguous and nonsensical de term is. And in the geographical definition it wouldnt make sense to put the bahamas, Belize, jamaica, Trinidad, etc, and even countries in south america itself including Guyana, and Suriname considering these are english (dutch for suriname) speaking countries.
It’s a complete mess of a word, and its why more appropriate terms do exist like Hispanoamerica (Only refers to countries that speak spanish and share hispanic culture in the americas), and then Iberoamerica (all countries in the americas that share the language and culture originated from the iberian peninsula, aka spanish and portuguese).
These terms unlike latin america also don’t have questionable history, bc the “Latin America” term was actually first coined by Napoleon III as an excuse to conquer mexico in the 19th century.
In Brazilian Portuguese, the most common denonym is "americano", but "estadunidense" is also used, specially in press.
The point is the short name of the country is "Estados Unidos", like "Reino Unido" for UK. The denonym for UK citizens is "britânico", what is geographicly not accurate too.
The most clear definition must be more exact descriptions the way Luke has had to present.
In Icelandic, we call the United States "Bandaríkjunum", and Americans "Bandarískur".
"Banda" can roughly translate to Alliance / United / Group.
"Ríkjunum" comes from the plural and definite version of "Ríki" (State), which translates to "The States"
We have no separate word for "The" and "a / an" in Icelandic, so instead we have definite and indefinite versions of words. The definite versions of words are the ones you use when you want to have "The" in your sentence. This means a word will have a suffix added such as "-inn", "-ið", "-um", and so on. Which is why there's "unum" at the end of America's name.
So Bandaríkjunum is, in a literal sense: "United States The."
And Bandarískur is literally "United Stater."
This is awesome
In Brazil, only left news websites say "estadounidense", we always said "americanos" in Brazil.
I am not a leftist, but I prefer to say estadunidense.
@@helcium_nz It's uncommon, it sounds bad, and it's ideologically charged. You must be some kind of patriot/nationalist/anti-imperialist of some sort either way.
@@english3082 no, I am not.
I don't think it sounds bad, yet I see no problem if it is like that for someone else.
I like the US, it is a model for economic liberty that I appreciate.
I just think it is more accurate to say it like that and I consider myself an American, from the continent of America, just like an African would say as belonging to the African continent, therefore I not from the USA.
In chile we use america for the whole continent north america for mexico, usa, canada, central america for the countries between(not inclusive) south of mexico an northern colombia an south america for the countries (inclusive) between colombia to the north an chile to the south. other countries also use insular america for the caribbean. we use oceania or pacific ocean for our isles. we do use americano for americans and norteamericano for people from usa and canada(tbh mostly we call you "gringos" but not in a pejorative way, gringo just mean outsider, ah an we call the usa "gringolandia" (gringo-land) again with no ill intent) but we also call ourselves americanos as a term of unity between all of the countries of america. the qualms with the term american came from the fact that usa is not the only federal republic, ie:united states, in america there are also mexico, argentina, brazil, and venezuela.
In Brazil, my perception, lliving for half a century in urban Rio de Janeiro, is that calling people born in the USA “americanos/americanas” was never an issue until about some 15 to 10 years ago, when the then-completely foreign “estadunidense” started being pushed down our throats mostly by left-wing leaning people and institutions, clearly borrowing it from Spanish, but with the elision of the “o” in “estado”, since it wouldn't be pronounced anyways.
Such move is considered arbitrary and politically loaded, and very much resisted by many -myself included- not only because of the political tone associated with it, but also because Brazil itself was until several decades ago officially called “Estados Unidos do Brasil” (United States of Brazil), and therefore “estadunidense” could theoretically be applied in those days to refer to Brazilians themselves.
Also, some other countries, even in the Americas, have had or still have “Estados Unidos” (United States) in their official names, including Mexico (currently), Colombia and Venezuela.
I appreciate the comment! Yes, I think there is some strong politics on the part of Spanish speakers in Latin America. I’m sure we can come to a compromise, if it’s not the one I suggested in this video.
@@polyMATHY_Luke, thanks for the reply.
Something else I was think this afternoon is that in Portuguese (and perhaps Spanish, though I am not that familiar with the language) it's not uncommon to use either Latin or Greek roots for words indicating geographic or ethnic origin (e.g. “fluminense” for people born in the State of Rio de Janeiro, “ludovicense” for those coming from the city of São Luís; “soteropolitano” for people born in Salvador, “angelopolitano” for people from Los Angeles). In comparison, “estadunidense” (Port.) and “estadounidense” (Span.) seem very poor, not only for being derived from the vulgar language, but because it ignores the plurals in both “Estados” and “Unidos”.
I feel like one could come with a better, well informed and “educated” name from the classical languages, for use not only in Portuguese ans Spanish, but maybe even other romance languages.
It's interesting to listen to your perspective. I'm a Brazilian, and we learn that North America is Canada, USA and Mexico. Then we have Central America (which includes the Caribean countries), and South America starts in Colombia.
I would call someone from the USA americano, but that sounds the same as calling someone from Portugal as europeu. And if you use estadunidense (I guess only left-leaning people use that), you also get a problem, as it is a form of political organisation and you could also refer to Mexicans as estadunidenses.
There's no perfect way other than saying you are estadunidense americano, but that's a bit too long! :)
I'm Brazilian amd that doesn't sound like calling someone from Portugal European at all. The name of the country is literally United States of America. And we never use such a general word to refer to any one who was born in either of the three Americas, because there's virtually no context in which we would lump, say, a Bolivian and a Canadian together. We generally say either America do Sul or America do Norte, and if we were to say America in general we say Americas (in this case almost always referring to the age of exploration)
@@english3082 "as américas" é uma forma bem anglicisada de falar do continente, (ou como vc falou, se referindo a era da colonizaçao) o mais comum e moderno é com certeza so América, mesmo que podemos tbm distinguir entre sul e norte. E certo, não é comum dizer que uma pessoa nascida em qualquer lugar da america é americano, mas é tambem correto. (E nao consigo ignorar que vc tem uma conta chamada "english" com a foto da bandeira dos estados unidos, o que deixa seu ponto de vista bem peculiar)
In Polish, we just use the English system for the 7 continents and the word American.
Amerykanin = male American person
Amerykanka = female American person
amerykański = American as an adjective
All 3 refer to the USA.
Not necessarily, it depends on the context. But in most cases you are right.
@@volkhen0
Ja nigdy nie słyszałem żeby któś mówił "Amerykanin/ka" dla kogoś z kontynentu.
In Croatian "Amerikanac" also mostly refers to people from the US. I think that the totality of people from North and South America is just rarely relevant in discourse (similar to e.g. something like "Eurasian").
@@2712animefreak the question is, if a new country called United States of Europe formed, people started calling it just Europe, and it's people Europeans for lack of a better word, and Poland and Croatia were out, would you keep calling yourselves Europeans and saying the entire Europe is Europe? And be a little mad when people outside of "real Europe" don't even recognize Europe as being the continent that includes Poland and Croatia anymore?
🙂This was fun. As a retired New Jersey boy living in Southern Mexico for 37 years I have bumped into these walls several times over. Since Mexico's official name is "Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos" Estadounidense also has it's limits. Luckily we're also called Gringos which although semi-derogatory and also includes Canadians. Those white English speakers from up there, might be a way to translate it. (apologies to Quebec). So now when I feel the language land mine is about to be stepped on I make a complicated joke about it to show that I know what it "should be" and that I'm aware of the 'problemo'. Love the channel, thanks for the fun. Jim,
I Didn't know gringo meant that in mexico. In brazil it means any foreigner from anywhere in the world (debatable if other latin americans are "gringos", some people use that some people don't. I prefer to use "hermanos" for them). It also isn't derogatory at all, tho like most words you use to call people it can be used to "offend", but the word itself is a neutral term.
I love your style of educating and pontificating (I totally just worked that into a real sentence). One day I might even take the plunge into learning Latin but presently have been failing at Japanese for close to 10 years. 😀.
Es cierto. En español cuando decimos americanos nos referimos a todos los humanos que nacimos en las américas. buen video lastima que el viento no dejara escuchar bien todo lo que decías, pero fue muy interesante como cada idioma nombra su región y nacionalidad.
Here in Argentina I've noticed people have taken to refer to people from USA as "yankis", probably for these reasons:
-"estadounidense" being too long, clumsy and overly formal.
-"americano" and "norteamericano" being both too vague and general, as you mentioned.
-"gringo", at least in Argentina, refers specifically to blonde, blue eyed people, regardless of nationality.
In Brazil the word "gringo" applies to any foreigner. We don´t use the word "yankee" (This talk remembers me an old American movie from the 1940s, when a pilot complains to another pilot on the airplane´s radio: "Don´t call me Yankee, I´m from Georgia!")
@@marciocorrea8531I was going to say something similar. Many Americans, particularly in the American South, would have problems with the term Yankee; as in the Southern US it’s a pejorative for a person from the Northeast (of the US) or the North (of the US) in general
Yankee or Yank is derived from the Dutch name Ianka. It is a common name and translates to Johnny in English.
I'm Argentinian too, and "estadounidense" is used quite a bit, in my case it's the only one I use, but I admit that the one most used is "norteamericano" here in Argentina. And "americano" I think older people use it more, I only hear them say it to refer to people from the US (apart from using it for ourselves and other countries when we refer to something continental) or movies and actors, "películas americanas" they say for example.
Yankis is only used when it is something very informal about them, although not necessarily negative.
The Chinese name for the U.S. directly translates to English as the "beautiful country". And just some fun facts here, the UK is the "outstanding country", France is the "country of law", Germany is the "country of morals" and Thailand is the "peaceful country".
This has changed over the years. When I took Spanish in high school, we were taught taught that the term for "Americans" was "norteamericanos." My Spanish teacher learned Spanish in Spain. Obviously, this was a while ago, but it's not like it is out of living memory.
The long form name of Mexico in Spanish is "Estados Unidos Mexicanos". So why would referring to Americans as "estadounidenses" be any less confusing or ambiguous?
The USA was the first independent nation in the Americas to incorporate "America" into its name. Other countries can use whatever exonyms they want, but they have no say in what our endonyms are. We aren't doing so to slight others, it just makes the most sense to us. No matter how much others may insist, we are not going to call ourselves "United Statesians" in English.
actually. Spain gave America it's name. They name it after some general. Espanol de america. Or America de español. Spanish America.
@@REALTEXAN_Hispanic, 15th century explorer Amerigo Vespucci was Italian. Just because he went on expeditions funded by Spain and later Portugal does not mean his nationality had changed. German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller was one of the first to use "America" on maps. It was derived from Vespucci's first name.
@@MichaelScheele Para ser precisos, Amerigo Vespucci (Américo Vespucio) nació florentino, ciudadano de la República de Florencia. Ahora se considera italiano. A él le resultaría raro. Eran muy suyos los florentinos. Y qué decir de los genoveses!!! Se llevaban fatal entre ellos. Y peor aún contra los venecianos… en fin. Se naturalizó castellano, o sea, súbdito de la Corona de Castilla y murió en Sevilla, donde tenía un cargo importante (piloto mayor de la Casa de Contratación de las Indias) encargado de las expediciones de exploración del Nuevo Mundo. Como Cristóbal Colón, que nació genovés (o eso dicen), ciudadano de la Serenísima República de Génova, se naturalizó castellano, súbdito de la Corona de Castilla y murió en Valladolid unos 5 o 6 años antes que Vespucio. Tenía un cargo importante, Almirante de la mar océana y Virrey de las Indias. Los dos tenían una edad parecida (Colón dicen que era unos 3 años mayor) los dos se naturalizaron castellanos, se casaron con mujeres castellanas, fueron enterrados en Sevilla… vidas casi paralelas. Si ahora se sostiene que ambos son italianos porque uno nació florentino y el otro genovés, lo cierto es que ambos murieron siendo castellanos, así que podemos decir que ambos son españoles😛
Ok yankee
The power of UA-cam for education is unreal. Thank you dear Latin master/ fighter pilot/ geologist/ polyglot extraordinaire!
Thanks for watching!
The term "american" was a shorthand used by the british for the people that lived in the 13 colonies. They actually meant "the british americans". In the same way if they wanted to refer to someone from the Spanish american vicerroyalies (New Spain or Peru), they referred to them as the "spanish americans"
Precisely
That's the problem, USA it's not a proper name, a name like Guatemala, Honduras, Chile, Colombia, México. The United States OF America is like an organisation (many states unified that ARE in America) like the European Union and that's never going to work unless your country is the whole region. Some people say they are "Europeans" meaning their country is in the EU but since the doesn't include all of Europe it creates the same confusion.
That's exactly what I wanted to point out, both the british and the spanish + portuguese referred to the new wolrd as "America"@@celeridad6972
In spanish we mostly use gringo or yanqui to refer to US citizens, but in formal contexts it's estadounidense for sure.
It's interesting to note what the Oxford English Dictionary says about the origin of the Americano style of coffee preparation. It is borrowed from Central American Spanish "café americano", which was a derogatory term referring to weak, mild coffee, the way they prepare it in the USA. This was in the mid 1950's. So at least 70 years ago, there is evidence suggesting that Central Americans called people from USA "americano".
In Panama, most people call the country "Estados Unidos" and people from there are often called "estadounidenses". "Americano" is also used but not as often as you might think, and that is speaking about a country which had a part that was, basically, a US colony.
So after studying Spanish in Mexico for a semester and living in Buenos Aires for eight months, I moved to Paraguay. A Paraguayan asked me where I was from and I said, "Soy estadounidense" (It took forever for me to learn to pronounce that but I didn't want to give offense), and the Paraguayan said, "O, Americano."
Hehe, exactly. Actually, I was surprised that they said the same of me in Spain.
Indoctrination at its finest.
Hey, at least you were considerate to learn & use the right term because after all, America is a continent & an American is from the Continent of America!
I’m ok with having asymmetric terms and concepts in different languages but it just rubs me the wrong way when people think you should change the way your language works because theirs is different. Ex: I saw a Brazilian lady get mad at an American who didn’t understand why the American didn’t think Brazil and the USA existed on the same continent. The Brazilian assumed the American was just ignorant and uneducated. If I saw the reverse happening I would be annoyed too
Latin Americans getting mad at Americans for calling themselves that (in English) is almost as much of a meme as Italians getting mad at foreigners butchering their cuisine 😂
@@fab006omg italians getting mad about their food is hilarious. I understand their food is very good but they take it so seriously they need some chill from time to time lol
Yea, as a Hispanic American, I call myself "American" in either language and so do most others. Everyone knows what it means by the context. You have some Hispanic people who pearl-clutch and pretend that they don't understand that one means a citizen of the USA. There are very few contexts where saying "americano" would be confusing in the context and "estadounidense", "gringo", etc. would be helpful for clarity. If I wanted to be as petulant as the people who pretend not to get that "americano" means from the USA in the context and tell you to use "estadounidense", I'd ask "¿A cuáles estados unidos refiere? Los Mexicanos o los de América?"
