From Spain here, when we want to speak about USA people we use the term “yankee” or “gringo” rather than “american” cause our americans arent from USA, that terms are correct or mean other things?
From Spain here, when we want to speak about USA people we use the term “yankee” or “gringo” rather than “american” cause our americans arent from USA, that terms are correct or mean other things?
Do you not have a term in Spanish?
If y’all use yank, yankee, or gringo, they’re all fine.
But, American is fine too. If you’re using English, everyone will know what you mean. It isn’t like it hasn’t been the term used in English for at least a century.
Here the thing. If you’re referring to someone from one of the two/three americas, you specify north, central and south. That depends a little on whether you consider all three as discrete areas, or not, but that’s the norm in English.
If you want to refer to all people from the americas at once, Americans is also fine. Context will carry which way you’re using it. English is fairly easy to make contextual indicators like that.
An example: “oh, Americans love their flag”. Which americans are we talking about? The ones with a specific American flag. Which, the statement isn’t universally true, it’s just an example.
If you aren’t using English, it doesn’t matter at all, use whatever terminology is the norm in that language.
The reason it doesn’t matter is that there really isn’t an “American” people in the continental sense. The cultures of the continents don’t even have a unifying effect, though you do have some connection between Spanish speaking vs Portuguese, vs native, vs English, etc. The language links in South America are much more significant than the fact that they live on the same continent.
Any time you’d be referring to the entire Americas, or the peoples of them, you’d specify that because there’s not a single American continent.
One nation out of all of them being america really isn’t a difficulty in conversation. It’s a non issue.
Most americans, the majority of whom don’t live in the US, dislike the usurpation of that term. There’s a longer history starting in the late 1800s of US politicians using “america”, “greater america”, to coincide with its imperial ambitions in Latin america and the carribean.
The USA even had a time when it had more people in its colonies living outside its contiguous borders, than it did inside.
There’s a lot on this in the book, how to hide an empire.
Gonna stop you right there. The number of Americans who don’t live in in the US is tiny.
“American” is the demonym for someone from the United States of America. You don’t have to like it, but that’s the way it’s been in the English language for hundreds of years, and getting angry about it doesn’t change linguistics, which is defined by usage.
English speakers don’t recognise the Americas as a single continent, but as two separate continents separated by the isthmus of Panama. So it doesn’t make sense to have a single demonym to refer to everyone from those two continents.
The arrogance of some Spanish speakers of thinking they have the right to dictate the English language is astounding. And I refuse to buy into it. I’m not coming into Spanish-speaking spaces and trying to change how they talk about things in their language.