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land mass? population? stats?
THE NAME OF THE CONTINENT IS 'AMERICA', NOT 'THE AMERICAS'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.40.163.80 ( talk) 19:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps someone can find a map/image of the hemesphere that doesn't cut off the top third of Canada? -- Infrogmation 18:59, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I just went through the article again changing all the uses of "words as words" to italics and removing "quotes". This is done for clarity and readability, as per the Wikipedia: Manual of Style:
Please stop changing this. Ortolan88 16:28, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Doesn't seem to pass the "capitalised The in running text" test; naming conventions would seem to apply. Alai 02:52, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. violet/riga (t) 12:32, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yaddar 19:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC) The fact of Europe and Asia sharing a condition of 2 separate continents is a grandfathered term since Ancient Europeans didn't knew most of Asia actually existed... (see history of Eurasia here in wikipedia). In the case of the American Continent, it was recognized as a whole NEW LANDMASS for the Spanish, Portuguesse and Italian Sailors, thus people of the time named WHOLE NEW CONTINENT "America" (and then, the origin of the word would be that of an Italian Sailor)
And besides the US schools, in the vast rest of the world out there America is seen as a one Continent, with two subcontinents((North America and South America); or 4 Geographical Regions (North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean) or 2 Cultural Regions (Latin America and Anglo-saxon America, -Instead of "North America and Latin America" since we are talking about the LINGUISTIC origins of their population-)
So, the United States are the ONLY ONES who teach America the continent as plural and its in order to know if they are talking about the continent or their country... NOT because there are acctually TWO AMERICAS... "Americas" then would be a Regional terminology ruled by USAGE IN THE US and not for any Geographical nor Historical condition. (not the same as Europe and Asia, whose terminology comes across a Granfathered Historical condition).
Sice then we don't Speak of "Two Asias"... we don not say we have the Far East continent and the Middle East continent... we DO call them 'Geographical Regions'... North Amercia and South America aren't Continents, they are Subcontinents.
The following was previously by itself toward the top of the talk page without a heading. I've moved it here. For what it's worth, Central America is not a continent, and National Geographic does not recognize it as one. I believe it is more of a cultural division. Additionally, please sign comments in the future. If nothing else, it makes the flow of conversation much clearer. --
Dpark 00:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It is true that, as the article states, most references in English describe North America and South America as two continents. This article is a reference in English; why doesn't it do the same? It is confusing for the article to begin "The Americas is an alternative name in the English language for the continent of America," when for the typical reader the Americas are two continents.
AJD 20:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm not especially interested in trying to find a single theory for Wikipedia to put forward, at least not if there isn't a single widely accepted one, but the last sentence in this one strikes me as very, very odd:
Yet another theory states that Vespucci named America after Amorica, the continent of ancient Greek and Roman myth. It is assumed that the Italian Vespucci would have been familiar with Roman myth. Early explorers often believed they were rediscovering islands and continents of myth or religion, such as the idea that South America was the Garden of Eden or 'Earthly Paradise'. After Vespucci's death, people forgot where the name America came from, so they changed his name to Amerigo to explain the naming of America.
Is there any question of Vespucci's first name? If not, that last sentence is very strange, and extremely misleading. If so, then it's still very strange, and needs to be explained. Comments? -- Dpark 00:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I just changed Muke's edit again. I hope this doesn't turn into an edit war, but I feel confident enough to do the edit. First, the ambiguity was already stated in the same sentence and the link only pointed to a dictionary entry that also just restates what the sentence already states. I agree with changing 'politically charged' to 'politically incorrect' (though I'm not sure if the incorrectness is political - it's a geographical issue isn't it?). But I think I can safely state that calling the USA America is incorrect. DirkvdM July 6, 2005 07:56 (UTC)
TO: Muke Tever You need to read more. The name of the city is NOT Mexico, but Ciudad de México in Spanish, Mexico City in English. Please don't use lies to support your ideas. (Angel, Monterrey, Mexico).
I agree that Americas is the term to refer the continent America. It is a fact that US and UK people use that term. But what is incorrect is to think that the rest of the world thinks the same. I edited the article putting US slang at the beginning to let the US and UK users know that what they think is a world wide concept (this is Americas the continent) is indeed incorrect for the rest of the world. (Angel, Monterrey, Mexico)
I completely disagree with this point of view, America is a continent, I am from Mexico and in schools all over the spanish and portuguese speaker nations the term America refers exclusively to the continent. If you want to insist that America is two continents and then you decide to call them North America and South America for the georgraphy then you have to include Mexico and possibly Guatemala and Belice in that called North America. The contradiction comes from the name USA that is United States of America, if you want to insist and say that America is not a continent, then USA should be modified to USNA, i.e. United States of North America TO BE CONSISTENT. In my opinion the problem comes as well from the fact that USA does not have a proper name for their country, USA is only describing where they are and some of their politics. But things would be different if they would not kill all native americans or if they would be a mixed race with the native americans, then they could be United States Navajoes or Apache Republic of North America. Carlos Chavez
Ouch! Expecting language to work like logic is fallacious. I strongly resent that, but at the same time I have to admit it's true. At least for natural languages. A language is supposed to express meaning and without logic everything is meaningless. But language necessarily evolves. New findings disprove the logic of the old terminology (examples abound in science). But the old language will persist in everyday speech. However, in this case there are two 'logics' namely those of (the) America(s) being one or two continents, either of which can be said to be true. In the 'one continent' logic the name 'America' is already used for that, so logic dictates it cannot be used for something else. I suppose that using the name 'America' for the country comes from the habit of North Europeans to think about North America when they talked about America. For the Spanish however (and therefore in the Spanish language) the focus was on South America. In that language the name 'America' continued to mean the (one) continent, probably because there wasn't one single country that came to represent the Spanish colonies (although in the case of North America there's also Canada). There's just no simple answer here, so in that sense you're right. Language doesn't quite follow logic. DirkvdM July 7, 2005 07:14 (UTC)
Perhaps English-speaking readers will feel a bit offended by this, but reading some of the definitions in this article and in this discussion, I feel I must point out some things.