Great video, Luke! It's crucial to approach such topics through a relative lens. The appropriate demonym for those from the USA, and the division of the landmass of The Americas, indeed, hinges on perspective. A U.S. citizen might use 'American' and see two distinct continents, whereas an Argentinian might opt for 'Estadounidense' and perceive it as single continent. Each perspective is shaped by its unique cultural, historical, and linguistic context and is equally valid. There isn’t a universal authority to mandate continental divisions or establish demonyms, and it's essential to acknowledge the diverse approaches and the influences shaping them. The early settlements by the Spanish and Portuguese compared to the later British colonization were marked by different methodologies and impacts, reinforcing the notion that our understanding and categorization of the world are intrinsically... relative! 👍
And then there’s Chinese (”Meguo”, I think) and Korean (”Miguk” or: ”Migugi”).
I was warned before traveling earlier this year to Cuba that I shouldn’t call myself Americano but Norteamercano or Estadounidense. That people would be offended. Guess what Cubans In met really asked me when it came to what I was and where I was from? “America?” and “Americano?”…. Meaning from the US. I think this whole America debate is just among highly political people, nationalists and those interested in linguistics. The average person uses America for US in Cuba as well….revolution aside
That’s very interesting, Kenneth, thanks for telling us. Yes, I get the impression as well that there is a political motive behind the prescription.
I lived in South America for years and on the Mexico-US border for decades. My work has taken me all over Central America and the Caribbean. I've had friendships and work relationships with people from EVERY Spanish speaking country. I also have undergraduate and graduate degrees in Spanish/English translating. That being said, I've NEVER heard a native Spanish speaker refer to him/herself or his/her country or culture or the western hemisphere broadly as "American". I've read it in some Spanish political writing comparing the politics of the New World to old European politics. What IS reasonably common is for native Spanish speakers in Latin America who would never use "American" for themselves or their country or culture to complain that people from the US are arrogant for appropriating "American". So, they complain that we've taken for ourselves a word they wouldn't use to describe themselves anyway. I always ask them "Under what circumstances would you describe yourself as "American". After decades of asking this question 100% of the responses have been "never". I then ask them which country is the only one in the world with "America" in it's name.
Obviously there is political tension between the US and Latin America, and for good reason. The US has been a dirty player in that region. But THIS is a manufactured controversy.
I appreciate the comment
On the one hand, to say "estadounense" is to reduce the appellation of a country's inhabitants to the political organization of a country, forgetting the geographical reference. The rejection of this word in some of the comments on this video is legitimate. It would be like calling the French "fifth republicans". In the term USA, the A cannot be forgotten to name the inhabitants of this country.
But on the other hand, it should be noted that the words estadounidense / étasunien / estadunidense are mostly used in Spanish-speaking America / Quebec / Brazil, while they are rare in Spain / France / Portugal. This indicates a problem with the American word. A Senegalese may say he feels African, a Belgian may say he feels European. But if a Mexican says he feels American, it's confusing. Because the originally continental appellation of the word American has become reserved for a particular country.
That's just the way it is. Words and languages are as imperfect as history, of which they are the result.
"American" could be the word for the citizens of the United States, and "Americanan" could be the word for the inhabitants of the continent. But saying that, I'm dreaming. Generally speaking, languages are not decreed.
Many thanks to PolyMathy for initiating this debate.
Thanks for the comment!
Those differences between continental models seem quite interesting. In my native Slovak, we actually have two different terms for a continent with slightly different meanings.
The first one is 'kontinent' and it is used for North America, South America and Eurasia among the other ones.
On the other hand there is 'svetadiel' (lit. world-part) which includes America, Europe and Asia.
Very cool
One of the excuses used here in the USA 🇺🇲 is because they are "taught" North America & South America are continents, not America, therefore 'America' *must* be a country then.
Where I grew up (Argentina) we were taught about a single big continent divided in 3 sub continents instead: South, Central and North, with the last one only including the US and Canada. I always assumed that's why "Norteamericano" is used so often to talk about people from the US (and also sometimes Canada).
Mexico is part of North America though.
@@VictorBR45 Some people in Mexico do say they are in Central America. I guess both positions are common.
@@Pablo-Herrero No, en absoluto, México es Norteamérica, el 80% de su territorio está inculso en la zona biográfica del neártico, y es la postura oficial educativa en México que es Norteamérica.
Únicamente los yanquis y europeos chauvinistas quieren que sea Centroamérica.
@@VictorBR45-In English. The continental system in general is extremely flawed.
@@VictorBR45 That's true, but there's no term that means "North America apart from México", so when we say North America, given the context, people know what is meant, although we also know that strictly speaking México is also part of North America. (I'm Brazilian)
I think this is also a good gateway to think about the concept of hypercorrectness. I've noticed that some people will fall over themselves in an extreme effort to be precise and correct, ends up being actually _incorrect_ -- that is to say, avoiding the term "American" in the English sense (or equivalent in other languages that follow the English practice), and even correcting others when they do use "American". So once in a while you'll see people say in English something like "U.S.-American". Often it will be Germans doing this. And I suppose it's also an interesting discussion what attitudes to correct terminology a speaker will bring with them from their native language into a secondary language.
And to answer your question, in Norwegian we say _Amerikaner_ as the demonym for you and your compatriots, with the same distinction for _Nord-Amerika_ and _Sør-Amerika_ that you have in English. There's basically no semantic difference between English and Norwegian in this area.
One interesting sidenote is that countries will parade in alphabetical order in the opening ceremony in the olympics, using the full name of the local language where the games are being held. Since "United States of America" starts with a U, you end up being pretty far back in the parade. But in the 1994 Winter Games in Norway, you were among the first, since the formal name of your country is "Amerikas forente stater". Norwegian doesn't formally use a preposition like "of" to denote posession (although informally people might use "av" in other settings, but that is likely a recent innovation inspired by English).
“US-Americans” is increasingly used by English speakers as a disambiguator when there are speakers of Spanish (or other languages) present. It’s just an acknowledgment that not all languages use “American” to mean the English meaning of US persons. However, using “US-Americans” in certain situations doesn’t imply that “Americans” is incorrect.
In Italian there's "Statunitensi" too!
Statunitese/-ense refers to American stuff though, you'd never refer to a person as that. An American person would still be "americano/-a"
in english i always call the country "the US", use "US" as an adjective, and call the people "US american", which can also serve as adjective. in castilian i call the country "estados unidos" (without the definite article since it's a proper noun), the adjective and demonym are "estadounidense". an alternative to calling the continent "america" is the native name "abiayala"
In Denmark we also use the term americans, which in danish tounge is: 'amerikaner'. I am very impressed of your knowledge and your video channel, that I finde both educational and entertaining. You are a true polymath.
Thanks! You’re very kind.
I've just read all the comments and I'm making a synthesis and some remarks.
Spanish: americano / estadounense
French: américain / étasunien
Portuguese: americano / estadunidense
Italian: americano / statunitenso
Icelandic: ameriskt / Bandaríkjamaður
Finnish: amerikkalainen / yhdysvaltalainen
In all these languages, the form based on "american" is much more common than the form based on United States, which ranges from rare to minority.
The places where this form is most successful are not in Europe, but on the American continent: Estadounense in Spanish-speaking America and Etasunien in Quebec.
Another interesting note. In the 21st century, automatic translators are the law of the language exchange game. Of course, they translate Spanish americano into américain in French. You'd expect them to translate estadounense into étasunien. Not at all! I've just tried to translate all the words in the right-hand column above into every other language that has an equivalent. The answer from googletranslation and DeepL is to translate any word based on "United States", into a word based on "american". I've tried everything, nothing works. I wonder.
