Well, everybody born in the american continent is technically “american” too, including Central and South America. Is there a specific term in english for these people?
Edit: Thanks for all your answers, especially the wholesome ones and those patient enough to explain it thoroughly. Since we (South Americans) and you (North Americans) use different models/conventions of continent boundaries, it makes sense for you to go by “Americans”, while it doesn’t for us.
US-Amerikaner
US-Americans
deleted by creator
Technically you could shorten it the other way to Unionist. Which is likely to be confusing, but on the plus side might make some idiots mad.
Halfway-North American
I call them US citizens.
Yank
deleted by creator
KKona :^)
deleted by creator
The sovereign people of any nation have a right to call themselves what they please. People of the US decided on ‘American’ long before the Internet was a thing and Latin America people got pissed off. US intervention in Latin America is a stain in history, but this is categorically dumb. US citizens call themselves Americans because it’s in the name. Literally. Canadians don’t call themselves Americans and never will. This is dumb argument. Respectfully.
Y en español les decimos estadounidenses. Porque son los putos Estados Unidos, y se la calan porque los cabrones no tienen la decencia de ser amables con sus vecinos.
Puedo harcerte una pregunta? si eres de mexico, te llamarias americano? Querrias hacerlo? Soy de los Estados Unidos y no me importa si te llamas americano, pero no se por que querrias. Yo diria que “soy norteamericano” o “soy latinoamericano”.
(Lo siento si mi espanol es malo, estoy aprendiendo).
No soy mexicano, pero hablando en español, si (en los mismos contextos que un francés diría que es europeo, por ejemplo). América es el nombre tradicional del Continente completo.
I’m not Mexican. But in general, as I said in another comment, Americano is in Spanish a politically charged term. South America was plain America way before North America was a thing. American is used by the left for the historical reclaim of ancestral origins. American is used to impose USA cultural hegemony over the whole continent. It’s somewhat complex at times. But yes, if I had to contrast my identity against, let’s say a European, Asian or African person, I would refer to myself as American. That said, I would probably have to clarify that I am Latin American. Because of said USA cultural hegemony.
En español deberían decir estadounidenses, que es el gentilicio que tienen en este idioma.
En inglés es batalla perdida.
It goes back to the colonies. In the British Empire the continental colonies were “the American colonies,” so British subjects from said colonies were called “Americans” for upwards of 200 years prior to the revolution. After the revolution, since Halifax was the only major continental port that remained in British hands, it made sense to call its colonists something else, while those to the south retained the name “Americans.”
Conversely, the Caribbean possessions were called “The West Indies” or “The West Indies Station.”
US intervention in the the rest of America isn’t ancient history. It’s happening right now.
Canadians actually emphasize north American culture when they talk about stuff they’ve got in common with us as opposed to trying to make “united statesian” work like the Spanish speakers
No argument is being made in the post.
First off, this wasn’t supposed to be an argument, just a question. My native language has a specific word for them (and some other languages have too) and I got curious if english itself had such a thing.
Latin America people got pissed off
Maybe it’s because people say “America” and everybody instantly thinks of the USA, even though you’re just another country in the whole continent? For these people you are stealing the word “american” and changing its meaning. People from Asia have the word “asian”, people in Europe got “european”, people in Africa got “african”, but we? We don’t have a meaningful word anymore. And I’m not saying it’s your fault or even it’s a fault of your founding fathers. I’m just trying to tell you why these people get mad.
If most people say Korea they mean South Korea. That’s because North Korea is far less likely the thing to be referenced, so you need to go out of your way to specify North if you actually mean that instead of South.
Same goes for all kinds of things.
The Korean people are one, regardless of the political situation there.
Other peoples in the Americas have been denied even their right to call themselves part of the continent.
I don’t think anyone is denying them the right to call themselves American if they so choose, but as this whole conversation illustrates, the term is incredibly ambiguous. When the argument is that “American” could mean anyone from the Americas, that effectively covers the entire western hemisphere which is a bit nonsensical to me. The point they’re trying to make is exactly the problem. There are lots of Americas.