First of all, as stated above, America (the continent) is not USA. Some of you might argue that they have the same name, (such as NY state, and NY city) but this is incorrect. The name of America, refering to the nation of USA began to be widely used, mainly by USA residents (which is an important topic) in the first half of the XX century, in a way to increase the reach of its nation Cultural Imperialism and supremacy over the American continent. The reasoning behind this is, "if other people think/say they also live in [America] it will be easier for them to be assimilated to our culture". Another issue raised with this is that all lands in the American continent are "America" - thus making the taking of that land more "natural", as the US have done with Puerto Rico and more blatlantly with (New) Mexico.
Second, the article is terribly wrong at its very first sentence; America is not divided into two parts, but three. North, Central and South America. Central America is composed by all the Caribbean Isles, and continental mass south of Mexico and North of Venezuela.
Third, as implied from the above paragraphs, the term "The Americas", although grammatically correct, is a geographical and political fallacy, in an imperialist attempt to subdue the third world countries to a "mother country".
When adressing two parts of the continent, one still uses the singular form, which serves to conclude that "America" is a term that should be used in the singular, and only to refer the continent. ("The poverty in Central and South America has ...") We have an example of the same logic in Europe: All of us are aware of the differences between Eastern European and Western European countries. Does that mean that there are two Europes? The continent is one, and thus its name should be always used in the singular. The Far East and the Middle East indicate the presence of "two Asias"? ~~LtDoc~~
And reffering to Muke Tever´s comment, a huge mistake has been made. He claims that "in most contexts outside of things like "Columbus discovered America", the continent is referred to as the Americas, and America by itself refers exclusively to the country." + - It shows an obvious non-neutral POV, expressing his opinion trying to make it sound like "general knowledge" something accepted worldwide, which couldnt be more untruthful. In Latin America, and in most "Latin Europe" ("non-English Europe") the term ´America´ refers to the continent as a whole, not as the nation of USA. The term ´The Americas´ is actually not used at all, since the continent is one, and whole. He tries to back this information by says that google will only point to pages where [America] means the nation and [The Americas] mean the continent. He fails to see to see that most internet pages are in the US domains, thus reflecting the same "politically incorrect" views of US residents.~~Lt Doc~~
Bkonrad just referred to this talk page in his edit, which I reverted. So let's talk. I suppose you referred to this section when you said there is considerable disagreement about the correct usage of America. I hope you've gone beyond the superficial glance you speak of. This discussion resulted in the text as it was (and now is again), so if you're referring to this, you should agree with it or comment. To get you going; How can South America not be part of America? DirkvdM 09:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Ah, so you're Bkonrad. Confusing to go by two names. Just as it's confusing for the term America to have two meanings. My point was, If the USA is America, then South America is apparently not part of America. And that's weird. I don't care about the 'political' bit. I claim it is linguistically incorrect. America first meant the entire continent (or continents if you will). Then, in northern Europe and GB in particular, it came to mean the part of it that was most important to people there. Normally, something like that could lead to a change in the meaning of a word, possibly causing problems if not everyone follows (which is always the case initially), but eventually the language will change and America could justifiably be used for the USA. However, there is a perpetual problem here, namely that the term is also used for something different and especially confusing is that the two meanings overlap (America is part of America?). This could only be changed by changing the name of the other thing, but all that's been done in that respect is that some have started calling it the America's, but that's still confusing (America is part of North America? How can the whole be part of a part of it?). And South America hasn't changed names, so there's still a problem. The result would be that South America is not part of America, which is logically wrong and therefore linguistically incorrect. About your last remark: there is no article on incorrect, but I suppose that's not what you mean. It's a result of the presentation with politically in brackets. DirkvdM 08:14, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Indeed, natural languages are not logical in many senses, but that's no excuse to throw in the towel. I agree that the introductory sentence (it's actually just one sentence!) is rather contorted. The reason can be found hereabove; it's the result of long negotiations (now you know why oficial documents are often incomprehensible). Alright then, how about this;
It's easier to read now, although still a bit contorted. The last sentence might be dropped. Note that a further discussion can be found in the second paragraph of the next section. DirkvdM 10:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Well, the ambiguity was the origin of the emergence of the term the Americas (I assume), so that needs to be mentioned and the illogical consequence that South America is not in America is certainly worth a mention too, I'd say. Which pretty much leads to the above. Except for the politically incorrect bit. Someone else put that in, so I left it in. So that might be dropped now. But not the last sentence, in retrospect. DirkvdM 09:18, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that's my point. Or am I missing your point now? No one says that South America in not in America. What do you mean by that? I'm using a reasoning ad absurdum. I assume that something is correct, follow that through, end up with an absurdity and conclude that the assunption was not correct. Of course I next have to bow to the masses who have already made the absurdity commonplace (but I can still bitch about it). I've studied philosophy with a specialisation in Logic, so you'd better think your next move through .... :) DirkvdM 07:25, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Facile sophistry? Reasoning ad absurdum is one of the cornerstones of Logic and therefore of Science! Well, maybe that's overdoing it a bit, but it's certainly a very accepted method. DirkvdM 16:07, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
The cultural imperialism is covered by the 'politically incorrect' bit (maybe this explanation should be added to it - I have done that above). About having two meanings for 'America', I'd say it's that which inherently shifts the frame of reference (although this is linguistic nitpicking). It is true that most people will have no misunderstandings when using the term 'America' (although I once heard someone accidentally refer to the southern US states as 'South America'). But my point is that having two meanings for one word is wrong from a Logical point of view. And that is what the term 'illogical' refers to. DirkvdM 09:54, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree with DirkvdM, and disagree to Bkonrad that the use of the term "America" referring to the nation of the US is illogical. That is beyond dispute; just follow the thought. America (continent) is divided in three parts, Northern, Central and Southern. A part of the North American subcontinent (therefore a part of America - continent) is the nation of US. Therefore, the nation of US is part of America, the continent. Calling the US "America" is saying that America is part of America, which is illogical. And also very pollitically incorrect, yes. And also insulting to any American (one who lives in the continent of America) that is a non-US resident. What Bkonrad states afterwards, however, makes perfect sense, that the cultural imperialism of the US causes problems with the terminology. (Ive already made a few comments above this, if interested, please read).