There are also other countries that can have confusing and different names in other languages. For example the United Kingdom is often named just "England" in may other countries and languages (well, the local language equivalent of "England"). Something that some citizens of certain parts of the United Kingdom might not be completely fond of.
@@helsby1797
Well, technically speaking he _is_ the king of England. Sure, he's also the king of a bunch of other places, but England is one of them.
Also, "King of England" is more succinct and clearer than "His Majesty Charles the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith".
@@helsby1797
What would you call him?
When people claim that "estadounidense" is better because it unambiguously could only refer to the United States of America, I like to point out that there is also the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos).
Also Brazil ("Estados Unidos del Brasil", now deprecated).
BUT goal of a demonym is to identify. Mexicano can be used for Mexicans, brasileño for Brazilian, no other good name for people from the United States, no it is not really unambigous.
Similarly done here:
Santiagués: from Santiago (de Compostela, Spain).
Santiaguino: from Santiago (de Chile).
Santiagueño: from Santiago (del Estero, Argentina).
Santiaguero: from Santiago (de Cuba)
It's a much better term precisely because of that
While México's full name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos, whenever someone says they're Mexican everyone immediately associates him with that country, since hardly anyone refers to that country by its full name
This isn't the case for the US from the point of view of Spanish speakers, since americano refers to anyone born anywhere on the continent, not just the US
I came to the US for grad school and many people asked me "When did you come to the States?", and actually fewer people asked me "When did you come to America?". I guess even within the US people call themselves differently or maybe it was just the academia environment I was in. Many people will say "I'm US citizen" instead of I'm American to me (I am very obvious a foreigner to them). Although I observe that happens more often with non-white American.
There are a lot of varations for the US in the US. Pretty much all centered around using parts of "Unity States of America". But specifically for the denonym for people from the US, in English at least, "American" is the only word for it. Like there's no alternative other than expanding it into "from the United States" or something.
More educated people are less likely to use “America” to refer to the US, as they may consciously or unconsciously understand “the States” is more neutral and less confusing for foreigners. So it makes total sense what you were asked.
Unfortunately there is no widely accepted alternatives to “American” for US persons.
0:50 We Finns do the same kind of thing; but, to be even more confusing, a lot of us (particularly, older people and rural folks) call the USA: _”Ameriikat”,_ meaning: ”The Americas” (in most old-school and rural dialects) 😅.
In Icelandic the USA it is "Bandaríki Norður Ameríku" or "Bandaríkin", literally The United States. for short. You would be a Bandaríkjamaður -- a man of the United States. Sometimes however we would use "Kani", short for Ameríkani, but that is slang.
Kani! Now that is pretty cool.
@@donkeysaurusrex7881 Yup! And the British in slang is "Tjalli".
In Canada, it's called "the States", not "America". In English, you do have a word for "estadosunidense" and it's "US-citizen", and style-guides are slowly changing to reflect this. In Argentina, you're all just "yanquis", regardless of if you're from the North or the South.
I’m rather familiar with Canadian speech, and I can count on both hands the number of times I remember Canadians referring to America and Americans, meaning USA. The affectionate term “the States” is also used by Americans in certain contexts; this is a situation where Canadians have adopted an Americanism in their speech.
“US citizen” is fine, and certainly correct, but that’s the equivalent of “Canadian citizen” not “Canadian,” which is the demonym. The demonym in English is “American.”
@@polyMATHY_Luke that's well enough. And considering that you're fifty united states and not simply one state, then you have fifty unique demonyms, without laying claim to the entire continent as you do with "Americans" and its related "America's backyard".
Yeah, the world would wonder how the Founding Fathers of the USA could make a huge problem like this.
There is no problem. People from the United States of America are called Americans.
What problem?
When the United States of America was founded the "American".was up for grabs. Everyone else was either subjects of European monarchies or their particular indigenous identity, so it wasn't issue in the 1700s. Ironically, the only other name for consideration was "Columbia" and it got taken by another country eventually anyways, lol.
But the obvious answer to me is that's it's pretty easy to infer from context what is meant by "American" and anyone from Aleutian Islands to Patagonia is free to use whatever they want as they see fit. I have no problems saying "Soy estadounidense" in Spanish. "Statesian" does not roll of the tongue in English as well it does in Spanish.
I mean there weren’t any other “states” in America so it actually seems pretty reasonable to call themselves that.
People just need to accept that English and Spanish are different languages and have a different word for everything and words with common roots are often misleading English: American = citizen of USA; Spanish: americano = person from North or South America. English: North American = person from any of the countries of North America; Spanish: norteamericano = citizen of the USA. N.B In Spanish demonyms are not capitalized. Also, nobody in Latin America actually calls themselves "americanos" as much as they claim they do except in conversations like this. They call themselves and think of themselves as mexicanos, guatemaltecos, colombianos, etc.
Well, in Spanish writings from the XIX century both from Spain and Spanish America (the one continent as traditionally seen by hispanic culture), we can see authors referring to anyone born in the continent as american (americano), from north to south. They didn't call themselves "latinos" as nowadays many latinos would call themselves, rather they called themselves "americanos". for instances, you see it in writings from Simon Bolivar referring to himself and colleagues as "americanos". So I'd say it was europeans in general, the spanish, the portuguese, the english, the french, etc. who would call anyone coming from the american colonies as "american" bc they all regarded "the two continents" as one, that's why the country's name is "The United States of America" and not "The United States of the Americas" or "The United States of North America". We also need to consider that the majority of independent states as we know them today didn't exist yet or were in the process of being created as new countries and, of course, the names of today's nationalities didn't exist either, therefore everyone from "the continent" referred to themselves as "american". Now in English the term has evolved to refer specifically to someone from "the United States of America" bc the short version of the country's name english speakers came up with was "America", while in "Latin America" it has remained with the original perception. However, many people from Latin America, both Spanish and Portuguese speakers, call people from the USA "americanos" due to the english influence from the USA, yet the spoken and written official norms of the two languages don't recognise that usage as correct. The idea of two separate continents is quite new, that's why you see the term "Latin America" and not "Latin Americas" even though Latin America extends from Mexico (North America) to Argentina (South America). If we were to be "correct" in English the term "Latin America" should refer to the parts of the USA with Hispanic, French or Portuguese heritage and not to the countries it refers to from north to south.
The term latin america exists now and didnt exist then, bc its origin has quite the history. It was first coined by the french and Napoleon III to justify the invasion of Mexico in the 19th century. From there it became the term that the Europeans and the people from the US would start using, to now where its everywhere.
But the thing is, and as you even somewhat mention the term is very inconsistent between one person to another, because it legitimately is super reductive while so ambigous and broad. By some definitions Quebec and Haiti count as a part of it, while in others only Haiti would, while in others countries that have nothing to do would get grouped in like Jamaica, Belize, Guyana, Suriname, Bahamas, etc, simply because of the geographical location. If instead of making up random parameters there were words that could with one swoop regulate what is and what isn’t that would be the ideal.
And there actually are words for this. Hispanoamerica and Iberoamerica. The former by what it suggests signals to countries of spanish-speaking and hispanic cultural origin, it is by some definitions of latin america what most consider the place to be, which rounds it off nicely and no quebec nor haiti nor jamaica no brazil get in the way there.
The other word is Iberoamerica, which instead of just hispanic culture expands itself to countries with culture and language originating from the iberian peninsula in the americas. In this term essentially what is added is Brazil and so now its even more complete and its also well defined.
