1w ago

What efforts would it take to strip the name Americans from the folks inhabiting the US?

They should be called United Statesians in English. I know États-Uniens is the official name in French.

What is it in other langages? How can we promote such use?

Why am I asking? The US administration is currently a disgrace on the world stage, and I am thinking how it unjustly hurts people from the rest of the American continent.

32 comments

"americans" is a bad name but it's more specific than "united statesians". But I would fully support dissolving that country and founding a new one (or multiple) with a better name.
- I'm not OP. As someone whose native language isn't English, I agree with OP that something like "united statesians" would be more specific than just "american" to refer to someone belonging to the US. A united statesian would be only from US, whereas someone just american could be referring to anyone in the American continent - both North and South.
  And that's exactly how Spanish language deals with the issue. Native Spanish speakers understand that colloquially, american means someone from US and wouldn't call a Canadian or a Brazilian an American. However it does lend itself to confusion, it is a question often raised by children when learning adjectives, and as far as adjectives go, things other than people (animals for example) usually follow the regular rules of language. Finally, Spanish speakers also say "united statesians" ( * estadounidense* ) instead of "american" when referring to people living in US.
  
  There are other united states than the United States of America, for example The United Mexican States (Mexico)
  
  Mexicans call themselves mexicans in Spanish, and refer to their country as just Mexico even if it is formally " united mexican states". Also note is "mexican" and doesn't say "american" anywhere, so I still don't see where the confusion would be, at least not in Spanish language ( which mexicans also speak). The only country in the world that refers to itself as a continent (that also comprises other countries) both formally and colloquially is USA.
  Edit: "that also comprises other countries" because yes Australia fits the bill.
  
  I've not known any USA residents that call the continent as "America". Instead, the continent -- which in this case basically just means USA + Canada -- would be "North America". And if they meant the whole post-1490s "New World", it would be "The Americas" for both North and South America together.
  
  Agree, I also don't know of any USA residents doing so. But outside it's a very different story especially in places where the language isn't English.
  What is the demonym for something that can be found or belongs to "The Americas", comprising both North and South America (and potentially Central if you go by the Three Americas way of splitting the continent)?
  Why is it that you have terms such as "North American" to describe something related to USA+anything north in the continent, then you have another term such as "South American" for anything Mexico and south of it in the continent, but when you say American , that's right, the generic one that doesn't specify and encompasses it all then it is presumed to be exclusively USA? I understand the history that explains that, but as far as semantics go, it's still a legitimate question. Languages other than English have different answers for it.
  
  But outside it's a very different story especially in places where the language isn't English.
  What is the demonym for something that can be found or belongs to "The Americas", comprising both North and South America (and potentially Central if you go by the Three Americas way of splitting the continent)?
  This is a fair question, and I suspect there simply is no generally accepted demonym in English. One could be introduced, but contrast that fairly simple exercise with the replacement of the broadly-recognized demonym for USA residents: "American". Quickly, it becomes apparent that replacement is far harder than introducing a new demonym, even if the to-be-replaced demonym itself isn't very logical within the English language.
  English is the same language that calls people from Deutschland as "German", and then American English specifically might also call them "Dutch", as in, the Pennsylvania Dutch, whom immigrated from Germany. Consistency is not strong in the English language, even over only a few hundred years.
  
  Australia.
  
  True but it has no other countries in it. Which is the whole point OP is making.

32 comments