As for calling the name of the nation of the U.S. "America" being incorrect, I totally agree. Even if it sounds harsh to english speakers, to non-english speakers is a blunt attempt to colonize them culturally. If you add up all the people in the world, one will come to the conclusion that most people use the term meaning the continent, not the country. Another thing that increases the "incorrectabilty" of the use is that the cultural imperialism imposed by the U.S. is such that it "forces" people to acknoldge them as "Americans" (i.e. citzens of U.S.), thus implying in its use that those who are "american" (born in the U.S.) are the owners of "America" (the continent), that all of America (continent) is the place of rule of americans (born in the U.S.).
I was born in Latin America. Im no more or no less american than any one who has been (or ever will be) born in this continent as well.~~LtDoc~~
True, strictly speaking, but do you truly believe everything in Wikipedia is 'totally sourced'? By that I mean that no interpretation whatsoever takes place. Which would come down to literally copying texts. And doing that whilst not violating copyright would severely cripple Wikipedia. But I'm diverging. Of course it isn't easy to determine how much interpretation is acceptable. But if the source is Logic and the interpretation is the application of the rules of Logic then that's hardly POV. DirkvdM 09:45, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
I refer to Formal Logic (maybe that should be made a bit clearer), which is just about reasoning. It doesn't care if the assumptions are correct, just if the reasoning is. The prescriptive bits here (the assumptions, called propositions in logic or axioms in Mathematics) are that America is the U.S.A., that the Americas are made up of three parts, two of which are North and South America and, lastly, that America (the USA) is located in North America. This cannot be true. It leads to a falsum. At least, if you apply the rule that South-X is part of X (a subset). Which seems obvious. So there is something wrong with the assumptions (prescriptions, propositions, axioms, whatever). They contradict themselves.
By the way, the double negative you mention is no problem in logic. They cancel each other out. The double negative article states they don't. But then it's about something different, like 'I can't get no sleep'. Logically that means 'I sleep all the time'. But the article says such things are either wrong (which is prescriptive) or acceptable in the way they're meant (which is descriptive). But that's a different matter. DirkvdM 12:50, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
Huh? That U.S.A. is America (in the way you say it is sometimes used) is an assumption (the definition that leads to the coming about of the term 'the Americas'). Following that through, one reaches a conclusion that cannot be right, so there's something wrong. It's illogical. That's the reasoning. DirkvdM 07:50, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
The US, America, The Big One, wahtever you call it, should just come up with a name! it is the only country which has no name! I just hope one of the candidates for 2008 thiks about that. ps.: i'm just being sarcastic ;)
I think the point is not much whether America is one continent or two. That is a geographical issue. The main point is that the whole "New World" (north and south) was given the name of America in the sixteenth century. And actually the America of those times was mainly the south part (somebody call it "the First America"). So, America is historically and properly the name for the whole landmass.~~Carlos C.~~
I am from Chile, South America. The first time I heard the term "American" refering to a US citizen was while I was in the USA. I was shocked. In the Castilian-American speaking countries, the term "estadounidence" is the correct way to refer to a US citizen. Also, we are taught that America is a continent (starting in Canada, and ending in Chile). America is not a country. For us, America is not divided into South or North America, however, to specify where a country is, we say "Mexico is in the northern part of America" or "Honduras is in the central part of America". If you look at the history of the US, you can see why they call themselves Americans. They were the first Democratic nation stablished in the American Continent (North and South), I think that's the reason why in english, and even BRE english there isn't a distintion. I want to make this clear, if a US citizen goes to Latin America, please, don't call yourself an American, because there, you are not. For us, "Americans" mean Native Americans, like Mayas, Azstecas, Mapuches, Incas. American has a more ancestral meaning. With this being said, I never use the word American to refer to a US citizen, not even when I speak English, becuase I find it rude.
Although I do think that the Americas are one continent, I must point out that, from my experience, I lived among Russians, Germans, and Paraguayans, and am currently in the U.S., again among Germans and Russians, most people refer to The United States of America simply as America, and to their citizens as Americans (even americano in South America). They simply do not care about it. This is not about common usage, though. The term continent is defined, therefore it is one continent. I do not know if it could be any simpler. Artur Buchhorn 08:43, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi, sorry for anymistake, first time editing here...
I am Brazilian and for me - and for the population there - no problem calling people from USA as Americans. That is how we work and we accept.
However, for us AMERICA means the whole continent. WE never say Americas, as it is just one that Christopher Colombus discovered (and he didn´t step into what is nowadays USA soil). It is composed by 3 continents: North America (easy Canada, USA and Mexico), Central America (the istm in between plus some islands in the Caribbean, most of them) and South America (where Brazil is and some Caribbean islands are also there).
Caribbean and Latin America are 2 cultural regiones. Caribbean is not only islands, it also covers some countries like Colombia (where I live). Latin America is basically all countries which speak Spanish or Portuguese (even though French is also a Latin language, French countries are not considered as Latin America).
In Colombia, we call Americans as North Americans and many others parts of Latin America it is like that.
About ressentment... in me and many people I know it is more amusement - it is funny that one country tries to call itself as the whole continent. Do Americans believe Christopher Colombus discover them? Don´t they bother to use an Italian name (from Americo Vespucio) as their country name?
