Americas
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English usage
Whether usage of America or the Americas is preferred, American is a self-referential term for many people living in the Americas. However, much of the English-speaking world uses the word to refer solely to a citizen, resident, or national of the United States of America. Instead, the word pan-American is sometimes used as an unambiguous adjective to refer to the Americas.
In addition, many Canadians resent being referred to as Americans because of mistaken assumptions that they are U.S. citizens or an inability—particularly of people overseas—to distinguish Canadian English and American English accents.[47]
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Spanish usage
In Spanish, América is the name of a region considered a single continent composed of the subcontinents of Sudamérica and Norteamérica, the land bridge of Centroamérica, and the islands of the Antillas. Americano/a in Spanish refers to a person from América in a similar way that europeo or europea refers to a person from Europe. The terms sudamericano/a, centroamericano/a, antillano/a and norteamericano/a can be used to more specifically refer to the location where a person may live.
Citizens of the United States of America are normally referred to by the term estadounidense instead of americano or americana. Also, the term norteamericano may refer to a citizen of the United States. This term is primarily used to refer to citizens of the United States, rarely those of other North American countries.[51]
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Portuguese usage
In Portuguese, the word americano refers to the whole of the Americas. But, in Brazil and Portugal, it is widely used to refer to the citizens of the United States. Sometimes norte-americano is also used, but americano is the most common term employed by people and media at large, while norte-americano (North American) is more common in books. The least ambiguous term, estadunidense (used more frequently in Brazil) or estado-unidense (used more frequently in Portugal), something like "United Statian" or "estadounidense" in Spanish language), and "ianque"—the Portuguese version of "Yankee"—are rarely used.
América, however, is not that frequently used as synonym to the country, and almost exclusively in current speech, while in print and in more formal environments the US is usually called either Estados Unidos da América (i.e. United States of America) or only Estados Unidos (i.e. United States). There is some difference between the usage of these words in Portugal and in Brazil, the Brazilians being less prone than the Portuguese to apply the term América to the country. A well-known example of such use is the translation of the title of Alain Resnais' movie "Mon Oncle d'Amérique": "O Meu Tio da América".
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French usage
In French, as in English, the word Américain can be confusing as it can be used to refer either to the United States, or to the American continents.
The noun Amérique sometimes refers to the whole as one continent, and sometimes two continents, southern and northern; the United States is generally referred to as les États-Unis d'Amérique, les États-Unis, or les USA. However, the usage of Amérique to refer to the United States, while technically not correct, does still have some currency in France.
The adjective américain is most often used for things relating to the United States; however, it may also be used for things relating to the American continents. Books by United States authors translated from English are often described as "traduit de l'américain".
Things relating to the United States can be referred to without ambiguity by the words états-unien, étasunien, or étatsunien, although their usage is rare.
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Dutch usage
In Dutch, the word Amerika almost always refers to the United States. Although the United States is equally often referred to as de Verenigde Staten or de VS, Amerika only extremely rarely refers to the entire continent of the Americas. There is no alternative and commonly used Dutch word for the Americas. Therefore, in order to stress that something concerns the Americas as a whole, Dutch uses a combination, namely Noord- en Zuid Amerika (North and South America).
Latin America is generally referred to as Latijns Amerika or, less frequently, Zuid Amerika (South America).
The adjective amerikaans is most often used for things or people relating to the United States. There are no alternative words to distinguish between things relating to the United States or to the Americas. Dutch uses the local alternative for things relating to elsewhere in the Americas, such as Argentijns for Argentinian etc.
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Countries
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Overseas regions and dependencies
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Multinational organizations in the Americas
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See also
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Footnotes
- ^ america - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved on January 27, 2008.
- ^ america. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/america (accessed: January 27, 2008).
- ^ Brian C. Story (28 September 1995). "The role of mantle plumes in continental breakup: case histories from Gondwanaland". Nature 377: 301 - 309. doi:.
- ^ Land bridge: How did the formation of a sliver of land result in major changes in biodiversity. Public Broadcasting Corporation.
- ^ David S. Whitley and Ronald I. Dorn (1993). "New Perspectives on the Clovis versus Pre-Clovis Controversy". American Antiquity: 626-647.
- ^ Canadian Inuit History. Canadian Museum of Civilization.
- ^ Vinland. Canadian Museum of Civilization.
- ^ The Norse settlers in Greenland - A short history. Greenland Guide - The Official Travel Index.