What it comes down to in the end though is just being able to see things for how they are more than the groupings we’re taught in school or by the media. Both of these sources will always have their biases so words like the ones I just mentioned don’t even show up since I for example first learnt them because Im a native spanish speaker and read and listen to media there.
Yeah, nothing in 'Latinoamérica' or Spanish-speaking countries (in America) spoke Latín (the language of Rome).
I knew a French girl in college who called me and other Americans "étatsiens" or "Statesian."
Reading this, I'm reminded of what Groundskeeper Willy called the French.
From my point of view, I don't have any issue with people from the U.S using "Americans" as their nationality, it just makes sense to them and easier. However, what I find obnoxious about Americans it's that they dimiss the rest of the continent by referring to the country as "America" which then sounds bizarre for me because it generalises too much a whole continent (at least for me that I'm Hispanic) it becomes a bit obnoxious because it feels sometimes like they're the only ones who matter and besides the U.S everything else is not the "real" America, and an example of that is that clip that you put refering to the Panama Canal which idk if it was a joke or is it a actually something that they put in a documentary or movie , it is funny regardless but it becomes a little bit offensive and obnoxious when in real-life Americans refer to the country as America itself , I'd rather when they call it simply the U.S but I understand also that for them it has been normalized so much to say America as the whole country as well which from my Hispanic point of view of understanding the geography and language in both English and Spanish still sounds wrong but I'm glad you pointed out both perspectives . Greetings , love your content 👍🏽
No American refers to the USA and think it is the whole continent itself. It's like New York City vs. the State of New York. They know they're referring to the USA, and they know the American is a whole continent. Besides, the rest of the world uses the term this way too, not just Americans.
You know the country's name is literally United States of AMERICA, right? Also a single lexical item can have multiple meanings. Search for homonyms, I'm sure you'll feel better.
I am allways cautious with Canadians I meet in Europe who are so often confused with the peoples south of them. They are politely offended by the contagion and rightly so
@@english3082 I'm not sure Homonyms is a good argument to justify it, simply because you're referring to your whole country as a continent itself, Homonyms are supposed to have different meanings and on this Americans calling the country "America" sounds just lazy and weird, at least from the outside , I have American friends that just say for example "here in the U.S" or in the states but saying "Here in America" it's generalising a bit too much I think . But that's just how I feel
We don't use America in the geographic sense really. If we're referring to geography, not limited to the borders of our country, we'll say North America, South America, or the Americas collectively.
You’re telling me that it’s just a coincidence that S. America is shaped exactly like India?
Thanks for this video. It’s SO OFTEN that you see arguments from Latin Americans in YT comments or Reddit taking offense to the word “American” without realizing it’s a linguistic thing
Indeed! And as some from Spain have reported, it seems mostly to be a Latin-American preference. So be it, I like linguistic diversity.
Amen to both! All great art has a little chaos in it & languages are no exception.
As an Italian I use the term "American" interchangeably to describe the citizens of the country or the continent. To me using North American or South American always seemed silly.
Speaking as a Brazilian, the question of whether to use "americano" or "estadunidense" is a politically charged one. "Americano" is generally favored by conservatives and "estadunidense" is generally favored by progressives. But both sides agree that "América" should never be used to refer to the country, it's always "Estados Unidos da América" or "Estados Unidos", but never just "América".
In italian we use both "americano" and "statunitense". The first one more often than the second.
If you say "americano" everyone will assume you are from the US.
I'm from Texas, so in all our humility, we describe ourselves as "Texan" for nationality and for geography :D
A very fun fact
Here's another fun fact!
If *America* is a country & an American is from America, that means states like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, etc., are in South *America.*
You're a South *American* like me!
Humility and Texas in the same sentence… 🤔… nope! 🤠
I thought the Spanish term for Americans was gringo! (I'm kidding.) I actually had no idea that this difference existed, so thanks for the video. I find it interesting that American cultural dominance starting in the 20th century didn't change the linguistic patterns. I assume that Anglicisms and Americanisms are more readily adopted when they don't relate directly to cultural identity.
In Portuguese I actually say "estadunidense" to refer to Mexicans, and "republicafederativense" to refer to Brazilians.
Some people dispute the Amerigo Vespucci origin, instead favoring an origin in Welsh
i'm british and i use the word "American" for people from the USA and for people from north and south america, I call canadians american for example.
That’s fascinating, I’ve never heard that British usage before.
Also in italian we can say statunitensi
I am Argentinian, and I think that while explaining the different conventions of different languages should end the debates, and I think they do, that doesn't mean we should dismiss the "Why?" historical-political of that use of the words America and Americans in English.
The American historian David Tollen says that although the official history of the United States says that ONE country was born on July 4, 1776, this is not true, but rather a confederation of SEVERAL countries was born.
That's right, what was born on that date were "13 sovereign states" that is, countries, not just one; That is why the name is more appropriate for a continental institution (The United States of America) than for a nation, since in the English language also in those times the word "America" was used to refer to a single continent.
Evidence that it was a confederation of several countries of America ("the Americas" in today's English) in its first decades of existence can be seen in names such as "Continental Congress" and "Continental Army" (later renamed US Army).
If later, when considering themselves a single country, they did not look for a new more appropriate name (because the customs are strong), it is something that has already remained that way. And the best thing is to rely on respect for the current different conventions on the use of those words in different languages, it seems to me.
And regarding the fact that the demonym United Statian (which could also be United Stater) "doesn't sound" so good in English, it's not really that it doesn't sound good, but rather, as you yourself explain, "tradition" is what makes it "sound good." I, who am a Spanish speaker, can still tell you that "estadounidense" is not such a fluid word in itself, however, I am very used to it and pronouncing it fluently is something that after so many years of doing it comes out well.
*Here is David Tollen's article on this:
pintsofhistory.com/2014/10/23/why-the-u-s-has-no-name/
Being a speaker of both English and Spanish, it can get a little tiresome when Spanish speakers claim that the English usage of the demonym is "wrong" since I often take the time to explain to them that Spanish _americano_ and English 'American' are very much false friends which, despite their common etymology, take very different meanings that are valid only to their respective languages.
And personally, even I hesitate to use the word _estadounidense_ to describe myself because it sounds just as dweeby to my Spanish ear as "United Statian" would sound to my English ear. Tbh I'd much rather just use _yanqui_ (Yankee) or even _gringo,_ which may come off as self-deprecating, but they just sound better to me.
Edit: One more point that just came to me: There is no written rule of geography dictating that a smaller geographic region can't share a name with the larger geographic region in which it resides. Try telling New Yorkers from NYC that they can't refer to themselves as such because it can also apply to anyone outside of NYC within the bounds of NY state. You'd receive a very "colorful" reply, I'm sure.
That’s a great comment, thanks for sharing it. The NY, NY example is especially clear.
I get that a lot of Latin Americans dislike America, but their irritation with the demonym seems as petty as those who claim “Latin American” is “wrong” since the Latins were from Latium in Italy (thus modern Latins (laziali in Italian) should be Italian. Terms like “Latino” and “America” are perfect examples of how terminology is used in different ways, and is often imprecise and asymmetrical.
The only thing "wrong" with this is when people claim folks from the USA 🇺🇲 are the *only* Americans on the Continent of America.
Americans are Americans in Spanish, just not the only ones on the Continent of America!
@@CaptainAmerica001I think in Spanish, claiming that only people from Spain are Spanish since the name Spain comes from Hispania which referred to the whole Iberian peninsula long before Spain formed as counttry and long before Spanish as a language arose. I don't see you argueing about that.
@@kijul468
What are trying to say?
@@CaptainAmerica001 Why do you call Spain _Spain_ when the ancestor of the word referred to the whole Iberian Peninsula which is a larger area than Spain now occupies, which included Portugual, and it referred to that before Spain as a country was established and before Spanish as a distinct language existed.
Why do the Spanish get to call themselves the only Spanish folks on the peninsula?
You gotta ask Tom Scott for tips on how to shoot a video in vastly different locations without the script feeling jumbled and repetitive. I don't know how he does it but he's really mastered this.
That’s by design in this one. While it was my intention, and I got the result I wanted, I don’t think I’ll repeat it.
I am from Mexico, although most of the time we refer to people from the United States of America as "estadounidenses" it is not enterily wrong to say "americanos" or "norteamericanos" in some contexts. But to avoid any kind of confusion you can allways call them "gringos". It is also funny how of the official name " United States of America" the people from that country shortened to America while we use the United States part. Also an interesting thig is that in the first formal plan of independence of Mexico it did not say Mexico it said "America Septentrional" so we could ended up being Northamericans.
the point is not what they say in Spanish the point is in the English speaking world "American" means person from the US and that's fine and not only is there no point in changing that it's also unnecessary and disrespectful to try to
As a Swede I always call US people “Americans”.
I have mixed background. When I went to Spain to study I stayed with an elderly couple, I was 19 and rented a room from them.
When I told them I have immigrant background on my father’s side and my grandpa was a native Colombian they shouted “ERES AMERICANO!!”
I’ve never heard that one before 😅
America is a continent & an American is from the Continent of America.
This is why I think it is important to learn multiple languages; this process trains our brain to think in different ways. Geographical names are one example, and I remember our Spanish teacher, Sra. Mullins, repeatedly instructing us not to call ourselves americanos, but rather norteamericanos. It frustrated trendy teenagers, who constantly try to shorten their words, but the long name makes sense in Spanish as it reflects the pan-American identity embedded in the language. Let's move on to consider how in Arabic, that two is not considered plural. There is the singular, the dual form, and the plural form of nouns. Plural in English is 2 or more, but in Arabic it is three or more. Here's a more shocking example that I would like to conclude my comment with: in my mother tongue (Hindi / Urdu), there is no word for the definite article "the," and yet "the" is the most common word in the English language.
Exactly!!!
Regarding this topic though, what should be the default?
What's the issue?
Continental models?
The official name of the United States of America USA 🇺🇲?
People think/call/believe America is a country & 'American' a nationality/citizenship?
The definition/interpretation of the word 'continent'?
This *should* be a simple solution if you use logic, common sense, intelligence, critical thinking, etc.
Want to go through the motions!?😁
Suggestion for when there is a lot of wind and it's hard to hear you : You could add subtitles in those scenes to help us make sure we understand what you're saying. You don't need to add them to the whole video if there are scenes where we can more clearly hear what you say.
In French, it's weird, because we're like in-between. I'm from Québec, and here, the term "Amérique" only means North and South America, and it's a common meaning in French in general, but elsewhere, like in France, "Amérique" can also mean specifically the US, while here in Québec, we only use "États-Unis" for that. And then there's the demonym, "Américain", which is generally used for people from the US, but can technically be used for the continent as a whole as well, even though it's relatively rare from my experience. Interestingly, we also have the demonym "Étasunien" (other spellings exist), which according to Ngram, gained a lot of traction in the 21st century, but peaked in 2007 before starting to fall down in use drastically.
What's also interesting is that we can also say "Amériques", plural, to mean specifically the continent, like taking "Amérique du Nord" and "Amérique du Sud" as two different places, and counting them together as plural instead of as a unit, but I think that's something that's also done in English as well.
As an Australian, I have no problem at all using the same name to refer to both a continent and a country. 😁 (Oceania is not a continent!)
Good point!
To a brazillian like me, we are taught Oceania is the continent, and Australia is a country in oceania 😅 i guess we really dislike using the same name for continents and countries
@@petrus9067 The definition of a continent is a ‘major, continuous land mass’. Oceania is not a land mass at all. It is a geographical region consisting mainly of water (the Pacific Ocean).
What is "Oceania" then? I'm genuinely curious.
@@TheHappypunkrock Oceania is a “geographical region” - like Southeast Asia, or the Middle East, or Central America. It is treated as a ‘continent’ in a geopolitical sense by some (mainly American) countries, to neatly group all the countries in the world into ‘continents’. But many island nations - especially in the Pacific - are not close to any particular major land mass (continent), one continent (Australia) is part of a single nation, and another continent (Antarctica) has no nations at all. To which ‘continent’ would the Kerguelen Islands ‘belong’?
In Switzerland I’ve been called American and it felt weird, I was talking to a Swiss friend about stereotypes and I said: a shared stereotype Brazilians have with Americans is that we are loud and like to party all the time.
The Swiss said: you’re an American
I said: sorry?
Swiss: the same way I’m European, you are American
I said: ewww don’t call me that.
It’s not because I hold any grudge against Americans, it’s just because I felt like it was stripping away my nationality 🤣
But yeah, more than often I refer to Americans as US-americans/US people/people from the US/US citizen, when I’m speaking, but online I just say Americans
Thanks for the comment! Indeed, this seems to be the trend.
Spanish: estadounidense
Portuguese : estadunidense
Italian : statunitense
French : états-unien
In Brazil, almost nobody uses "estadunidense".
IN ITALY : AMERICANO
@@english3082de que parte do Brasil você é?
@@saetainlatin Brasília.
the French spelling supported by dictionaries is "étasunien".
The problem with the mic sounds to me like that common noise inherent to the effort of communication between individuals from different cultural origins. But, as did have said the great portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa "Tudo vale a pena se a alma não é pequena." (Everything’s worth doing If the soul of the doer isn’t small.). Parabéns pelo trabalho. Saudações brasileiras aos estadounidenses. (Congratulations for the work. Brazilian greetings to the americans.)
The use of the term americano/americana also depends on the contact that Latin Americans have with people from the States. The more frequent the contact, the more likely the Latins will adopt the term americano for people from the United States. Personally I prefer the term gringo to be specific. Some claim that this word is a slur, but I have not found that to be the case. I also have found that neither gringo nor americano is used to describe people who are know to have originated from Canada. In addition, you will find in many countries various organizations including 23 chambers of commerce that use the term American, such as the Costa Rica-American Chamber of commerce.
As a brazillian, gringo to me means any foreigner, even from europe or asia (tho some people say it's for the global north) it's not a synonym to "US-ian". And "americano" is more commonly used for americans ofc, but it's not incorrect to use for other countries in America. To me americano is more like a "classifier", not used in everyday speech it just means where someone was born.
In my experience as a Spaniard, we don't call Americans "norteamericanos" but maybe I just haven't lived enough. Nice video
In Greek we call people from the USA: Americans (Αμερικανοί) and many times we call the USA, America (Αμερική) but we also call the continent America. The concept of North and South America as two separate continents is quite recent in Greek. We usually call the whole continent America. But we would never call another nation from the continent "American". We would call them Latin Americans (Λατινοαμερικανoι) or even Latins (Λατίνοι) if they where from a latin speaking country. Canadians we would call only Canadians (Καναδοί) I guess. I wouldn't call any Canadian American, not even North American. But maybe some Greeks do? Not sure.
I appreciate the info!
In Dutch we use America to refer to the entire continent (with North- and South-America as subcontinents) and 'Verenigde Staten' (United States) as the short name for the USA. However, when referring to the people of the 'VS'/US, we exclusively call them Americans, the way it is in English. When we say American to refer to people, we almost never mean Canadians and Mexicans or Brazilians, Venezuelans, etc. (those we would also call South-Americans) or people from the Caribbean. It's the middle point between the English way and the German way.
