The United States is the only country in the world that does not have a gentile for itself. They call themselves citizens of the continent that they share with other countries, seeming to appropriate the entire continent.
It’s one of those things that made sense at the time, but looks a little weird if you don’t account for the history.
Folks living in the British colonies wanted to differentiate themselves from the English, so they called themselves “Americans” because they were in the “American colonies.”
The name stuck after the colonies became the United States.
But the same did not happen in the Spanish or French colonies, or even in other English colonies such as Canada or Belize. It is still weird and pretentious
The hostility with England has a big role in “American” sticking. It used to be a general term for any European colonist coming over to the Americas, but when British colonists started getting more and more pissed at the homeland, they started embracing that general term more and more.
This stuff always looks a little weird in a vacuum, but if you playback the tape and get familiar with the history, it makes a lot more sense.
I like the spanish demonym for those of us from the United States: estadounidense. If you were to translate it literally it’d be like unitedstatesian, like brazilian (braziliense)
This is a really extreme example of something Ive noticed lately about accents transcending languages. Like people have a tendency to maintain certain aspects of accents even when speaking a different language than where the accent derived from.
For example, the new pope yesterday speaking Italian still had Chicagoan inflections when speaking Italian. I once dated a girl from South America who was ethnically entirely Italian, and she spoke Spanish but with a northern Italian accent. Her Mom did too but it far more noticeably.
Rural American people completely ignoring the pronunciation of Spanish words and having thick drawl is virtually the same thing, but stupider
It’s not always the case that you have the same accent in a different language. That guy is extreme to the point of caricature. I’ve been told I sound argentinian when I speak spanish yet I’m a new englander who learned spanish in colombia.
Of course not everyone is that way! Personally when I speak Spanish I sound nothing like when I speak English, and if anything my accent more closely follows the accent of whoever taught me the word, plus probably some of just my own inflection added in (but not in the accent of my English).
It makes sense to me that if you learned Spanish in Colombia that you could sound Argentinian based on your Colombian learning plus your own inflection. It would make sense for it to sound like a different South American accent.
My Spanish is kind of jumbled between Northern Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Spanish all being fairly diverse from each other, and thus getting very different lessons from different native speakers lol
Its just fascinating to me that some people dont and some do take on inflections that match how they speak their native language. I imagine it has something to do with how the information is stored in the brain. Perhaps those of us that tend to pick up accents and inflections better as adults still have some neural plasticity or strength in the areas that we use to develop a native language
At the time it was the only “country” on the continent. There were people actually arguing for not including the “of America” too, so it would just be “United States”
It makes a lot more sense if you look back at what the colonies were called when the name was adopted. It’s really just a holdover from a naming solution that wasn’t very weird during the time that it was introduced. Language evolves in weird and funky ways.
The United States is the only country in the world that does not have a gentile for itself. They call themselves citizens of the continent that they share with other countries, seeming to appropriate the entire continent.
It’s one of those things that made sense at the time, but looks a little weird if you don’t account for the history.
Folks living in the British colonies wanted to differentiate themselves from the English, so they called themselves “Americans” because they were in the “American colonies.”
The name stuck after the colonies became the United States.
But the same did not happen in the Spanish or French colonies, or even in other English colonies such as Canada or Belize. It is still weird and pretentious
The hostility with England has a big role in “American” sticking. It used to be a general term for any European colonist coming over to the Americas, but when British colonists started getting more and more pissed at the homeland, they started embracing that general term more and more.
This stuff always looks a little weird in a vacuum, but if you playback the tape and get familiar with the history, it makes a lot more sense.
I like the spanish demonym for those of us from the United States: estadounidense. If you were to translate it literally it’d be like unitedstatesian, like brazilian (braziliense)
Same thing in French : États uniens, États uniennes
So do French call themselves Republicans instead of French?
Id love to hear someone from Kentucky take a crack at that one
Oh god, I’m not sure I’d be able to keep a straight face if someone pronounced that with a southern drawl.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Xe2MbMxuUuY
This is a really extreme example of something Ive noticed lately about accents transcending languages. Like people have a tendency to maintain certain aspects of accents even when speaking a different language than where the accent derived from.
For example, the new pope yesterday speaking Italian still had Chicagoan inflections when speaking Italian. I once dated a girl from South America who was ethnically entirely Italian, and she spoke Spanish but with a northern Italian accent. Her Mom did too but it far more noticeably.
Rural American people completely ignoring the pronunciation of Spanish words and having thick drawl is virtually the same thing, but stupider
It’s not always the case that you have the same accent in a different language. That guy is extreme to the point of caricature. I’ve been told I sound argentinian when I speak spanish yet I’m a new englander who learned spanish in colombia.
Of course not everyone is that way! Personally when I speak Spanish I sound nothing like when I speak English, and if anything my accent more closely follows the accent of whoever taught me the word, plus probably some of just my own inflection added in (but not in the accent of my English).
It makes sense to me that if you learned Spanish in Colombia that you could sound Argentinian based on your Colombian learning plus your own inflection. It would make sense for it to sound like a different South American accent.
My Spanish is kind of jumbled between Northern Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Spanish all being fairly diverse from each other, and thus getting very different lessons from different native speakers lol
Its just fascinating to me that some people dont and some do take on inflections that match how they speak their native language. I imagine it has something to do with how the information is stored in the brain. Perhaps those of us that tend to pick up accents and inflections better as adults still have some neural plasticity or strength in the areas that we use to develop a native language
This dude was just doing it for fun - I’m fairly certain.
Esta-dooni-dense
At the time it was the only “country” on the continent. There were people actually arguing for not including the “of America” too, so it would just be “United States”
It’s a very American thing to do.
It makes a lot more sense if you look back at what the colonies were called when the name was adopted. It’s really just a holdover from a naming solution that wasn’t very weird during the time that it was introduced. Language evolves in weird and funky ways.
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