Comment on How do you call someone born in the US besides "American"?
valveman@lemmy.eco.br 8 months agoFirst off, this wasn’t supposed to be an argument, just a question. My native language has a specific word for them (and some other languages have too) and I got curious if english itself had such a thing.
Latin America people got pissed off
Maybe it’s because people say “America” and everybody instantly thinks of the USA, even though you’re just another country in the whole continent? For these people you are stealing the word “american” and changing its meaning. People from Asia have the word “asian”, people in Europe got “european”, people in Africa got “african”, but we? We don’t have a meaningful word anymore. And I’m not saying it’s your fault or even it’s a fault of your founding fathers. I’m just trying to tell you why these people get mad.
If most people say Korea they mean South Korea. That’s because North Korea is far less likely the thing to be referenced, so you need to go out of your way to specify North if you actually mean that instead of South.
Same goes for all kinds of things.
Do South and Central American words not exist in spanish? Soy de Sudamérica. Soy de Centroamérica. As the other comment said, this question is not ambiguous at all. And I know why people get mad, they hate the US, which I understand because they’re assholes. No one will deny it. Ask any self respecting american and they will agree.
But with all due respect, this is a dumb ass question. Respectfully.
In southern European tradition (which ends up in Latin America), those are not continents but regions. America is the Continent.
Huh? That article backs me up?
Most English-speaking countries recognize seven regions as continents.
Different variations with fewer continents merge some of these regions
The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Greece and many Romance-speaking countries—including Latin America.
nathris@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
There is no continent called “America”. We have North America and South America.
When someone says “South American” I don’t think Alabama I think Brazil or Argentina.
The term “North American” is commonly used when you’re describing something that applies to both Canada and the US. Eg. “North American sports teams”.
We commonly use the term “Central American” when referring to Mexico, El Salvador, etc. because even though they are technically in North America there is a strong cultural divide, similar to how the middle East is technically Asia, but you’d never refer to someone from Saudi Arabia as “Asian”.
Granixo@feddit.cl 8 months ago
It’s understandable for El Salvador, but México it’s absolutely part of North America.