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From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: "American" (Re: 'enry 'iggins in America)
Message-ID: <536@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 23-Dec-84 13:50:47 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.536
Posted: Sun Dec 23 13:50:47 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Dec-84 02:36:39 EST
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Organization: U. of Tx. at Houston-in-the-Hills
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> Now i'm curious; i guess that in S.America the common term for a citizen
> of the USA is 'Yanqui.'  But what is the 'dictionary' term?

In addition to "yanqui," a common Latin American Spanish term for a U.S.
citizen is "norteamericano."  Of course, this is confusing, since Canadians
are technically "norteamericanos" too. The dictionary term is "estadounidense."

Germans, by the way, also tend to ignore the rest of the Americas in their
terminology:  a person from the U.S. is an "Amerikaner," and the adjective
is "amerikanisch."  This has been shortened to the slang and somewhat
pejorative term "Ami."  "Yankee go home" in German is "Amis raus."

As a matter of fact, I suspect that most places outside of the Americas call
the U.S. "America."  I know that the Arabic "Alamriika" refers to the U.S.,
and something similar prevails in North Indian languages.  Of course, that's
no excuse for us in the U.S., who ought to know better, to do the same and
ignore the fact that our neighbors to the North and the south are Americans,
too.

Esperanto, if anybody cares, solves the problem rather logically.  A person
from the U.S. is an "Usono" and the adjective is "Usona."  (I'm not sure
whether these should be capitalized in Esperanto.)

--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle