View source for Names for United States citizens

Different languages use different terms for [[United States nationality law|citizens]] of the [[United States]], who are known in [[English language|English]] as '''[[People of the United States|Americans]]'''. All forms of English refer to these people as "Americans", derived from "The United States ''of America''",<ref name="OED">[http://dictionary.oed.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/cgi/entry/50007152?query_type=word&queryword=American&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=y2PI-sG8bwf-18385&hilite=50007152 "American"]. From the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''. Retrieved November 10, 2008.</ref> but there is some linguistic ambiguity over this due to the other senses of the word [[American (word)|American]], which can also refer to people from the [[Americas]] or America in general.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=2yJusP0vrdgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Merriam-Webster%27s+Dictionary+of+English+Usage#PPA87,M1 ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage'', p. 87]. Retrieved November 28, 2008.</ref> Other languages, including [[French language|French]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Chinese language|Chinese]], and [[Russian language|Russian]], use [[Cognate (etymology)|cognates]] of "American" to refer to people from the United States, but others, particularly [[Spanish language|Spanish]], primarily use terms derived from "United States". There are various other local and colloquial names for Americans.

==Development of the term "American"==
The adjective "American" originally referred to the landmass known as the [[Americas]] or America. "Americans" originally referred to the [[indigenous peoples of the Americas]], and later to European settlers and their descendants.<ref name="OED"/> English use of the term "American" for people of European descent dates to the 17th century; the earliest recorded appearance is in [[Thomas Gage (clergyman)|Thomas Gage]]'s ''The English-American: A New Survey of the West Indies'' in 1648.<ref name="OED"/> "American" especially applied to people in [[British America]], and thus its use as a demonym for the United States derives by extension.<ref name="OED"/>

The [[United States Declaration of Independence]] of 1776 refers to "the thirteen united States of America",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/charters_downloads.html|title=The Charters of Freedom|publisher=National Archives|accessdate=2007-06-20}}</ref> making the first formal use of the country name; the name was officially adopted by the nation's first governing constitution, the [[Articles of Confederation]], in 1777.<ref>Articles of Confederation, Article 1. Available at the Library of Congress' [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=127 American Memory].</ref> The [[Federalist Papers]] of 1787-1788, written by [[Alexander Hamilton]], [[John Jay]], and [[James Madison]] to advocate the ratification of the [[United States Constitution]], use the word "American" in both its original, Pan-American sense, but also in its United States sense: Federalist Paper 24 refers to the "American possessions" of Britain and Spain,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa24.htm|title=The Federalist no. 24|author=Alexander Hamilton}}</ref> i.e. land outside of the United States, while Federalist Papers 51<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm|title=The Federalist no. 51|author=James Madison}}</ref> and 70<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa70.htm|author=Alexander Hamilton|title=The Federalist no. 70}}</ref> refer to the United States as "the American republic". People from the United States increasingly referred to themselves as "Americans" through the end of the 18th century; the 1795 Treaty of Peace and Amity with the [[Barbary States]] refers to "American Citizens",<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1795t.htm | title = The Barbary Treaties: Treaty of Peace and Amity}}</ref> and [[George Washington]] spoke to his people of "[t]he name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity…" in his 1796 farewell address.<ref>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp "Washington's Farewell Address 1796"]. From The Avalon Project. Retrieved November 10, 2008.</ref> Eventually, this usage spread through other English-speaking countries; the unqualified noun "American" now chiefly refers to natives or citizens of the United States in all forms of the English language. Although "American" may refer to all inhabitants of the continents, this is generally specified with a qualifier such as "''Latin'' American" or "''North'' American."<ref name="OED"/>