That is all. marcelobulk Marcelobulk 16:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The article contains the following sentences that strike me as misleading: "In contrast to the rest of the continent, the majority of Canadian and United States residents are white, English-speaking, and of predominantly European ancestry. The native American Indian tribes of the region have mostly been absorbed, displaced, or wiped out and now form small minorities in these two countries." Although both sentences are true statements about Canada and the U.S., they misleadingly imply that the majority of people in the rest of the countries in America are not of predominantly European ancestry. My understanding is that this varies quite a bit from country to country. For example, a large majority of Mexicans claim at least some Native ancestry, but in some of the South American countries (Argentina particularly comes to mind) the population is almost exclusively of European descent. However, I don't have the information at hand to provide a more accurate statement, so I'm noting this in hopes that someone more knowledgeable will provide a correction. Russ Blau (talk) 11:47, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
Someone changed that, but see also top of next entry. DirkvdM 20:01, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I am mexican and also caucasian so it is wrong to place that only such diversity exusts only in Canada and the United States, when the rest of the nations in this continent have also immigrant roots. SqueakBox
What abou the "Organization of American States"?
By this international agreement, all countries in the continent are american states.
I do not understand why US people want to distort things... —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
138.40.163.80 (
talk)
17:29, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
The issue of the previous entry was avoided by largely removing it. But now it reads The majority of the American people live in Latin America. Most of Latin America is Spanish-speaking, with Portuguese-speaking Brazil as the major exception. Canada and the United States are the countries most culturally, politically, and economically separate from Latin America. Ehm, ... Canada and the US are the only countries outside Latin America, right? So I changed that a bit, adding some of the previous version as well. How are these countries politically different from Latin American countries? I removed that. Feel free to put it back, but then explain.
Roy da Vinci (RAAAH!) added an interresting point about the US treating Latin America as its back yard. But this needs some more explaining. During the 19th century there was sort of an agreement (I don't know how much this was 'official') between the USA and Europe that their foreign influences should not cause any conflict; the USA would stay out of Eurasia if Europe stayed out of Latin America. WWII changed that, though. And now the USA are everywhere. And was it just 'southern Latin America' (and what is that?), not the whole of Latin America? Also, I'm not sure if this is the right article to point this out, though I can't think of a better one.
Roy da Vinci also alphabetised the nationalities of the colonists of European descent, but that didn't seem to make sense to me, so I reverted that, so he reverted that. It's a very minor thing, but that doesn't mean I'll give way :) . It seems to make more sense to me to put them in an order of importance (quantitatively speaking, that is). So I'd say Spanish, British, Irish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German and Dutch. Notice my 'modesty' in moving the Dutch way to the back of the list. But more seriously, I'm not quite sure about the order, but it would be enlightening to mention this, so not just to give the list, but also to say in what order they are.
I assume not all blacks are descendants from slaves. There must be more recent immigrants from Africa (such as Eddy Murphy in 'Coming to America' :) ). Or is this group too small to be worth mentioning?
What is 'from the Balkan' in one word? Balkanese? I circumvented the issue in my edit.
DirkvdM 20:00, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
True, not all countries outside the US and Canada are predominantly 'latin language-speaking'. And usually I prefer to stay close to the literal meaning of a word, but here it's not just that most people understand Latin America to mean Central and South America. Consider this. You'd be hard put to find an English-speaking country where only English is spoken. Still, you'd call even the US an English-speaking country, right? (Well, the UK, then...) Similarly, it isn't strange to call the part of America that's predominantly Latin-speaking Latin America. Also, you wouldn't call Quebec part of Latin America. The Latin America article backs this up. DirkvdM 07:52, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
I spoke with a geographer, and he said, "Continents are fungible."
And someone posted a lengthy and informative note on my user page, which I've moved to User talk:4.18.44.157.
I daresay that the US English usage of America to refer "the United States of America" is an irritant to (what US folks would call) "non-Americans". As in How dare you say we're not Americans, you European white trash colonial imperialist bahstahds!
I hope to capture the flavor of their discontent, and balance that with how America is actually used in the media, in books and in private conversation. Not being a professional linguist, surely anything I do by myself will fail to hit the mark. But if we work on this together, I think we'll find that "all of us" are smarter than "any of us". Uncle Ed 16:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Ya'll need to realize North America and South America are two seperate continents. Are Europe, Asia, and Africa one big continent just because they're connected? No. Don't forget that North and South America were also seperated in prehistory, and sorta "crashed" into each other. And Central America is not a continent, it's southern North America.
Agreed as well. See North America, though this is not universally held as a Costa Rican editor bitterly railed against the idea of Central America being part of North America. Not only geographically is this so but politically as well, SqueakBox 16:01, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Nope sorry, it is all a single continent. Even the Olympic Comitee places things as 5 continents. ElChompiras
Please, Chompiras and the rest of you well-meaning but linguistically confused Latin Americans. It is confusing, so let's break it down by language, shall we?
In Portuguese and Spanish
In English
So, languages evolve around popular uses of the terms. So what we Portuguese and Spanish native speakers need to understand is that, however dismal it may be to us, the fact is that the equivalent word in English is not equivalent. Think of it as you will; take comfort in the fact that the order of punctuation and quotes is not the same, either; in English the most correct form is to put the quotes after the punctuation, thus: "hello," and in Spanish or Portuguese you have to write "hola". Or "olá".
I'm not a native speaker of English, so if a native asks me what America means I'll give him the Portuguese/Spanish definitions, since these are also true in English. If she asks me how many continents there are, I'll answer "six," and wait for her "a-ha!" to add, "counting Antarctica, of course." – Tintazul msg 17:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
A continent west of the Atlantic ocean is mentioned by Homer, Plato, Apollodoros, Plutarch, Eratosthenes, Stesichorus, Strabo and more.
Plutarch for example, gives an account of a continent west of Britain in his work Moralia: Volume XII. Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon, chap. 26.
The "great number of currents" can be identified today as the Gulf Stream currents. The distance of five thousand stadia between the continent and Ogygia, is equivalent to 900 kilometers.
