Why USA people think that they are "América"? What do they call the rest of the continent?

2006-06-23T11:25:00Z

América is a continent with a lot of countries.
Whether usage of America or the Americas is preferred, American is a self-referential term for many people living in all of America. However, most of the English-speaking world (including Canada) uses the word to refer solely to a citizen, resident, or national of the United States of America.
But American is somebdy living in any of these countries. More than 30.
Various languages are spoken in the Americas. Some are of the European origin, others are spoken by indigenous peoples or are the mixture of various idioms like the different creoles.

Spanish - spoken by approximately 360 million in many nations, regions, islands, and communities throughout the two continents.
English - spoken by approximately 325 million people in the United States, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas, Bermuda, Guyana and many islands of the Caribbean.
Portuguese - spoken by approximately 185 million in Brazil
French - spoken by approximately 1

2006-06-23T11:41:45Z

In the United States census, millions of people describe their primary ethnic origin as American, particularly those belonging in southern states. This region has a high percentage of people who trace their ancestry to the colonial origins of the United States but often lack records of the specific countries of their ancestors' origins.

kamelåså2006-06-24T09:44:57Z

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Well.. the name of the country... is somewhat weird. And... by the force of usage, the rest of the world calls them "Americans". What other way can they be called? I insist.. the name of the country doesn't give us many options. Anyway, it is an ugly and ambiguous name for a country. It is "of America", because they were on the continent called America. If not... where do"Americans" think the word "America" comes from? Probably they don't even know.

greenlybuddha2006-06-23T22:11:52Z

We call ourselves America because it takes too much time to say United States of America whenever we are talking about ourselves. In refering to the rest on the Americas, we have several names. South America is just South America. Central America is what we call Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama generally. Mexico is called Mexico. Sometimes everything south of us we refer to as Latin America. And we just refer to Canada as Canada. When referencing the whole continents, it is North America, South America, or the Americas. Just like everybody else on the planet.

amalyn2006-06-23T18:13:49Z

Well the name of the country is the United States of AMERICA so I guess we just call it america for short? I don't know. The rest of the continent is either North America or Mexico and Canada. If it was Mexico of AMERICA I suppose they could call themselves americans too.

Sandsquish2006-06-23T18:14:25Z

We call the continent North America. America is a shorter variant of the name United States of America; it's a country, not a continent.

icemanind2006-06-23T18:14:00Z

USA Stands for "United States of America". Therefore, an American would be someone from one of the 50 states in the union.

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