==International use==
International speakers of English refer to people from the United States as "Americans", while cognates of "American" are used in many other languages. [[French language|French]], [[German language|German]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Chinese language|Chinese]], [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], [[Arabic language|Arabic]], and [[Russian language|Russian]] speakers use cognates of ''American'' (Japanese: アメリカ人 rōmaji: amerika-jin), ({{lang-ru|американец, американка}}), (Mandarin Chinese: pinyin- ''měiguórén'', traditional- 美國人, simplified- 美国人) to refer to U.S. citizens. [[Spanish language|Spanish]] and Brazilian [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] use terms derived from ''Estados Unidos'', the cognate of "United States" – ''estadounidense'' and ''estadunidense'', respectively. Although the term ''estadunidense'' is growing in usage, in Brazil ''americano'' is still said to describe native Americans. These languages, especially European Portuguese, also use translations of North American: ''norteamericano'' and ''norte-americano''. The same linguistic ambiguity that occurs in English use of the term "American" occurs in the other European languages: to compensate for this, French (predominantly [[Quebec French]]<ref>{{cite web | last= Berankova| first= Eva| coauthors= | title= Quelle littérature pour le Quebec?| url= http://www.sens-public.org/spip.php?article402| date= May 20, 2007| work= | publisher= Sens Publique| accessdate=2009-05-06 }}</ref>) and Italian speakers may refer to U.S. citizens respectively as ''États-unien'' and ''statunitense'', though this is less common. German speakers may distinguish between "American" and "US-American" ({{lang-de|Amerikaner}} and ''{{lang|de|US-Amerikaner}}'', {{IPA-de|uːɛsʔameʀiˈkaːnɐ|pron}}). This confusion is also present in Portuguese, as people from the United States may alternatively be referred to as ''americanos'' in that language.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dicionariodeportugues.com/?busca-palavra=americano|title=O que é americano|accessdate=2010-06-15}}; see also [[:pt:Estados Unidos]]</ref> However, in Spanish, ''americano'' chiefly refers to all people from the Western Hemisphere,<ref>[http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=americano Americano] RAE. Retrieved March 31, 2011.</ref> and using it in the United States sense may be considered offensive;<ref>{{es}} "Pero debe evitarse el empleo de americano para referirse exclusivamente a los habitantes de los Estados Unidos, uso abusivo que se explica por el hecho de que los estadounidenses utilizan a menudo el nombre abreviado América (en inglés, sin tilde) para referirse a su país. No debe olvidarse que América es el nombre de todo el continente y son americanos todos los que lo habitan." [http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltConsulta?lema=Estados Unidos Estados Unidos (4)] RAE. Retrieved March 31, 2011.</ref> the ''Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas de la [[Real Academia Española]]'' recommends instead "estadounidense".<ref>{{es}} "El gentilicio recomendado, por ser el de uso mayoritario, es estadounidense" [http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltConsulta?lema=Estados Unidos Estados Unidos (3)] RAE. Retrieved March 31, 2011.</ref>