Plato in Timaios also mentions a continent west of the Atlantic.
Strabo proposed that Ogygia and Skhería described by Homer in Odyssey were located in the Atlantic Ocean:
The river-stream of Oceanus quoted by Homer can be identified today as the Gulf Stream.
If Homer was the first writer to mention the continent west of the Atlantic ocean, then America could possibly refer to Homerica.-- Odysses 11:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd be interested to know more of what this tidbit, which I have removed, was getting at:
While this is certainly interesting, it looks more like an editor just read Chomsky's Necessary Illusions and wanted to make a point. I removed it mostly because it is vague: there are some clear ways that the U.S. has "overshadowed" and "attempted to manipulate," and it might be useful to detail this with more information.
Also, the phrase "southern Latin America" is more incorrect than vague. I have a feeling it was meant to refer to Central America.
I also removed it because its current wording makes it seem like a POV generalization. The North/South division of the world doesn't seem to be especially relevant without further explanation . Additionally it seems to blame the economic position of the United States (and, by association, the ENTIRE "Northern World") for its actions during the Cold War, which is altogether too simplistic. ANYTHING the U.S. did during that time period was complex, and mentioning only economic factors leaves out important political motivations. Actually, the way it's worded doesn't make a motivation clear at all, and doesn't even describe what has happened.
NPOV perhaps would be to explain what is known about the States' political, eco. & soc. relationship with Central America during the Cold War, using its economic position when relevant.
In short...Help! That line didn't sink well with me but I don't know enough about this topic to fix it on my own! Markmtl 07:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
There is quite obviously a dispute over how many continents to divide "America" into:
The UN, ever mindful of member states' sensitivities, uses terms like "macro" and " subregion". Their division goes like this:
Note that each level is sorted alphabetically, L before N in the 2nd level and C, C, S in the 3rd level; just like countries at the lowest level. -- Uncle Ed 21:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
The first sentence:
is clearly unsatisfactory as a definition:
Any suggested improved definition? jnestorius( talk) 11:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Anthony, you might have missed this, but I removed the word "dropped" from my version. You might want to reconsider your 2nd reversion of the day. I respect you too much to play a game of 3RR with you, so I'll just leave it as for a day or so. -- Uncle Ed 12:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
An awkward phrase in the article:
I added bold markup the awkward phrase.
We've lost the subject of the sentence here, which I assume is "usage". Are we trying to say that because many individuals resenst the appropriaton thus the usage is frequently avoided? If so, the passive voice is obscure here.
We need to say WHO avoids this usage. Or who WANTS OTHERS to avoid this usage. -- Uncle Ed 16:41, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
That's fine. Moving on:
Now I've heard many non-US Wikipedians say they refer to themselves as American, but I see no references in any article showing how often this usage occurs outside of this web site. My impression thus far is:
Moreover, I think we cannot afford to neglect the recent political movement for relaxing immigration laws for Latin American immigrants who want to work and/or live in the US. Don't they use slogans like "We are Americans, too"? (If so, how are they using the word "American" here?) -- Uncle Ed 17:41, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I think Uncle Ed's impression is wrong. I am from Peru, and (like others) always called myself "Americano" until I came to live in Canada and found out that I am not suppossed to call myself like that. Of course, I call myself American in the same way that a French would call himseld European. ~~Carlos C.~~
These sources below may neither support nor apply to the useage of the term.
The article currently starts with (or it did when I started writing this):
I see two problems with that:
1. "the lands of the western hemisphere" would, technically*, include part of Europe, Africa, Macaronesia, etc. Maybe it would work better if the following comma was removed, since it would then unambiguously specify which lands of the western hemisphere are considered "America". But I think it would be better to just get rid of that altogether, due to ambiguity (and also #2 below).
(* note: the western hemisphere page talks about a non-capitalized "western hemisphere" as the literal, geographical one, and a capitalized "Western Hemisphere" as a cultural notion referring just to the Americas (which is a distinction I personally had never heard about, but that's irrelevant); therefore, this complicates the sentence, as the expression itself can then assume two meanings, and context doesn't provide obvious clues).
Furthermore, since North America and South America are components of "the Americas", it is a bit of a self-referential definition.
2. It explicitly mentions that the Americas are composed of two continents, which, as we all know, is a contentious issue.
I thought of replacing it with something like this (this is just a draft):
This way we avoid both using the ambiguous "western hemisphere" term, as well as the debate over whether it's one or more continents.
Comments, suggestions? I didn't want to "be bold" and change that right away, without input from other people. Thanks... -- Cotoco 20:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree to User:Cotoco at this point. At the same time, hopefully, remove the word, New World, which I have concerned as a vandalism.-- User:PhillC 14:59, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Re the assertion (which I agree with): A few alternative theories regarding the landmass' naming have been proposed, but none of them has achieved any widespread acceptance. To me it almost leaves the impression, after the scepticism expressed about the Vespucci theory, that there is no acceptable theory. But there is, the Vespucci theory. Or at least that's the majority view.
Richard Amerike theory: This seems the best choice linguistically but that's POV. Critics of this theory though point out that the name would only have described fishing grounds, not the North American landmass. I wonder if that's worth mentioning.
Amerrique theory: It's not stated where the word 'Amerrique' originates and I expected to see that. I gather it's purported to be a Mayan word, although I also read: An imaginative anthropologist studying the mayan culture in Yucatan, Le Plongeon had written to Marcou: "The name AMERICA or AMERRIQUE in the Maya language means, a country of perpetually strong wind, or the Land of the Wind, and sometimes the suffix '-ique' and '-ika' can mean not only wind or air but also a spirit that breathes, life itself." (Scholars today, however,recognize that America doesn't derive from the Mayan language,which was not spoken in Nicaragua, though the name almost resembles in sound the Quiche Maya iq'amaq'el meaning perpetual wind). Paraphrased from here. It sounds like "myth busted" (if true). Does this theory have popular belief in say Central America in the way the Vespucci theory has in the north?
