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Exactly. That's what the title should be.
by 100pctremote 2y ago
Exactly. That's what the title should be.
- lotyrin 2y agoAre you really proposing that Native Americans are not Americans? Is the term "American" so stained by colonialist hate?
- renewedrebecca 2y agoIdk, seems like if you're already established somewhere and someone else comes in and tells you the place you live and your ancestors have lived in for millennia is now called "America"... Dunno, that feels kind of wrong.
- crazygringo 2y agoFirst, it's not "America", it's "The Americas" -- we're talking about the two continents, right? The New World? Second, that's the word we use in English. If you've lived here for millenia, you can use the appropriate word in your own language.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoWhether you count it as two continents or one depends on where you are from.
- mmooss 2y agoWho counts them as one continent? That seems hard to argue geographically. I don't think a land bridge prevents them from being continents.
- crazygringo 2y ago> The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Greece and many Romance-speaking countries—including Latin America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent?wprov=sfti1#Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent?wprov=sfti1#Number All English-speaking countries count them as two continents though. And in English, it's conventionally "the Americas" even if you believe it's a single continent. Kind of like, we call it the Bahamas, not Bahama, even though it's one country. It's linguistic, not conceptual.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mmooss 2y agoVery interesting. I can't check the Greek-language citations; I'd love to hear from someone who has lived or gone to school in one of those countries.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ltbarcly3 2y agoYou have to call it something. Place names are a function of language, not of genetics. In English it's called North America or South America, and together The Americas. In Chinese South America is "South Beautiful Continent". Oh nooo, I'm so offended that Chinese people have a name that I didn't agree too for the place my ancestors are from for the last 350 years. Someone give me some pearls to clutch.
- nkrisc 2y agoBut that’s what it’s called in English, the language the article is written in. Germans don’t call the place they live Germany. They don’t even call themselves Germans. But I call it Germany because that’s the English name for that place.
- hulium 2y agoMaybe their point is that they were native Asians and not native Americans.
- flykespice 2y agoTheir "point" was nothing more than repeating the colonialist propaganda that the real americans were the ones who ""settled"" later and named the continent. (ALso that is a so ridiculous reasoning, by that logic everyone is native african and not native <insert place where they genetically diverged and settled>)
- hulium 2y ago> by that logic everyone is native african No that does not follow, but the very first individuals who migrated to America (the humans this discussion is about) obviously were not born in America. By my logic there were no native Americans that came from Asia to America, but their descendants became native. Yes I know, very pedantic. I don't think there is anything wrong with the title.
- sieabahlpark 2y ago[dead]
- nkrisc 2y agoWhy? It makes sense to call the first people living in the Americas “American”, especially when talking about a time before even civilizations. So what, we have Asians, Africans, and Humans Living in North America?
- milesrout 2y agoAmerican refers to people from the USA. Canadians rightly bristle when called Americans.
- defrost 2y agoThere are multiple usages, specifically just citizens of the USofA is just one use. American, a. and n. (əˈmɛrɪkən) A adj. 1.a Belonging to the continent of America. Also, of or pertaining to its inhabitants. 1.b American language (usu. with the), (i) a language of American Indians; (ii) American English (see sense 3). Also American tongue. 2.a Belonging to the British colonies in North America (obs.). 2.b Belonging to the United States. 2.c U.S. spec. (See quot. a 1861.) 1837 Diplom. Corr. Texas (1908) I. 187 A large number of fine American horses‥which there is no doubt had been stolen from citizens of Texas. 1846 E. Bryant What I saw in Calif. (1849) iv. 37 Such [Indians] as rode ponies were desirous of swapping them for the American horses of the emigrants. a 1861 Winthrop John Brent (1862) ii. 14 He was an American horse,—so they distinguish in California one brought from the old States. 1878 J. H. Beadle Western Wilds, xvi. 253, I rode a good-sized American horse. 3.a Special Combinations. American bar; American blight; American cheese; American cloth; American dream; American English; American football; ...oadfoot et al. Billiards i. 41 In 1876 D. Richards‥ran second to Cook in an *American tournament. 1976 Cumberland News 3 Dec. 19/1 On Thursday, December 16‥a Christmas American tournament will take place. 3.b In the names of various trees and plants native to North America, as American arbor vitæ, Thuja occidentalis; American ash, Fraxinus americana; American aspen (tree), Populus tremuloides; American Beauty (rose), a variety of cultivated rose; American beech (tree), Fagus grandifolia; American elm (tree), = white elm; American plane (tree), the buttonwood or Virginian Plane (see plane n.1 1). B n. B.1 An American Indian. B.2 A native of America of European descent; esp. a citizen of the United States. Now simply, a native or inhabitant of North or South America (often with qualifying word, as Latin American, North American); a citizen of the United States. B.3 A ship belonging to America. B.4 pl. Short for American stocks or shares. B.5 American English; the form of English spoken in the United States.