==Alternative terms==
The only officially and commonly used alternative for referring to the people of the United States in English is to refer to them as citizens of that country.<ref name="Columbia">Wilson, Kenneth G. (1993). [http://www.bartleby.com/68/37/337.html "American, America"]. From ''The Columbia Guide to Standard American English''. Retrieved April 27, 2009.</ref> "[[Yankee]]" (or "Yank") is a colloquial term for Americans in English; cognates can be found in other languages. Within the United States, "Yankee" usually refers to people specifically from [[New England]] or the [[Northern United States]], though it has been applied to Americans generally since the 18th century, especially by the [[United Kingdom|British]].<ref name="Yankee">[http://dictionary.oed.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/cgi/entry/50288716?query_type=word&queryword=yankee&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=870u-3SrWAT-7089&hilite=50288716 "Yankee"]. From the ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Retrieved November 27, 2008.</ref> The earliest recorded use in this context is in a 1784 letter by [[Horatio Nelson]].<ref name="Yankee"/> The word "[[gringo]]", often used pejoratively, is common in Spanish and has entered into other languages including English, in which language it is recorded as early as 1871.<ref>.  [http://dictionary.oed.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/cgi/entry/50098913?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=gringo&first=1&max_to_show=10 "Gringo"]. From the ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Retrieved November 27, 2008.</ref><ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gringo "Gringo"]. From dictionary.com. Retrieved April 27, 2009.</ref> The pejorative term "seppo" (from rhyming slang, septic tank = yank), originally mainly used in Australia, is also gaining in currency in the English-speaking world.
More generically, they may be specified as "U.S. Americans".<ref>''The standard dictionary of facts,'' Henry Woldmar Ruoff, Frontier press company, Buffalo (1919, entry for Robert Lansing)<br>''World Metric Standardization,'' Aubrey Drury (1922:455''ff)''<br>''ALA Membership Directory,'' American Library Association (1955:304)<br>''Monopoly law and market: studies of EC competition law with US American antitrust law as a frame of reference and supported by basic market economics,'' Jens Fejø (1990)<br>''A Dictionary of European Anglicisms,'' Manfred Görlach (2005, entry for "Yankee")<br>''Transcultural women of late twentieth-century U.S. American literature,'' Pauline T. Newton (2005)<br>''On the margins: US Americans in a border town to Mexico,'' Johannes Wilm (2006)</ref> Several single-word English alternatives for "American" have been suggested over time, including "[[Usonian]]", popularized by [[Frank Lloyd Wright]],<ref>The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' (1999:1580) gives the first meaning of the noun "Usonian" as "a native or inhabitant of the United States".</ref> and the [[Nonce word|nonce]] term "United-Statesian".<ref>[http://dictionary.oed.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/cgi/entry/50267808?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=United+States&first=1&max_to_show=10 "United States"]. From the ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Retrieved May 4, 2009.</ref> The writer [[H. L. Mencken]] collected a number of proposals from between 1789 and 1939, finding terms including "Columbian, Columbard, Fredonian, Frede, Unisian, United Statesian, Colonican, Appalacian, Usian, Washingtonian, Usonian, Uessian, U-S-ian, Uesican, United Stater."<ref>''[[Merriam-Webster|Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage]]'' (1994:88). First published in the December 1947 issue of ''[[American Speech]]''.</ref> Nevertheless no alternative to "American" is common.<ref name="Columbia"/>

Spanish and Portuguese speakers may refer to people from the United States as ''norteamericanos'' and ''norte-americanos'' respectively ("North Americans"), though these terms can refer to Canadians and sometimes Mexicans. The [[Real Academia Española]] discourages the use of ''americano'' or ''americana'' for U.S. citizen, and recommends the use of ''estadounidense''.<ref>[http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?origen=RAE&lema=Estados%20Unidos#4 Page at the Real Academia Española about U.S. citizens]</ref>
Many Latin Americans object to the use of the term "Americans" to refer to the citizens of the United States of America, finding it to be an appropriation of the collective pan-continental identity. However, this usage has historical roots.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Santos|first= Luis Claudio|authorlink= |coauthors= |year= 2006|month= March|title= American, United Statian, USAmerican, or Gringos?|journal= AmeriQuests|volume= 2|issue= 1|pages= |id= |url= http://ejournals.library.vanderbilt.edu/ameriquests/viewarticle.php?id=21&layout=html&OJSSID=4d93ed8e8b059174a7b4b41c3d215eff|accessdate=2009-05-04 |quote= }}</ref> Other languages which optionally distinguish the two uses include Japanese, French, [[Finnish language|Finnish]], Italian, and [[Navajo language|Navajo]]. Other languages, such as Chinese, [[Korean language|Korean]], [[Swahili language|Swahili]], [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]], and [[Esperanto]], have different terms for U.S. citizens and people from the Americas.

==See also==
*[[List of demonyms for U.S. states]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|2}}

==References==
*{{cite book  | title = Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage  | publisher = Merriam-Webster, Inc.  | year= 1994   | url = http://books.google.com/?id=2yJusP0vrdgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Merriam-Webster%27s+Dictionary+of+English+Usage  | isbn = 9780877791324}}
*{{cite book  | title = Oxford English Dictionary  | publisher = Oxford University Press  | date= June 2002    | url = http://dictionary.oed.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Names For United States Citizens}}
[[Category:American culture]]
[[Category:Political terms]]

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