And there is also the Scandinavian: Amteric theory [2] :)
In short all these theories are territorial and/or nationalistic. I wonder if it's worth acknowledging that. The Vespucci claim for the naming of America is dominant because it's the view of the majority of people who live there. Hakluyt bean 18:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I've removed a sentence claiming Canadians don't use America to refer to the US. I'm Canadian, and 'America' is probably the most commonly used term here to refer to The United States of America. I realize that the statement was cited, but I'm convinced there is some sort of misunderstanding or poor wording involved. The statement as it stood is, as far as I know, completely wrong. -- Kinst 01:49, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
The section on languages is pretty crummy. Mentioning Dutch as a language spoken in the continent (however gringos insist in calling it) while ignoring the _hundreds_ of native languages (Mexico only has sixty of them still alive) is not on. Ben.
Furthermore, it says 240 million speak English. How does this work when almost all of the United States' 300 million speak it, along with 4/5ths of the 30 million Canadians?
-Jackmont, 18 July 2007
Ok, we've had a slow edit war over whether to include this term in the introduction. I've seen claims that it's biased, but no explanation yet. As far as I know, it's simply common term used to describe the Americas, especially in biology, e.g. "old world monkeys" vs. "new world monkeys" and so forth. To anyone who doesn't want it in the article: would you mind discussing it here? -- Yath 05:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I think it's quite appropriate, since you'll find that reference in most of the first entries in the "Archivos de Indias" in Seville. It is a term of reference of the continent, the same way we used to say long ago "Las Américas" in plural, but nowadays it's not in fashion and we don't use it anymore in Spain. Well, I agree it should be noted that europeans called it the New World, I'm sure the aztecs and incas didn't called themselves the New World, ;).
I was thinking ot including a little more information on the discussion on the term "America". It seems everybody forgot to mention the book "Las venas abiertas de latinoamerica" of Eduardo Galeano, a uruguayan journalist/historian ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano ). In this book he strongly critisices the appropriation of the term by the US, making the americans of south america "second class americans". So since this has become a moral issue, I think someone should include the other version of the story, latin america's point of view, very well described in the work of this man. I would do it myself but I'm terrible with pc's and I'd probably end up erasing the whole document!! Lol* however, i'll check in a while and if it's not included, I'll do my best. Nemi 13:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
As I read the following I decided it needed more qualifiers than I have time to add:
Obviously this refers to "states" not in the international sense but in the United States sense and obviously this also means a particular royal family. These are not assumptions that an international encyclopedia should make. Could someone clean this up? Durova 16:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
From 2nd para: "The designation is a relatively recent and less ambiguous alternative to America, which may refer to either the entire landmass or (colloquially) the United States of America. The original usage to describe what is sometimes considered a single continent or supercontinent is deprecated for clarity, for which the Americas is used to collectively refer to the landmass and various regions of it."
Wouldn't it be clearer, without repetition and without loss of essential meaning to say:
The term the Americas is a relatively recent alternative to the term America, which is ambiguous as it may refer to either this entire landmass or (colloquially) just the United States of America.
I mean, "... deprecated for clarity, for which the Americas is used ..." is not very accessible writing. If you don't like my suggestion, please come up with something else which is clearer than the present wording. Nurg 10:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand something. If I'm reading this right, Martin Waldseemüller was the first cartographer to use the name "America", and the book that accompanied his map says "America" came from Vespucci. Doesn't that pretty much clear up the controversy? Why would "Vespucci's role in the naming issue...[be] most probably a tale" if Waldseemüller named it after him? Something's being left out here. — Chowbok 22:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
How recent is the name "The Americas"? Does anyone know? It seems more imprecise and unwieldy than America. Deepstratagem 01:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Here would be the right place. Intuitionz 04:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
This is the current and only flag of the Americas that were ever produced, the problem is for non-american political reasons they are hard to find. I have some examples of the British version of the flag with the Union Jack in the corner at http://themidlands.net/victoria/index.php?title=British_America but can't find any more sources which displays the flag of the Americas. It is a rare occurance to find one. Intuitionz 22:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
It is the peoples liberal choice and wikipedias to perserve this flag. Cogito ergo sumo: It is the only one that has been created as I know of. If chosen NOT to opt this flag it is our sole discretion. Lets us choose wisely in this matter please. Intuitionz 22:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree lets opt the Canadian version of the O.A.S. : http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/latin-america/latinamerica/contact/about-logo-en.asp OR we can opt the Universal Version which is displayed right now. OR we can OPT FOR A LATER TIME TO DECIDE. Intuitionz 23:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Why are the two Americas considered separate continents?
I think German should be on the list of languages. Only Pennsylvania Dutch is mentioned, but there are German speaking communities in the Americas as far apart as New England, Jamaica, Argentina and Paraguay.
U need to add Texas also.
Done!!-- 68.80.207.22 01:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario in Canada, as well as Paraguay, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, and Belize, also have large populations of Plautdietsch. There is more detail here. There are also significant populations of other Low German dialects present as well. Fehrgo 03:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
What about to speak about the History, Geography, Climate, etc. of this continent, America, in its article? What about a list of the countries that composes America? I think the article is so uncomplete.
Please try to remember that even though there is a section on the term American, this article is about the Americas. There is no need to focus on the different names of citizens of the United States. An article already exists for that purpose ( Use of the word American), so this article doesn't need terms like gringo or yanqui which have nothing to do with an article on the Americas. Only when conflicts exist between the expected usage of the term American as translated (or a variant) should it be noted (i.e. americano or americana in Spanish does not have all of the same meanings as American in English and norteamericano or norteamericana are very context sensitive). Cheers.-- Burzum 13:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
There is any reference of that?-- 194.65.151.249 11:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I will change that. These ideia only appears in two editions of the user 72.132.147.88 and many of his editions seems "strange" .-- 81.84.199.93 22:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
The use of the word "Nations" in this article as a heading is incorrect (see Nation and State). It should be either States or Countries. States refers to sovreign governments, while nations refers to groups of people who have a shared identity (for example the Kurds or the Scottish). States would be the preferable word, though I think countries would be acceptable as well.
