Talk:Demonyms for the United States/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Yankee?

In the US, Yankee is only referred to as a Norther person. It would be offensive to call any American not from the northeast a Yankee. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Repiceman89 (talk • contribs) 13:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Please see the above discussion. The article now indicates that within the US the term "Yankee" usually refers to someone from New England or the North. General discussion of the term yankee is better placed at that article.--Cúchullain t/c 14:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Recurring Themes Header

At present, the recurring themes header on the page reads:

No one disputes that "American" is the most common word in English for an inhabitant of the United States, and that point does not need to be repeated here. At the same time, no one disputes that "American" can also mean an inhabitant of the Americas and therefore of countries other than the US, and that point does not need to be repeated here either. The part of this article that covers alternate terms is concerned with this linguistic ambiguity and the minor controversy associated with it. This ambiguity does exist in English, even if it is more prominent in other languages. Whether you personally find these words stupid or offensive, or whether you think you've found a better one, is irrelevant to the article.

Now, it cannot be (legitimately) disputed that "American" is the most common English demonym for citizens of the United States. However, it most certainly can and should be disputed that "American" means an inhabitant of the Americas (cf. above for discussion of asking Canadians, 'So, you're an American?' or the cognitive dissonance of saying 'A Colombian is an American.') The header could be amended to read "No one disputes that américano can also mean an inhabitant of the Americas" or "No one disputes that, appropriately qualified, "American" can also mean an inhabitant of the Americas" ... but that's probably more objectionable than passing over the point in silence.

Proposed alteration punts the issue and reads:

Disputes and discussion about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of referring to citizens of the United States as Americans more properly belong at American (word). For this page, please note that whether you personally find these words stupid or offensive or whether you think you've found a better one is irrelevant to the article.

-LlywelynII (talk) 00:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's probably better.
A couple days ago I heard Canadians referred to as "Americans" on US TV without any qualifier except context, and it was clear what was meant. Didn't think to write it down! kwami (talk) 01:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Plagiarism

This bit of plagiarism was allowed to sit on the page for nearly a year and a half. Please keep an eye out in the future, rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

That's disheartening. Thanks for identifying and removing it.--Cúchullain t/c 15:28, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Ummm, not sure two sentences constitute plagiarism.--CAVincent (talk) 04:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
Of course it does, that is far to close to the source without identifying it as a quote. That kind of thing would get you failed at school.--Cúchullain t/c 12:14, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy?

There is a user who objects to the use of the demonym "American" for citizens of the U.S. My understanding of English as a teacher, and of Wikipedia, are that U.S. should be used for government and official things, and that American refers to the people and culture. I think Wikipedia sees it this way, and I have seen it but I can't find it. This user has repeatedly been asked not to change the perfectly fine demonym American per WP:IDONTLIKEIT, but they persist. Is there a policy I can point them to? --Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 13:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Both adjectives "U.S." and "American" are very well established in English, so both may be used on Wikipedia. It is highly unproductive to switch back and forth between two acceptable forms without good reason. Though it doesn't deal with this specifically, the principle of not switching from one variety to another is covered at WP:RETAIN.--Cúchullain t/c 13:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Article needs to be gutted

This article should approach the subject of its title and not diverge to recap (when a link would do) what has already been covered on the pages: America, American (word) and American. Its strange enough to have an ambiguous page name "Names for U.S. citizens" rather than "Names of Americans" , "Demonyms of the United States" or "List of Gentilics for the United States." This page looks doomed from its inception for being too vague, and self-important. The category "Development of the term" "International Use" and "Alternate Terms" all seem strange as category titles since they directly address the word American but the article omits the use of the word American in its title. Lastly the "Alternate Terms" needs a better heading than this, it doesn't address alternate terms, it is a compilation of historic attempts at alternate terms, none of which is contemporary. The whole article is sidestepping the usage of the word American for Americans, and rather than being an encyclopedic reference to American and United States citizen naming, its an article walking on eggshells trying to accommodate personal preferences of wikipedia users who are simply biased against it. --Extrabatteries (talk) 12:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

