Use of the word American
American, when used as an adjective, can mean "of the United States of America" or "of or relating to the Americas"; when used as a noun, "United States citizen", "residing in the Americas", or less frequently "US English".
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American in the Americas
It is widely accepted that American refers to citizens of the United States of America. The United States of America is the only country in the world with the word America in its official name. Several nations, including Mexico and Brazil, have the term "United States" in their official names. Also, the United States of America was the first independent nation established on the American continents so they didn’t have competition for the term American for many decades. Therefore, referring to US citizens as Americans is accepted as logical and convenient.
Since a few people from various nations throughout the New World consider themselves Americans, some think the common usage of American to refer to only people from the United States of America should be avoided in international contexts where it might cause confusion. In Canada, however, American refers to citizens of the United States of America only. In some contexts, one would specify North American, Central American, or South American when the reference is to a continent or region. Other residents of the Americas (US people included) do not feel such a broad sense of identity and think of themselves as citizens of their particular country, members of an ethnic group, or belonging to some other sub-continental entity. Many alternative neologisms to American have been proposed to refer to the United States of America, but they have failed to garner widespread acceptance.
While the use of American to refer to people and places elsewhere in the Americas was once fairly common in the United States of America, this use has declined in recent generations, to the point that many are uncomfortable with this usage.
American in cultural usages
Occasionally the word American is used as a synonym for Caucasian, though the US population is actually very racially diverse.
Some foods, such as hamburgers, are seen as American cuisine.
Some sports, such as baseball or American football, are seen as American, even though they may be played in other countries.
Some music, such as jazz, country music, or American folk music are seen as American, even though they may be popular in other countries.
American in other languages
English speakers most commonly use American to refer to the United States only.
In Spanish, americano tends to refer to any resident of the Americas and not necessarily the United States; English spoken in Latin America often makes this distinction as well. In Spanish, the normal term for U.S. citizens is estadounidense (literally United-Statesian). In the Iberoamerican countries, the use of americano (literally, "American") to describe a U.S. citizen could be considered culturally aggressive, because the word in Spanish habitually includes the inhabitants of the entire New World. In Portuguese, both in Portugal and Brazil, the term estadunidense is growing and it is considered more appropriate than the common term norte-americano (literally "North American"), as from a geopolitical view North America includes Mexico and Canada in addition to the United States.
There have been a number of attempts to coin an alternative to "American" as an adjective (a demonym) for a citizen of the United States, that would not simultaneously mean a citizen of the Americas.
Seeking alternate names
Some people would restrict the use of the word "American" to indicate any inhabitant of the Americas (which Europeans tend to consider a single continent, called "America") rather than specifically a citizen of the United States; and perceive the latter usage of "American" to be potentially ambiguous, and perhaps aggressive in tone or imperialistic, a rather widespread view in Latin America.
However, many in the US assert that the word "America" in "United States of America" denotes the country's proper name, and is not a geographical indicator. They argue that the interpretation of United States of America to mean a country named United States located in the continent of America is mistaken. Instead, they argue that the preposition of is equivalent to the of in Federative Republic of Brazil, Commonwealth of Australia, Federal Republic of Germany. That is, the of indicates the name of the state. In addition, other countries use "United" or "States" in their names as well. Indeed, the formal name of Mexico is Estados Unidos Mexicanos, currently officially translated as "United Mexican States" but in the past translated as "United States of Mexico".
Regardless, many question a nation's right to formally appropriate the name of a continent for itself, citing the fact that America existed long before the United States of America. Indeed, Amerigo Vespucci (who travelled extensively throughout the Caribbean basin) never set foot on present US territory.
One counter-argument is that the United States of America is the first sovereign American state to arise from the European colonies, and therefore is perfectly entitled to lay claim to this name for itself, although the appropriation of a continental name by a single country has no historical precedent. The rebellious colonies perceived themselves, in their quest for independence, as moral representatives of all the colonized European inhabitants of the continent. This view is evident in the name of the colonial allied government, the Continental Congress. Another counter-argument is that it is not particularly unusual for a nation or organization to name itself after a geographical feature, even one that it does not uniquely occupy. Ecuador is the Spanish word for the equator, which runs through the country of Ecuador, athough other countries also lie on the equator. In addition, the United States of America is not the only entity which shares a name with a larger entity, yet is considered more well-known than the larger entity. The City of New York lies within the State of New York. However, the term New Yorker is generally used to refer to a resident of New York City.