Frankly, I don’t understand why this is so much of an issue. There’s no continental culture and solidarity connecting the northern tips of Canada to the southernmost parts of Chile. Nobody is trying to erase a deep historical culture of America being one group of people. Why are these people trying so hard to create a continental identity that doesn’t culturally exist? I honestly think the point is to take the term “American” away from US Americans just because.
I’ve never heard of a person from Peru or Brazil or Guatemala deeply yearning to call themselves “American” meaning somewhere in North or South America, but refraining from doing so because they feel marginalized. Feeling marginalized isn’t why they don’t do it, they don’t do it because saying “I’m American” meaning continents is useless. You might as well say “I’m from somewhere on the west side of the Atlantic.” The term “American” becomes pointless if you mean it that broadly. Imagine someone from the other side of the Atlantic saying “I’m Eurasiafrican”. There’s no culture that connects all of those peoples, it would just be a pointless moniker.
Cool, but my Korean phone wasn’t designed by a company based in Pyongyang. And go ahead and ask a Canadian how they feel about being called “American”.
North American, Central American, and South American are all terms you can use similarly to European, Asian, or African.
Do South and Central American words not exist in spanish? Soy de Sudamérica. Soy de Centroamérica. As the other comment said, this question is not ambiguous at all. And I know why people get mad, they hate the US, which I understand because they’re assholes. No one will deny it. Ask any self respecting american and they will agree.
But with all due respect, this is a dumb ass question. Respectfully.
In southern European tradition (which ends up in Latin America), those are not continents but regions. America is the Continent.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent
Answer to the last part of your statement
Huh? That article backs me up?
Most English-speaking countries recognize seven regions as continents.
Different variations with fewer continents merge some of these regions
The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Greece and many Romance-speaking countries—including Latin America.
I’m sorry, I thought you were talking about the regions that matter. We already knew Latin Americans refer to it as one. Unfortunately, you have to convince Americans to change their adjective to whatever it is latinos prefer. Good luck with that.
Edit: if my point wasn’t clear enough, it doesn’t matter what romance language speaking countries call the Americas (North and South). You can see that from the same article you cherry picked the info you copied and paste above
Why are you arguing against yourself? In the comment I replied to you asked if we didn’t have a word for South American, and we do, it just doesn’t mean the same (edit: because those aren’t continents in the Continental model used back when the Americas were being colonized). I’m not sure what you’re arguing anymore other than trolling.
There is no continent called “America”. We have North America and South America.
When someone says “South American” I don’t think Alabama I think Brazil or Argentina.
The term “North American” is commonly used when you’re describing something that applies to both Canada and the US. Eg. “North American sports teams”.
We commonly use the term “Central American” when referring to Mexico, El Salvador, etc. because even though they are technically in North America there is a strong cultural divide, similar to how the middle East is technically Asia, but you’d never refer to someone from Saudi Arabia as “Asian”.
Mexico is also in North America though, not in Central America.
LATAM are usually pissy about the term “Americans” because the “geographical division” colloquially seem to be more of a third vs. first world division rather than a geographical division.
You can see how people from LATAM usually call themselves “americanos” to include everyone from The Americas, but Canada and USA think “North America” doesn’t include Mexico.
It’s understandable for El Salvador, but México it’s absolutely part of North America.
There is no such thing as “the American continent”. North America is a continent. South America is a continent. Central America is the region connecting the two. Collectively, these are “The Americas”, not “America”.
I cannot think of an adjective to describe someone born on a line extending from Anchorage to Cabo San Pablo.
Can you provide an adjective to describe someone born on a line extending from Oslo to Cape Town?
Which continent would central american countries then belong to?
To answer OP’s question, I’d say that US citizens are being referred to as “Americans”, because the name of the country is “United States of America”. Every other country on the north or south American continent has its own distinguished name, which can be used to refer to its citizens, e.g. “Canadians” or “Mexicans” etc.
Parts of Central America are on the North American plate, parts are on the South American plate. The dividing line between the two is the isthmus of Panama. Central America is a region, not a continent.
Similarly, Europe and Africa are two different continents, with the Mediterranean region between them.
I cannot think of a word to describe individuals from Europe, the Mediterranean, or Africa. I cannot think of a word to describe individuals from North, Central or South America.
That’s correct. Me neither.
I’ve heard “Usamerican”
Me too, and that they need more maps!