Okay, I'll start by admitting one of the things I really dislike about the article is that is says almost nothing about the Americas - it only says things about how the Americas are named, or referred to. The article blows, because there's not History of the Americas, Geography of the Americas, Inhabitants of the Americas, Biology of the Americas, Politics of the Americas and so on. The Demography section is the only section that actually tells me anything about the Americas that I could actually go out and see today. So I moved it to the top, and the trivia sections down a bit. Is there really any rational for moving the usual information to the bottom? I can sort of buy moving "Naming" to the top, as it's basically a very tiny "History" section, so History - Demographis - Trivia ordering can probably be easily enough justified. WilyD 15:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Looking at this, I'm not strongly aware of any trend. Anyways, it wasn't so much "naming" at the top that bugged me as much as "use of" section which really doesn't tell us anything about the Americas, but just some junk. Anyways, the issue is that there isn't really much content, so I'll try to focus on adding content, rather than trying to make something from nothing. WilyD 18:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this, the burden is not on either of us to prove that this arguable statement is true or false. We are both saying that it is arguable, and it is up to the editor who wishes to include the information to include a reliable source. See WP:ATT. Again, I don't want to debate the merits of the statement. I just do not want an encyclopedia that makes arguable claims without attributing them to a published source. Haber 17:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Why is this article listed as Americas, and not America? Deepstratagem 20:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Word Usage
The use of America to mean the United States may cause offense to people from Canada and Central and South America, and should be avoided. The term North America may be used to refer to the United States and Canada together.
Okay, there's obviously some dispute about the use of the word - I've personally not removed nor added it while working on the section, but let's talk about it rather than fight about it. Questions I have:
But maybe I'm totally fuckin' nuts. Thoughts? WilyD 03:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi WilyD, I added the ref to genocide. I can't tell you how much the discussion is spread because I'm still researching. On you second question I think that massive violence is always very notable regardless of other causes of death; it is notable also from a political point of view, because the history of the continent is rooted on the prevailing of a society of warriors/colonizers over a pacific society.-- BMF81 13:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
For centuries, "AMERICA" has always been a continent. And it will continue being one continent for long time. There is no such thing like "Americas". I wonder, who was the guy here to introduce that term. I would like to see where did you get that term from? And I want a good source. The British academy of language defines "AMERICA" to name the whole contient. If that is not enough, you can look at wikipedia articles and maps, that contradict your term "Americas". All those british maps and german maps, display "America" or "Amerika" to name the whole continent. At this point, it's clearly, that the term "Americas" was introduced by some USA individual and we all know why. The USA consensus in this place is really strong, and that makes many articles not "Objective". I love Wikipedia and I have contributed to Wikipedia in other languages, since english is not my main language, but when I find articles like this one, I can tell I'm reading the New York Times cheap articles. I hope the USA consensus gets weaker some day and maybe we will have more "Objective" articles. The term "Americas" was made in USA and is wrong.
As you can see in the below links, no language in this world, uses the term "Americas". They use the correct term "America". Also, the real british english language uses the term "America".
Only USA slang introduced the term "Americas". Probably, because they think America is a country and not a continent. What a shame, USA slang has become stronger than British English language. Just incredible. 300 million people contradicting 5 1/2 billion people.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_%28Kontinent%29
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica
http://an.wikipedia.org/wiki/America
http://frp.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A8rica
http://ast.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica
http://ay.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%ABrika
http://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika
http://bar.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika
http://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika
http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A8rica
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rique
http://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameerika
http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameriko
http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/America
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_%28continent%29
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameryka
http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/America
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika
Ale2007
16:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I also have no idea what do you mean with that article. It's just an article of a newspaper. I would even trust in Wikipedia before trusting an article of a newspaper, specially that one. If you want to get the correct answer, check out what the british academy says about this. Well, like I said above, check out the british maps. I repeat, check out the "British maps" of America. There are a lot of those maps in Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Is that too hard to understand?
Ale2007 02:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
To user: Ale2007 You reply in a very poor way just concerning about the topic that British called America the continent "the Americas". But what about the rest. The facts are there. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE AMERICAS. It is just a slang from the United States, supported by the UK of course. I repeat, THE FACTS ARE THERE BECAUSE ONLY IN UK ENGLISH OR USA ENGLISH YOU CAN USE THE TERM AMERICAS.
I am mexican, and there is no such thing as Americas. I have friends in Mexico, Peru, Spain, Italy, France and Argentina and America has only one meaning: a continent of the world.
I agree that in English there has to be an article called the Americas, cause for english native speakers of US and UK this is the continent known for the rest of the world America.
I edited this article addind to the world Americas US slang, and this is to let the US and UK users know that what they think is a world wide concept is incorrect for the rest of the world. Regards (Angel, Monterrey Mexico).
Another user wrote: "Just incredible. 250 million people contradicting 6000 million people." 300 million people is more up to date.
Americas is a name invented by the people of the United States and making America as the name of this country. citizens of the United States have many geographical problems. Sorry I have much respect for them. but the truth is the truth
Is there reason to believe the Muslim explorers are any more credible than the rest of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact? If so, did the Muslims ever colonise the Americas rather than just explore? Or should we reorder? WilyD 22:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
While only indirectly affecting this page, based on previous discussions on this page, there may be some interest in participating in the discussion about a request to move America → America (disambiguation) and ultimately replace America with a redirect to United States. older ≠ wiser 21:39, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I was just reading over this article when I came across a sentence that said something like English is by far the most spoken and important language in The Americas. Now I know that cant be true because 2 paragraphs down it says that Spanish is spoken by about 80 million more people and is the language of most American countries. I would fix this myself but I don’t have the time. Can someone do this for me?-- 66.176.63.70 19:20, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Hey guys, what is going on in this paragraph??
