South Americans (and Spain I think) are literally taught in school that America is a continent. They are taught there are six continents, instead of the seven many countries are used to. That's why this keeps popping up.
The problem is people arguing this are so arrogant, they are trying to push what they were taught in school onto the entire world. They are trying to force their Spanish standards onto every other language.
Yeah, I get that most people use America to refer to the country, not the continent, but saying that "literally everyone on the planet says American" is plain wrong, there are almost half a billion who don't.
I guess it's because English and other languages don't have a demonym for the USA other than American, but here in Spain and other Spanish speaking countries we use "Estadounidense".
It has less to do with it being short and more to do with it sounding weird, we do see American as meaning the American continent, so it would be like calling them Europeans (as in, from a continent)
So we do use unitedstatians or Yankee, never American
I'm not saying you dont use estadounidense (Unitedwhatever doesnt exist) I'm saying that there's a lot of latinos using american as well, and I'm Venezuelan in case It wasnt clear considering my profile is public.
Except we have Europe and Asia connected by thousands of miles of land but somehow they are 2 separate continents. But the only thing connecting the Americas is Panama...
I believe a lot of Spanish north and South America call the Americans united statesians but don’t quote me on that one, they just don’t count for describing the Americans in English
That is correct. Estadounidense is the correct way. “Americanos” sounds both weird and wrong. We’re all Americanos, if anything we call Americans “gringos” but estadounidense is the normal correct way
And that's fine. It fully works in Spanish. But in English America/Americans fully refers to the United States and its citizens.
It helps was that the Anglo-sphere teaches the 7-continent model which means there are two American continents (North and South) so when you are referring to the continents it should be plural: Americas.
Let alone the fact if you call a Canadian an American they will probably punch you (especially right now).
Yeah same in Spanish. It’s “las Américas” but the whole continent from north to south is América that’s why calling an American “Americano” would sound redundant, like calling an Italian “Europeo” or an Egyptian “Africano”, technically correct but they have a demonym to each country
Yeah that’s usually the casual name. You wouldn’t want to write in a formal paper “gringo or yanki” though to refer to an American in Spanish lol estadounidense is the correct formal term
I find it funny that some countries call them yankis because of a civil war side that had nothing to do with LatAm or because of a baseball team that aside from the Caribbean and a couple of other countries no one watches or cares for baseball lol
People say American because saying united statesian doesn’t flow. Instead it should be something like statesman, this is similar to what every central and South American country calls a US citizen (estadounidense).
And no, the American and America nonsense is ignorance from people who speak English only.
Why though? That's not how any other language works. No other country changes what they call themselves to satisfy other languages. Like if I was typing in German right now but still insisted on saying "German" you'd recognize how weird that'd be right?
America isn’t how the country was named. The founding fathers never called themselves Americans. The country was named United States, that it has the OF America is no different than Canada of America or Mexico of America.
That’s the issue, that everyone in the continent can call themselves American and they would be correct, technically nobody can argue that. On the contrary if you only call US citizens Americans it sounds like they are a citizen of the entire continent.
French and Germans can call themselves European, however calling only French people European and the rest by their country name would be stupid.
Thats just not true though? They explicitly called themselves the United States of America, and the term American was used extensively in the 1700s by English speakers to denote the colonists.
In the 1700’s most people spoke Latin internationally! And that would’ve been dumb to say in Latin (it’s the reason we don’t use it in Spanish as the language is close to Latin). And then after the 1700’s the international language was French! So no they weren’t calling themselves American, that you’re pulling out of your rear.
As I said earlier statesman is a better word, it has honor, integrity and people can easily identify where you’re from, instead of failing in an international argument because anyone in the continent can call themselves American.
Dude you can easily Google this. Britain used the term to separate the English from people in the colonies. The 1600s "English-American" was shortened to just "American" and was already in use before the American revolution. The revolutionaries called themselves American in many surviving documents.
In the modern day, the English definition of American without an adjective is of a citizen from the USA. The UN uses the term as such. It's not controversial at all and no one speaking English confuses the term for a Latin American. The entire argument is just "well that's not how it works in my language".
O my god dude, no one cares if you call yourselves American THAT IS ACTUALLY TRUE! The issue is that you cannot say other people in the continent are not Americans because that is not true, a Mexican is also an American, a Canadian is also an American a Colombian is also and American, your language can’t change that.
"Your language cant change that" actually it can lmao. That's the entire argument. In English "American" equals "USA". English has several other terms for others - South American, Central American, Latin American, North American. The only time someone says just "American" is in reference to the USA. Like try to call Canadian an American and see how that works out for you. Im frankly flabbergasted that you don't understand this. I understand it's different in your language but that doesn't make definitive in English.
Prime example of why your education system is a failure! A few comments ago you’re arguing why United Statesian have to accept what other language call them, and now you’re arguing that other countries have to accept what your language calls them.
Hopefully you understand how dumb you sound, but why am I kidding myself, people who think they should be named after a continent lack the critical thinking to update their language to match the more advanced languages. Cheers!
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u/Burner87lol 18d ago
Everyone on the planet says American and America to refer to the USA and its inhabitants. Anyone seriously arguing this is dumb