Very cool, thanks for the comment
Thank you for taking the time to explain this to everyone outside of the US. I have spent much of my adulthood trying to explain it to people. I think more emphasis could be placed on the fact that we have the oldest Constitution in the New World and we got to the "United States of AMERICA" first. Thus Brazilians come from the United States of BRAZIL and Mexicans come from the United States of MEXICO.
Yep
👍 I have spent much of my adulthood clarifying this perspective to individuals within the US as well, emphasizing the concept of relativity. Every country has its unique set of reasons leading to the establishment of their notions, just as the US does. Given there’s no central authority arbitrating these matters, it is sensible to try and look at things from the other person's perspective.
The argument of "we got the name first" makes absolutely no sense. no one is trying to have their own country called America. It is just a matter of perception and relativity. The country is America in English simply because it was the name people used and it stuck in the constitution etc etc.
The thing I believe he failed to mention in his video is that there is a bit of a confusion about this whole America thing in latin american countries. Even though, as he explained, the USA is called America in English because it is the name people used for it (later made official in the constitution), in latin america we grow up seeing the effects of and learning about american imperialism, and the anti-imperialist sentiment gets fused with the naming thing. So a lot of people think that the USA calling itself "America" is a way to erase the importance and existance of other countries in the continents (NA and SA). Even though I am an anti-imperialist myself, I understand that it is simply a matter of practical use of a language. It has no ideological conotation. But that is not transfered very smoothly to spanish and portuguese. The slogan "America for Americans" does not make a lot of sense when translated directly: "América para americanos" in spanish and portuguese seems like it is referring to the continents... and in those languages we are also "Americanos" and because of the long history of american involvement and imperialism in both north and south america, people tend to understand it in the negative way. does that make sense? Most people are not well informed enough (and are usually not willing to look it up) to understand the absence of a connection between american imperialism and the fact that "America" and "Americans" refer exclusively to the USA in english.
I hope this makes sense :)
@@guimourap704What you say makes perfect sense, but I think the Latin Americans that lament our usage of the term for ourselves do so out of a rather petulant sense of political grievance; and you admit as much. The United States is culturally and politically far, far more influential (and, though I hate the classless connotations of the word, "relevant") than any other country in NA and SA. (Consider that a Japanese person, entirely without malice, does not think of you when he hears the word "Amerikajin".) Therefore, we get to have the name, and there is no changing it on the global stage. Crying about it, or decrying imperialism (which essentially all people groups have engaged in at one point or another), just seems whiny to the rest of the world.
Aja, but the names Mexico ( Meshico ) and Brazil (Brasil) existed before the republics were founded. The Mexican "united states" thing was literally done by copying the US model. The previous name of the United States was that of the 13 colonies, not America
I'm Puerto Rican. When I was in the US Army I worked with the Canadian Army; the Canadian Captain I was assigned to would always call me "You Americans" when we disagreed on procedures. I had a chance to work with the Colombian Army and they would call me "gringo", when I objected they said, no all US Americans are "gringo". Over the years I would hear other US citizen Spanish speakers call other white Americans, "Americanos". 😅
Haha so interesting! It really shows the flexibility of terms.
Hooah, brother, thanks for your service.
Good observations. In america we call non-immigrant Americans “americanos”.
I think “americanos” is common throughout Latin America especially with any communities that deal with Americans more for whatever reason. People know it’s not “correct” but it’s shorthand useful in context.
Also sometimes Americans get called norteamericanos by South Americans, like Brazilians do. I find that older non-US Latinos or those from more isolated communities tend to use norteamericano more than americano.
And estadounidense is used when being more specific especially when it makes grammatical sense. Like if you are talking about being a citizen of the US, youd say “ciudadano estadunidense”, because it would be weird or ambiguous to say “citizen of America”
Same in Finnish:
Yhdysvallat = The United States
Yhdysvaltalainen = "united statian" (American)
Also we have seperate words for Indians:
Intiaani (Indian, a Native American)
Intialainen (Indian, a person from India)
I'll say something funy but somehow it suits in Albanian language we say
Amerik= a mer ik
A or Ha = eat
Mer(r) = get
Ik = leave
So eat everything get everything and leave the place and what did spaniols english did they went there eat their food rob their gold and left to their homes.
Left to their homes? Actually the settlers were the ones who created most of the sovereign States in America /in the New World, with only some exceptions. The “Liberators” of Hispanic America (like Bolívar) were normally of European descent, & so were their political elites in the 19th-century.
America is a whole continent. Anglo-Saxons created the term "North" and "South" America to avoid any possible Hispanic American common denomination.
That is not correct. You are writing in English, therefore you are obliged to understand that America is synonymous with the United States of America in this language, while North America and South America are two different continents. This was very clearly explained in the video. Es diferente en español.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Hello Luke. I absolutely understand that "America" in English means "United States", I respect that and that's the way I say it in your language. But my point wasn't that, I was saying something that has nothing to do with languages, but with geography and geopolitics, and it is the fact that the American continent is just one. The Panama Channel didn't exist before, and it is not a reason enough to separate America in two. If America are two different continents because of a channel, a river, or whatever, then it should be an Arabian continent between Iraq and Egypt, and a Patagonian continent as well...
We can't deny that historically, the British and Americans didn't want an alliance between the Hispanics. "Divide et impera"...
All the best, and I hope you understand my point.
You can bring the same subject to people from Germany. Germans, Deutsche, Alemanes, Niemcy, Saksalaiset... anyways, you will find different reasons and it tells you a story. Being a Brazilian, I grew up having lectures about "imperialism", why Americans call themselves Americans and the moto "America for Americans" had to be a chant for domination over other [continental] Americans. Well, we don't really care, we have multiple synonyms for a chair - and this is the heritage of old roman dudes with a lot of time to think -, so... estadunidense, americano, norte americano, all of these are part of our lexicon without any intention to segregate, divide, get attention or anything. There will be some hysterical people saying "the correct terminology is:", but in reality, it has no difference. Unfortunately, I can't speak for our hermanos around our beloved South America, a sub continent of the Great America (we should call it Great America and end this worthless debate).
Here in Germany, we don't often use "US Amerikaner"... it's more common to simply say "Amis" (as a short form of "Amerikaner") for people from the United States of America.
On a related note, what I still find interesting is how different people talk about "continents" and assume that their idea of it is somehow based on scientific "truths" about the world rather than being equally as fluid and made up as the rest of our sociopolitical divisions. The only scientific approach would be to talk about the continental plates, but I've never seen anyone divide "the continents" up in the same way as the continental plates!
That’s absolutely right; such naming divisions are arbitrary. When I learned that in some places they teach only 6 continents I was floored, but that was just my own bias.
America is a continent, not a country.
An American is from the Continent of America.
Concise & accurate!
'America', in the official name of the United States of America USA 🇺🇲, has represented a continent for the past 247yrs, even 269yrs before the USA 🇺🇲 existed.
The Continent of America has not changed name in 516yrs.
As you can clearly see & read in the official name of the United States of 👉America👈, there's a continent named America but no country named the United States of North America & South America (USNASA) or the United States of the Américas!
Countries change their names officially, not by indoctrination or appropriation!
Incorrect. Stop projecting your cultural and linguistic concepts onto English. Or just learn English.
The United States of America was/is named using 3 English words & 1 Spanish/Portuguese word, *AMÉRICA* !!!
The name & term "America/American" did not change overnight & has *not* .