- ^ Russell Thornton. "Aboriginal North American Population and Rates of Decline, c.a. A.D. 1500 - 1900". Current Anthropology 38: 310 - 315.
- ^ Alfred W. Crosby (April 1976). "Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America". David and Mary Quarterly 33: 289-299.
- ^ Henry F. Dobyns (1993). "Disease Transfer at Contact". Annual Review of Anthropology 22: 273 - 291.
- ^ Staff. A review of American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (by David Stannard), on the website of the Oxford University Press (the publishers)
- ^ Wyatt Mason, New York Times Magazine, 12/2/2007, pp. 11-13
- ^ Cartographer put 'America' on the map 500 years ago - USATODAY.com
- ^ Wyatt Mason, New York Times Magazine, 12/2/2007, pp. 11-13
- ^ George C. Hurlbut (1888). "The Origin of the Name "America"". Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York 20: 183-196.
- ^ Charles Burress. "Romancing the north Berkeley explorer may have stepped on ancient Thule", San Francisco Chronicle, June 17, 2004.
- ^ South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Antarctica - Travel.
- ^ Andes Mountain Range.
- ^ Rocky Mountains.
- ^ Appalachian Mountains. Ohio History Central.
- ^ Arctic Cordillera.
- ^ Interior Plains Region.
- ^ Natural History of Quebec.
- ^ Strategy. Amazon Conservation Association.
- ^ SRTM SOUTH AMERICA IMAGES.
- ^ Greatest Places: Notes: Amazonia.
- ^ Mississippi River.
- ^ Great Rivers Partnership - Paraguay-Parana.
- ^ CBC Montreal - Religion
- ^ CIA - The World Factbook - United States
- ^ The Daily, Tuesday, May 13, 2003. Census of Population: Income of individuals, families and households; religion
- ^ http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1348759.htm
- ^ Canadian Jewry Today: Portrait of a Community in the Process of Change - Ira Robinson
- ^ First Planeload of Jews Fleeing Argentina Arrives in Israel
- ^ Population by religion, by province and territory (2001 Census)
- ^ CIA - The World Factbook - United States
- ^ Islam and Christianity: Islam in Mexico
- ^ Portuguese Facts.
- ^ Now Bolivia Can Do Windows.
- ^ Bambi B. Schieffelin; Rachelle Charlier Doucet (February 1994). "The "Real" Haitian Creole: Ideology, Metalinguistics, and Orthographic Choice". American Ethnologist 21: 176-200.
- ^ Mike Gasser. A3 Languages cited in this book.
- ^ American Indian & Alaska Native Heritage Month: November 2003. United States' Census Bureau.
- ^ Burchfield, R. W. 2004. Fowler's Modern English Usage. (ISBN 0-19-861021-1) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; p. 48.
- ^ "Uso abusivo", numeral 4 http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?lema=Estados%20Unidos
- ^ "American." The Oxford Companion to the English Language (ISBN 0-19-214183-X); McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 35.
- ^ a b c "America." Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage. (ISBN 0-19-541619-8) Fee, Margery and McAlpine, J., ed., 1997. Toronto: Oxford University Press; p. 36.
- ^ "America." Microsoft Encarta Dictionary. 2007. Microsoft.
- ^ America - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
- ^ America - Definitions from Dictionary.com
- ^ Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas:Norteamérica
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References
- "Americas". The Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online. 2006. New York: Columbia University Press.
- "Americas". Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th ed. 1986. (ISBN 0-85229-434-4) Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
- Burchfield, R. W. 2004. Fowler's Modern English Usage. (ISBN 0-19-861021-1) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
- Fee, Margery and McAlpine, J. 1997. Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage. (ISBN 0-19-541619-8) Toronto: Oxford University Press.
- Kane , Katie Nits Make Lice: Drogheda, Sand Creek, and the Poetics of Colonial Extermination Cultural Critique, No. 42 (Spring, 1999), pp. 81-103 doi:10.2307/1354592
- Pearsall, Judy and Trumble, Bill., ed. 2002. Oxford English Reference Dictionary, 2nd ed. (rev.) (ISBN 0-19-860652-4) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
- Churchill, Ward A Little Matter of Genocide 1997 City Lights Books ISBN 0872863239
- What's the difference between North, Latin, Central, Middle, South, Spanish and Anglo America? Geography at about.com.
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External links
- The naming of America: fragments we've shored against ourselves by Jonathan Cohen
- Organization of American States
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