The title seems to be your primary issue. The article was originally located at Names of the Americans, to be consistent with our articles on such things as Names of the Greeks, Names of the Celts, etc. It eventually ended up here after a lengthy discussion (and a move war). The article is very clear that "American" is the only common term in English for US citizens; other than calling them fully "U.S. citizens", "citizens of the United States" or some such, there are no contemporary alternatives at all in common usage. As such any alternatives listed are going to be historical, colloquial, or just not widely used. The "international" section is intended to describe what Americans are called in other languages, which it does.--Cúchullain t/c 13:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
I understand that it sprung from similar pages like that of the ones you mention about the Greeks and Celts. The problem here is that by calling it specifically "Names for U.S. citizens" (vs something more broad) means the article should be much more specific as well. The page "Names of the Greeks" covers more than Greece the country, it is not an article for the "Names of Greek citizens" which would be a totally different article, similar to the "Greeks" article. I approve of the articles content, and I am not questioning its facts, you are correct in that my problem with it is mostly the page title and headings are too specific (page name) or too vague (headings), one which I saw you bettered already. --Extrabatteries (talk) 13:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Only for "citizens?"

Shouldn't this be Adjectives for U.S. residents? What about Dred Scott or Robert E. Lee? -Acjelen 05:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Overly technical. The US doesn't have slavery any longer and Rob't E Lee would correctly be described as a Confederate during the period when he wasn't a US citizen. I'm sure the distinction they're trying to make is with American Americans and foreign nationals, even if they should happen to reside within the United States. -LlywelynII (talk) 00:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Acjelen is correct; see demonym for confirmation that it's not a commentary on citizenship, but rather residence. This article should be changed to something like Demonyms for the United States. Feel free to submit a move proposal. -- Regards, PhilipR (talk) 18:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
But Americans abroad, who are not resident, are still called Americans. It's more like ethnic identity than either citizenship or location. — kwami (talk) 21:46, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
True, and residents in the definition statement of the demonym article is probably still too narrow. But it's certainly broader than citizens. So the title of this article is still too narrow. (I now see this topic has been discussed more recently below.) - Regards, PhilipR (talk) 01:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

American

This name has historical importance. It might offend a number of people in the Americas and they may want to be politically correct and get us to change it but that's more offensive. When we became American over here we were the only Americans known internationally. "Native Americans" were known as Indians and everyone else took the name of the people of their ruler. Canadians were British, Mexicans were Spanish, and Brazilians were Portuguese. There would be a shock if we demanded that Mexico no longer call it's citizens Mexican. We were the only Americans at the time. We chose our name. People decided to free themselves from Kings and now it's not cool?Serialjoepsycho (talk) 09:49, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

The Above is not written to confuse other editors that can not differentiate a factual statement from an opinion. I apologize for doing so. I'm sure that revisionists will eventually accomplsih their goals. The point is that American as the name for US citizens. America is embolden in our country name. Any discussion here on removing it or deemphasizing it is unfounded. There's no talk of making citizens of the Netherlands become Netherlandians. They are the Dutch. There are other countries with Dutch majorities. i don't see the talk of removing Dutch from Netherlands citizens. Talk such as this is very unbecoming of a encyclopedia.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 20:26, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Usonian

Read it's use on this page and then read it's use on American (word). On this Page it was "Popularized" by Frank L Wright but on the American word page it was simply created by him and it's usage is very uncommon. It also points out that their are no common Alternatives. It's interesting how it's written on this page. It's written almost as if people should consider using it instead of simply pointing out that it's one of many unused alternatives.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 20:45, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Gringo

Is a derogatory term against whites in some situations. It is a term that denotes English speaking foreigner. Aussie's, British, Canadian, and whom ever else are Gringos in Mexico. It's not a term solely for the US.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 20:55, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

  • in brazil gringo is a positive term..gringo = tourist, richest, blue eyes, blond, germanic/slavic/nordic/alp origin (english, german, etc), etc..

usonian?

the correct term not is usanian?united-statean/state-unitedean? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.48.244.22 (talk) 12:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Cognates section is wrong

While the Japanese may refer to citizens of the USA as "Americans", the Chinese and Koreans do not. The characters they use for the USA mean "Beautiful Country" and the characters they use for US citizens mean "Beautiful Country Person". Those are in no way cognates of "America". Tnolley (talk) 18:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually they are. The beautiful/rice character is merely a phonetic spelling of the stressed syllable me. kwami (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I think that is quite a stretch. Especially since there are so many dialects of Chinese. The Korean pronunciation of that character is "mee" and the name for America is "mee-gook". Nothing at all like "America". 128.183.188.224 (talk) 14:55, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
"A stretch" implies that it's someone's best guess. It's not: Chinese 美 mei is just an abbreviation of phonetically spelled 亚美利加 ameirika. You find a similar situation with California, 加利福尼亚 karifunia, which has several of the same characters (for a, ka, li/ri) and is abbreviated 加.
As for why the syllable 美 mei was chosen, I've heard it was because the 亚 a is barely audible in the pronunciation of many Americans ("mercans"). However, I'm guessing it might actually be because 亚 was already used for Asia. Note that Africa 阿非利加 is also abbreviated with its second syllable: 非. The literal meanings are largely irrelevant: 亚 for Asia literally means substandard. kwami (talk) 07:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
The character mei ( beautiful ) was chosen for the same reason that, in Chinese, England is the clever country, France is the lawful country, and Germany is the moral country. That is to say, no good reason at all.Eregli bob (talk) 13:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Although the 美 from 美國/美国 does indeed derive from the phonetical way to spell America in Chinese, the usage of 國/国 (which means country) creates a differentiation between the way the term American is used in Chinese and the way it's used in the other languages mentioned in the article (i.e. both to address the country and the continent). 美國/美国 could be translated as American Country (so a 美國人/美国人 is an American Country person), whereas for the continent, the character for country is replaced by the character for continent: 美洲 means American Continent (so 美洲人 means American Continent person). Therefore I would argue that the discussion above is not relevant, because all but one references to the Chinese language can be deleted, since they all state that the word for inhabitant of the country and inhabitant of the continent is the same, which is untrue. Only the last reference states correctly that Chinese has different terms for U.S. citizens and people from the Americas. So all in all it's already contradicting, so either the last one, or the other references should be deleted/altered. Right?:) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.172.210.253 (talk) 13:26, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Brazilian POV

First of all I have nothing against people from USA. I have relatives there, some naturalized and some really United Statian. The real problem is not politican either prejudice, anger and so on. The real problem is America isn't only USA, but Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and all other countries from our continent. That's why we preferer to use "United Statian" (Estadunidense, Estadounidense, Estado-Unidense). Mizunoryu 大熊猫❤小熊猫 (talk) 21:50, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

If you have any reliable sources which discuss that point of view that would be something good to add to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.111.196.82 (talk) 11:14, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Who'se "we" Mizunoryu? You and your brother. AlPA
I apologize for the confusion on reverting your edit. I reverted your edit because both the Spanish and Portuguese languages were already discussed in the first 2 bullets under "Other languages", so your addition was a repeat (both estadounidense and estadunidense were covered). Kman543210 (talk) 22:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I noticed that just now. No problem.Mizunoryu 大熊猫❤小熊猫 (talk) 22:37, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I am Brazilian as well and I disagree. I can affirm that the problem many Brazilians have with the word "American" is 140% motivated by anti-Americanism and silly pride. Mexico is called "Mexican United States" and yet we call them Mexicans, not Unitedstatesians. South Africans are morons, because Zimbabweans and Mozambicans also are South Africans aren't they? Yet who complains about South Africa? Same goes for Ecuador, the Equator belongs to many countries, Brazil included, but no one complains about Ecuadorians. Double, triple, quadruple standard! Once again: the problem many Brazilians have with the word "American" is 140% motivated by anti-Americanism, and this political motivation is absent from the article. 201.80.233.57 (talk) 01:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
If you have any reliable sources which discuss that point of view that would be something good to add to the article.--Cúchullain t/c 02:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Seconded. -LlywelynII (talk) 00:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe you 100% 201, thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.111.147.198 (talk) 15:36, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


That point of view is not only of the Brazilians but is the same for all the other Americans in the American continent! America is from Canada to Argentina and Chile... not only the USA! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.68.59.74 (talk) 16:07, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah um not really....South Americans are commonly refered to as Latin Americans or South Americans. People in Canada prefer to be called Canadians, call them American and expect an angry reaction. Mexicans like to be called Mexicans , North Americans is a way to generalize the residents of North America. But the people who live in the USA like to be called Americans not Statians or Uninians or whatever else you anti-American clowns can think of.Tra3535 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.126.244.74 (talk) 06:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

The real problem is that, in the English-speaking world, "America" is considered two continents: North America (from Canada down to the Panama-Columbia border) and South America. But, in the Spanish-speaking world (plus Brazil), they are considered one continent: America. So in English, the place is actually called "The Americas". Therefore, since in English, there really isn't a place called America per se, people are fine with using that term to refer to the U.S. Anyway, I've switched over to called the people U.S.-Americans. 184.152.66.113 (talk) 20:02, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Usonian

I've hidden the line about "Usonian" being the "most common" alternative. First, the reference given, to the "Concise Oxford Dictionary", is somewhat unclear, as there are several "Concise Oxford Dictionaries", including several on English usage. The one that is probably intended, the "Concise Oxford English Dictionary", does not seem to say that "Usonian" is the "most common" alternate term for "American", but I will check it again soon. By the way this is the only dictionary I have ever seen which gives "Usonian" as term for Americans rather than the architecture style of Frank Lloyd Wright. The major ones do not have it.--Cúchullain t/c 18:40, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

According to Oxford, that's only because it's updated more frequently. I only know of the citation second hand through an email from the publisher. kwami (talk) 18:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I will check the dictionary at my university's library.--Cúchullain t/c 18:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I took out the phrase "most common", which I don't remember being supported by the citation. kwami (talk) 18:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami and Cuchullain: Is it verified that Esperanto took the name specifically from Wright's proposal? See Wiktionary, quotation #1:

1905 July, Gaston Moch, “Vortaro pacifisma”, Espero pacifista: monata organo de "Pacifisto", volume 1, number 1, Neuilly-sur-Seine, page 63–64: 
Strange estas, ke ekzistas nenia nomo por la regnanoj de Unuigitaj Ŝtatoj kaj por ilia nacio. [...] De kelkaj jaroj, oni komencas, en Unuigitaj Ŝtatoj, nomi la landon per la nomo Usona, kunmetita per la ĉefliteroj de la vortoj United States of North Amerika [sic] [...] tio, kio koncernas la landon, estas usonian, kaj, simile, la regnano estas nomata Usonian. En Esperanto mi proponas nomi la landon Usono; la responda adjektivo estus usona, kaj la regnano Usonano. [bold in the original]

My translation:

It is strange that there is no name for the residents of United States and for their nation. [...] In the past several years people in United States have started to call their country by the name Usona, which is assembled from the initials of the words United States of North Amerika [sic] [...] what relates to the country is usonian, and similarly the resident is called a Usonian. In Esperanto I propose calling the country Usono; the corresponding adjective would be usona, and the resident an Usonano.

(Modern Esperanto usage does not capitalize derived demonyms, including Usonano.)