There's no country named America the country or América of the United States!
If America is a country *simply & lazily* by reducing the official name of the United States of America USA 🇺🇲 to just 'America' denoting a location, then that logic can be applied to the
Republic of South Africa 🇿🇦.
Congratulations 👏👏👏
Africa is now a country & 'African' is a citizenship.
But wait, if America is a country, according to *this* logic, places like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, etc., are in South *America* .
That would mean New Mexicans are also South *Americans* !
@@CaptainAmerica001 No, logic doesn't work. Republic of what? *South Africa.* United states of what? *America.* It would still be called _South Africa._
That logic doesn't dictate they're in South America. If it does, any country in the southern part of Africa are all South Africa.
You said you have logic, problem solving, and critical thinking, yet you can't even conceive of the idea that _South America_ doesn't refer to the south of the US, and Calling the US _America_ would mean that in the minds of speakers Texas, being in the southern US are on South America.
All you're showing everyone in the comments is you clowning yourself.
@kijul468
I know your logic doesn't work, it's *illogical* !!!
'America', in the official name of the United States of America USA 🇺🇲, has represented a continent for the past 247yrs, even 269yrs before the USA 🇺🇲 existed.
The Continent of America hasn't changed name in 516yrs.
In conclusion, America definitely is not a country or a nation.
Therefore, 'American' is not a nationality or a citizenship.
Anyone who uses these 2 terms as such is due to ignorance, conceitedness, laziness, stubbornness, indoctrination, and/or arrogance!
Furthermore, an American is from the Continent of America.
If America is a country & 'American' is a citizenship, then your logic says Africa is a country & African is a citizenship.
Same exact logic!
😎
I'm Puerto Rican and live in the US. Typically, I call the country "America" in informal speech in both English and Spanish (and the other languages I speak), and if I need to be more specific/formal, I'll say the equivalent of "United States (of America)" in those languages (Estados Unidos, Arcot HaBrit, Les Êtats Units, Farïnixte ẞtatn, etc.). However, for the demonym I only use the equivalent term for "American" and never something like "Usonian" or "Unitedstatian". I think ultimately it's up to the people within that group to decide what they themselves want to be called, and most Americans wouldn't recognise what you're saying if you asked if they were Usonian or something. Americans are also not saying that we're the only true Americans who live on the American continents, but that's just what our preferred demonym is, just like how Argentinans prefer to be called Argentinans rather than something like Patagonians (which would make no sense to them I assume), or Mizrahim preferring being called Mizrahi and not "Arab Jews" (which is both inaccurate and offensive, unless they are an actual mix of Jew and Arab, which does happen but isn't very common). Also, I've only ever heard of this standard for Americans, and never heard of any other national group constantly being asked to change their preferred demonym. It makes me wonder why though do some people get very angry at the usage of the term "American" for someone from the USA (and yes, I have seen people get really heated from this topic and insisting that those who disagree are wrong and dumb)?
I think you just found the perfect mic to capture the sound of wind. lol.
Lol
In my language we also refer the people of USA as Americans while knowing this term can mean all people of North and South Americas. However I'd like to thank you for the info about how this self-defined identity of "Americans" emerged, that it was a way how to unify people from various new-born states in before USA was actually constituted. This is very good point! Never thought about it in this way. I'm from Europe and I think we're on the similar way to declare ourselves as Europeans, just the progress is quite slow due the fact we speak many languages in many rather small countries.
It would be interesting to know if in countries that don't speak English or Spanish or Portuguese, textbooks talking about Columbus say he discovered America or Americas in the plural.
In Italian we say that he discovered “America”!
Once upon a time I got a little public street dialogue with someone who didn't realize the meaning of being an American. After hearing this debate of being the real American with others in the street. The question was reiterated "What nationality are you?" amongst the crowd. I replied "I am Vespuccian (or better Vesputian)"... the reply from them was "What?" You are what? I repeated the same. And they didn't comprehend. So I said if one was truly American, then they will ought to know what's Vespuccian or rather Vesputian which is better Latinate. So I will carry on this argument ad nauseam. Vivant Vesputiani semper!
Adding upon this thought. Columbia has a similar relationship with Columbus (Κολόμβος) cognomen with regards to the country in South America and also the Federal District in USA, etc. It was originally spelled Columbia in Latin maps and later Colombia in Castellano.
As a Canadian I really don’t understand how South Americans can call me American. I’m North American sure, but “American” is a nationality.
Quite so.
ua-cam.com/video/29g57XTYgLE/v-deo.htmlsi=wUEMfGj9V7kF-4z-
Can you please watch a 3min video?
It's titled, "I am not American" by the Arrogant Worms.
It's about Canadians knowing they're Americans & *wanting* to be called Americans!
America is a continent, not a country or a nation. Therefore, 'American' is *not* a nationality/citizenship, officially.
Furthermore, an American is from the Continent of America!
No need for cardinal points to tell me where countries are in America, do you?
I get it if you need to answer it that way for a test, but if we're in the habit of shortening things up, no need for the North/South, right?
Those crazy "South American" Canadians.
Greetings from the USA🇺🇸, fellow American!
Yo vivo en España y lo normal es decir americano. La palabra estadounidense no es desconocida pero se puede decir sin exagerar que prácticamente no tiene ningún uso aquí. El vídeo es excelente pero era necesario hacer esta corrección.
Aprecio mucho el comento, gracias
The name in English is :Turtle Island. A Dutchman from Vlissingen learned this name from the First Nations. Amerigo is probably from Gothic, an East Germanic tribe that occupied parts of southern Europe for a short while. There is a town in Germany named 'Emmerik' in my language. Probably the same etymology as Amerigo.
As a Dutch speaking Belgian, I have the problem that, because the country of the Netherlands claims the demonym of 'Nederlanders' and the accompanying adjective 'Nederlands' (Netherlandish), suddenly I can't call myself 'Nederlands' anymore, because that would imply that I'm from the Netherlands, even though I speak 'Nederlands' (Dutch).
For a long time, we Dutch speaking Belgians were called just that, Dutch speaking Belgians, but recently, we've started calling ourselves Flemings that speak Flemish, to have our own simple name, even though this Flemish is just the southern variant of the Dutch language. We could've simply just kept calling ourselves Belgian, though not all Belgians speak Dutch... Or just Dutch, but we're a separate people from the north... The bottom line is that the Netherlands was originally a geographical name, referring to the low lying lands of Northwestern Europe, and it wasn't meant to denote a people's nation or language group. My brain longs to bring symmetry to this whole situation, but it just seems impossible at this point...
It's all just a big mess caused by politics and time.
Bonus: Belgium is the historical latin name for the Netherlands, so in some way the Netherlands and Belgium are both called the same. At some point in time, Flanders was used to refer to all of the Low Countries (which in some languages like Spanish, it still is used in this way), because the historic county of Flanders was so rich and influential, much the same as today Holland is used by foreigners to refer to all of the Netherlands, even though it's only a small part of it (even Flemings/Dutch speaking Belgians do this).
Double bonus: the Dutch language originated as the native language of the Frankish tribe of whom its leaders founded the kingdom of the Franks, later called France. The name of course lived on in modern day France, but in a way, Dutch is the only survivor of the original language of the Franks, thus you could call it true French... Ofcourse, no one does this as the country of France claims this demonym, but in a sense I feel historically robbed of both the Netherlandish demonym and the Frankish demonym, leaving poor little Belgium with nothing 😂
In Brazil we consider that there is just one continent named America, from Alaska to Patagonia. But almost everybody call people from the United States americanos. Mostly because "estadunidense" sounds really weird.