I mean you can try and call them by their state but really we’re just American. And we’re selfish enough we claim it exclusively and let other countries in the americas go by their country name or add extra details to the America term
To be fair, American is the most notable part of the United States of America’s country name. Calling them Unitedians would be silly, particularly with how prevalent ‘United’ is in full country names.
“American” is the official name, though throughout history attempts have been made to find alternatives. You can read more on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States
The only officially and commonly used alternative for referring to the people of the United States in English is to refer to them as citizens of that country.[18] Another alternative is US-American,[19] also spelled US American.
Several single-word English alternatives for American have been suggested over time, especially Usonian, popularized by architect Frank Lloyd Wright,[20] and the nonce term United-Statesian.[21]
Writer H. L. Mencken collected a number of proposals from between 1789 and 1939, finding terms including Columbian, Columbard, Fredonian, Frede, Unisian, United Statesian, Colonican, Appalacian, Usian, Washingtonian, Usonian, Uessian, U-S-ian, Uesican, and United Stater.[22] Names for broader categories include terms such as Western Hemispherian, New Worlder, and North Atlantican.[23][24][25]
Nevertheless, no alternative to “American” is common in English.[18]
Yankee (or Yank) is a colloquial term for Americans in English; cognates can be found in other languages. Within the United States, Yankee usually refers to people specifically from New England or the Northern United States, though it has been applied to Americans in general since the 18th century, especially by the British.[26] The earliest recorded use in this context is in a 1784 letter by Horatio Nelson.[26]
I might start calling Americans Yankees
I prefer yankers thank you very much
Do it, it’s probably the best option really. Feel free to call us Yanks too. Unlike the others proposed it’s one where any of us will know what you mean
If you call people in the Southern US a Yankee it won’t end well for you.
Some British guy said something like,“I bet the yanks won’t like that” (Whatever it was, I can’t remember). I replied,“Hell, the confederates won’t like it much either” He was very confused.
Anyone that takes offense to being called a Yank is someone that would’ve been happily fighting for the Confederates during the Civil War. So fuck 'em.
Not necessarily - there’s also a MLB team with this name, so folks from different regions of the US may get pissed off/confused.
It just sounds weird to me personally, but I know it’s not an uncommon term in places like the UK/EU & I don’t take offense.
Depends on where the person using the term is from I guess?
i invite them to travel to europe and try
You say that like I go outside
And Aussies take that another step further and say “Seppo” which is short for “Septic Tank”, which is rhyming slang for “Yank”.
You will almost certainly annoy or piss off some Southerners (Those of the United States south of the Mason-Dixon Line, that is), then.
So definitely do it.
I’m definitely going to start using Usonian. It seems the most natural. We probably can’t use Colombian because… you know…that’s a country already haha
Probably a good idea to put some distance between the US and the tainted legacy of Christopher Columbus, too.
It’s with a U, Columbian. As in Washington, District of Columbia. Not like that makes it a name that would stick anyway
Nonce term?? Does that mean something different where you are?
That sentence stumped me too, really weird wording. Apparently it means “rare, seldom used” in US English.
Edit: just checked Urban Dictionary and welp, I didn’t foresee the British slang meaning o_O
I’m british, so you can see my confusion!
I’m American, but I understand the slang meaning of nonce, and yeah… it’s a nonce term.
Usonian
obese.
The word I use most often aside from American is Seppo, which is derogatory rhyming slang (sep + -o, from septic tank → Yank → Yankee)
Look at all the seppos getting cranky at this one :) I just came in to post Seppo but you beat me
Frankly, I’m not seeing any negative replies or downvotes.
I’m a US citizen myself, though I live in and am also a born citizen of Norway. So being in basically a quantum superposition between being and not being a US-American, you could imagine that I’d have a bit of a specific perspective about the country, that would draw me to using words like “Seppo”.
I’ve heard this in Australia but nowhere else. Is this Australian slang, or does somewhere else use it too?
NZ and UK use it too. I think I first learned it from a Brit.
We Brits generally use Yank, but Seppo is more Oz than UK. Though Aussie slang does tend to catch on on over here for some reason…
If somebody called me a seppo, I wouldn’t be offended, I’d just think they were kind of dumb. It’s just too silly to take seriously as an insult.