Also Usona in Wiktionary:

Etymology
An acronym of the United States of North America, a 19th-century name for the United States of America
  1. [quotations ▲]
    • 1898, “The Flaming Sword”, vol. 13 no. 33, page 9:  A St. Louis professor endeavors to invent a new name for the United States, a cabalistic affair, Usona, composed of the initial letters of the words United States of North America ; the people he would designate as Usonians.
    • 1919, Charles Alphonso Smith, New Words Self-defined, page 198: “As a matter of fact, the name Usona [...] was first proposed by a Canadian, James P. Murray of Toronto, in 1885.” (quoted from a letter in the New York Times, 20 July, 1918)

I don't have ready access to the OED online any more, and unsurprisingly no form of the word appears in my dead-tree Compact Edition [...] with Supplement or in the newer Compact New Edition, so I can't easily check the date of Cuchúllain's citation. Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 02:59, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

@Thnidu: You're right, there's no good reason to thing the Eo word came from Wright. Wright could as easily have taken it from Eo. More likely, both got it from other sources, perhaps not even the same one. I suspect that E-ists attributed it to Wright because after 1925 his was the only common usage of the English word, and people assumed that he must have been the source. There was another story about it coming from Erewhon that was similarly apocryphal.
As for it being the most common, I probably deduced that from it being the only one of these words in the COED. — kwami (talk) 03:51, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
@Kwamikagami: Thanks, comrade. I've adjusted the wording there (Names for United States citizens#Alternative terms). --Thnidu (talk) 04:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

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The continental divide

The real problem is that, in the English-speaking world, "America" is considered two continents: North America (from Canada down to the Panama-Colombia border) and South America. But, in the Spanish-speaking world (plus Brazil), they are considered one continent: America. So in English, the place is actually called "The Americas". Therefore, since in English, there really isn't a place called America per se, people are fine with using that term to refer to the U.S. Anyway, I've switched over to called the people U.S.-Americans.

(A little note here; in the "they're one continent, you idiots" view, North America is a big chunk of the continent called "America", going from Canada to the Mexico. South America is what us "they're two continents, go back to school"-ers call South America, and Central America is everything in between. Which is our definition, too. So if you say to a Costa Rican that they are in North America, you'd probably be lying. Or not. Or maybe you are. Or... I DUNNO, JUST DON'T... SAY IT...)184.152.66.113 (talk) 20:12, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

It's Colombia, not Columbia, cmon. Jcardosarr (talk) 04:43, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