Most proponents of the "US citizen = American" nomenclature have no problem with the simultaneous usage of "American" as an adjective for all inhabitants of the Americas, and make the distinction between the demonym for a country and the demonym for a continent (or continents). They argue that there is no reason the two cannot share the term if it is used in distinct but equally legitimate contexts.
In other cases, the motivation is not so much political as it is academic, to avoid a perceived ambiguity. For instance, in legal circles a citizen of the United States is usually referred to as a 'U.S. citizen', not an 'American citizen', which could arguably apply to citizens of other American nation states as well.
The alternatives
Attempts to create such a name have failed to gain widespread use. Proposals include,
- Appalacian, Colonican, Columbard, Columbian (as in the District of Columbia), Frede, Fredonian, Nacirema, Pindosian (or just Pindos), Statesider, Uesican (pronounced [juˈɛsɪkən]), Uessian (pronounced [juˈɛsiən]), Unisan, Unisian, United States American, United Stater, United Stateser, United Statesian, United Statesman, United Statian, USAian, U.S. American, Usan, USAn, Usanian, Usian (pronounced [ˈjuʒən]), U-S-ian, Usonian (pronounced [juˈsoʊniən]), and Washingtonian.
References to these words have been around since the early days of the republic, but they are virtually unused and American remains by far the most common term. Usonian is used in architectural circles, and Washingtonian remains as the adjective for the state of Washington and the city of Washington, D.C..
In other languages, such as Spanish, American is more ambiguous. In the Ibero-American countries, the use of "American" to refer only to U.S. citizens could be considered factually incorrect and culturally aggressive.
Several of these terms have direct parallels in languages other than English. Many languages have already created their own distinct word for a citizen of the United States:
- United Statesian directly parallels the Spanish term estadounidense.
- Norteamericano (North American) is common in Latin America, but suffers from the same kind of ambiguity as American, since Canadians and Mexicans, among others, are also North Americans.
- In Portuguese, norte-americano is the most commonly used term. Estadunidense is gaining some popularity, specifically in Brazil, where its usage traditionally rises during times of tension with the USA.
- Amerikan, is a derogatory spelling, after the Franz Kafka novel.
- Usonian, from Usonia, a term Frank Lloyd Wright used to describe his vision for American architecture, homes, and cities, and used by John Dos Passos in his U.S.A. trilogy.
- The Esperanto term for the United States of America is Usono. This is generally thought to come from "Usonia". In Esperanto, one forms the word for a citizen of a given country using the suffix "-an" which means "member of". Therefore a citizen of the United States is usonano. (Such derived words are not capitalized.) Esperanto terms for the American geographic regions and people living of them are Ameriko/amerikano, Norda Ameriko/nordamerikano, Meza Ameriko/mezamerikano, and Suda Ameriko/sudamerikano.
- Usanian is derived from the Ido word Usana.
- Yankee is used all over the world but on occasion some U.S. citizens have been known to take some offense at this term, particularly Southerners (residents of the Southeast United States), who use "Yankee" to refer to Northerners (residents of the Northeastern United States), sometimes in a derogatory way. The Australian coloquial term for a U.S citizen is a derivitive of this and the term 'Yank' is common as is the term 'Sepo' (being cockney rhyming slang wherein septic tank rhymes with yank). Some Scots and Welsh use 'yankee' deliberately to annoy people from the Southern US who label them as English.
- In French, the nouns États-Unien(s), Étatsunien(s) or Étasunien(s) (as well as their respective adjectives, with the same spelling without the upper case letters) are gaining some popularity.
- In Italian the term Statunitense (from Stati Uniti = United States) is quite widespread, especially referring to sporting events.
- In German, US-Amerikaner may be used to avoid ambiguity or to be politically correct, but it may come across as pedantic if used conversationally. (Normally, German speakers just say Amerikaner. As in English, Amerikaner is most often intended and understood to mean "US citizen".) Ami is a colloquialism which unambiguously refers to US citizens. The German usage of Ami is akin to the Mexican usage of Gringo, in that it can be neutral, patronizing, or perhaps even affectionate.
- Pindos (or Pindosian) was born during UN operation in Kosovo. The initiators of this were Russian troops at Kosovo airport in Pristina. In some Southern Russian dialects pindos is a derogatory term for Greeks (which [greek] is coincidentally the ethymological origin of "gringo"). Some reports indicate that its use has spread beyond Russian troops and that its meaning has likewise spread, to refer not only to soldiers.
External links
- "The trouble with Americans" by The Guardian on the use of the word "American" meaning "US citizen" (September 7, 1998)