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Anti-American POV

this page seems to be highly biased in favor of the probably small minority who complain about the term "American". it's also filled with weasel words ("some say that ..."). i tried to fix it up; e.g. its "other languages" section claimed that lots of other languages use terms other than "American", and then quoted a bunch of English slang words and terms from obscure artificial languages. Benwing 07:39, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Most people on Latin America complaing agains the term America, and Latin America population almost doubles the US population, it's biased in favor of the US minority
If you have good reliable sources to back up that POV, it would be great for the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.46.20.209 (talk) 23:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Considering that the predominant language of Latin America is Spanish (and in the case of Brazil, Portuguese), I don't see how they get a vote in what words English speakers are allowed to use or not use. No more than I as an English speaker would have any say in what Spanish or Portuguese words they might use to describe themselves. Nolefan32 01:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
This entire article smells of troll. I'd go as far as to nominate deletion. Silly pointless cruft poking fun at United States isn't encyclopedic at all. Sneakernets 04:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
disagree, the article is not anti-(US)american. it points out a legitimate issue of ambiguity of usage of the term. npov is on the side of acknowledging that. it is biased towards the US usage not to. Lx 121 (talk) 11:46, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Anti-(US)american*******That's funny. And the lower case *a* is meant as an insult. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.47.123.176 (talk) 15:54, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
This talk page has taught me a valuable lesson. I've been getting the impression on WP that silly paranoid nationalistic tripe is a product of the Balkans. It's eye opening, and not a little embarrassing, to see that this article—and even capitalization!—produces the same kind of knee-jerk reaction from US Americans as the Macedonia article produces from Greeks and Slavs. If ever we needed an non-biological illustration that we truly are monkeys, articles like this provide it. kwami (talk) 19:10, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Blow it out your ass Kwami. It'll sound much better. Anyway you're needed at the Anti-american Sent. Page. Some Asshole american is bad-mouthing those wonderful People that Hate him so much.
For readers who, like me, arrived at this thread via a mainstream media reference to Wikipedia editors squabbling over the term "America", I'd like to say something about the above comment. Please don't get the idea that this is normal. It's an unsigned comment by an anonymous editor. As a Wikipedia editor myself, I could delete it on the grounds that it is (in ascending order of seriousness) uncivil, vulgar, and a personal attack, all of which are violations of Wikipedia policy. However, I'm going to leave it because 1) it makes for a better squabble 2) it illuminates the nature of the dispute, and 3) it's been here since July 7, 2009. We don't delete all of these things, although maybe we should. Margin1522 (talk) 21:02, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Very good points. American is and always has been a demonym that refers to citizens or things from the United States of America. It has never been at all even remotely controversial up until the last decade or so when some Colombians, Bolivians, and a few others who like to hate on the United States needed to invent a new reason to hate them. This is completely stupid, as calling American things American in no way is meant to be chauvunisitic or dismissive of the fact that there is a North American and South American continent. It's just common usage. That's how language works. When I travel overseas (as I do 365 days a year) and people ask me where I am from, if I say "the US," "the States," "the USA," "the United States," or "Virginia"... outside of the UK and some Western European countries where they speak English well, most often I am greeted with blank stares or a "huh??" If I then say "I'm American," or "I'm from America," ... then... instant recognition. This is so dumb. Also "United Statesian" in addition to being a dumb and needless change is actually WORSE than using the term "American." As there is no other country with "America" anywhere in its name... but there is a United States of Mexico. Just cynical fabricated outrage. And the term in Spanish for an American is "Americano"... learned this from my Mexican Spanish teacher in high school, confirmed by my Basque and Uruguayan professors at University. Abandoning this term is a very recent trend and purely political. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.205.152.235 (talk) 10:52, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I arrived at this article looking for the word that a united statesian would use to call someone who was born on the american continent (the american equivalent of the denonyms "european, asian, african". I've only recently came to know that when people say they are "american" they mean to say they are a citizen of the usa or somewhat of a resident of that country, not even canadians. I am a native spanish speaker and, while the spanish term for american is americano, an americano can be a canadian, a us person, a mexican, a chilean, etc. (just like not all european people are from spain, there are other countries that produce european people). Someone born in the usa is a "estadounidense". I thought people form the usa would sometimes say "american" so that it was ambiguous that they could be canadians and they wouldn't get mugged or shot, like i imagine nazis in ww2 would rather say they were "european" and try to pass off as dutch or danish; or the japanese in the usa would rather say they were "from asia" than straight up identify as the enemy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 191.83.172.190 (talk) 19:21, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
So when Iranian leaders screeched out "Death to America!!!", who did you think they were referring to? Mexicans and Brazilians?? By the way, the most Americans would use to refer to people from the Americas is generally "Pan-American". BilCat (talk) 19:44, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Pan-American is an adjective, but it's not used as a noun in English, which pretty much lacks a demonym for inhabitants of North America and South America collective (or, any two other random continent pairs except Europe and Asia). Working on Americas, one finds "American" and "New Worlder" have occasionally been used, but basically there's no answer. It's like "What's the collective noun in Spanish for the people of North America and Africa?" WilyD 12:00, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
English is a very flexible language, and adjectives can be used as nouns when necessary. BilCat (talk) 18:45, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
" the word that a united statesian would use to call someone who was born on the american continent " We don't have such a word. For the very simple reason that we don't consider there to be an American continent. In the continental system used in the United States, North America and South America are separate continents and their demonyms are the obvious North American and South American. To try to get across how odd your question sounds, what is the Spanish word for someone from Eurafrasia? --Khajidha (talk) 11:37, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
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