"" The majority of the people live in Latin America, named for its dominant languages, Spanish and Portuguese, both of which are descended from Latin. Latin America is typically contrasted with Anglo-America where English, a Germanic language, prevails: namely, Canada and the United States (in Northern America) have predominantly British roots and are quite different in terms of linguistic, cultural, and economic situation from other countries in the Americas ""
I tried to remove that weird sentence about the cultural and economic diference, but somebody revert my edit... I don't understand, i mean of course there are significant diferences between Canada/US and other countries in Latin america, but if we say that, we should also mention the diferences(culturally/economic) within all the countries in Latin american that are even bigger; and that would be nonesense.
The cultural and economic diference between a canadian and a mexican is not bigger than the one between an Uruguayan and a Bolivian.. (just to put one example) That is what i'm trying to explain 201.231.42.162 23:05, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
The term "Americas" is wrong...
I'm agree the term Americas is wrong. For centuries, "AMERICA" has always been a continent. And it will continue being one continent for long time. There is no such thing like "Americas". I wonder, who was the guy here to introduce that term. I would like to see where did you get that term from? And I want a good source. The british academy of language defines "AMERICA" to name the whole contient. If that is not enough, you can look at wikipedia articles and maps, that contradict your term "Americas". All those british maps and german maps, display "America" or "Amerika" to name the whole continent. At this point, it's clearly, that the term "Americas" was introduced by some USA individual and we all know why. The USA consensus in this place is really strong, and that makes many articles not "Objective". I love Wikipedia and I have contributed to Wikipedia in other languages, since english is not my main language, but when I find articles like this one, I can tell I'm reading the New York Times cheap articles. I hope the USA consensus gets weaker some day and maybe we will have more "Objective" articles. The term "Americas" was made in USA and is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.17.26.137 ( talk) 18:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Looking back over the history of the talk page, not surprised that the edit war happened. It's been a highly contentious issue going way back. As I understand the essence of the dispute, the question is whether the term America refers to the United States or the combined continents of North, South, and Central America. If the latter is true, then Americas could be considered an invalid term. In my experience, America = United States, and Americas = combined continents, but clearly that is not the only view. Let's get reliable sources and build consensus to determine which one is the correct way of referring to the continents, and what to do (if anything) about the appropriate article names. ~ Eliz 81 (C) 04:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I can't do it, but I suggest this part:
America may be ambiguous, as it can refer to either this entire landmass or just the United States of America.
to be removed. One could say that "Americas" isn't correct, because America is a continent and not a country. Which isn't wrong. Although people in United Stated call their country "America", this is just a short for the offial name, "United States of America" (note that it isn't "United States of Americas", by the way). The fact that the land is one, two, or three continents isn't a scientific truth. There's no unanimity about it.
In short: The use of the word "America" in the singular or in the plural is a polemic stuff. I think it would be better to avoid this polemic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.51.16.231 ( talk) 22:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
In favor of eliminating ambiguous terms.
Intuitionz ( talk) 01:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Intuitionz ( talk) 02:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Intuitionz, "the Americas" refers to the two continents and the isthmus between them. It does not refer to every country in the hemisphere; i.e. every country is not an America. So "the Americas" are just three: North America, South America, and Central America; just one of each. SamEV ( talk) 00:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
(rv to version of 15:41, 15 December 2007, by Lucasbfr - changes this odd and potentially confusing need to be discussed on Talk page)
Perhaps I can add some perspective to this discussion. The term 'America' has long been understood to refer to all the land mass stretching from the Artic in what is now Canada to the tip of what is now Chile/Argentina. Even in all those movies that show emigrants intending to ‘go to America,’ it is well understood that they didn’t necessarily mean the country that contained New York or Boston or any of those places in particular; they just meant ‘across the pond.’ Think of that viewpoint when you think about this issue. When the American colonies committed sedition in 1776 and formed their own 'country' by 'uniting' a host of 'states,' there came to be a country called the 'United States of America.' This is the kind of name for a country that contains a preposition (i.e., 'of') and therefore dealing with it is irritatingly awkward. Think about it - what does one call a place that has a difficult name? "Where are you from? Are you from Canada? Britain? Scotland? United States OF America?" "Are you a Canadian? A Brit? A Scot? A United States-an?" Huh? See my point? Canadians are from Canada. Brits are from Britain. Scots are from Scotland. 'Americans' are from the 'United States of America.' Perhaps they should change the stupid name of their country and call it something more demonstrative, adaptable and unambiguous --- maybe ‘Washington’? It is not really that Americans are trying to commandeer a word, it's that their country is so awkwardly named that there are few options in the English language to do anything but say 'America' and 'American.' What if all the countries in Europe united themselves and called the new entity ‘The United States of Europe’? Where would I then be going if I said I was going to Europe? Would it be London, Zurich? Constantinople (oops…that ain’t really Europe, now is it?)?-- 137.186.251.55 ( talk) 21:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
The cited source only gives numbers for what it terms North America - the part of the Americas north of the Rio Grande (its definition). It gives 375 000 as the number present in 1900, and historical estimates of the ~1500 population as 1 153 000 to 18 000 000 which gives 67% - 98% dead (primarily from disease) in North America (Canada, United States, Greenland, Bermuda, St. Pierre & Miqqy, presumably) (I gather the choice of area is basically where they could get good data for). Wily D 14:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
ChesterTheWorm ( talk) 08:31, 22 January 2008 (UTC)Sorry but i was trying to make my own post not add to yours but i dont know how to make a post
Either spoken language numbers are old or are wrong. It says 300 million speaking English. Is this talking about speaking the language as a primary language? It does not say that. 93% of the Canadian Population and 97% of US population speak English, that alone is over 325 million. So either the number is wrong, or the statement of what the number is referring to is inaccurate. Cool10191 ( talk) 21:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
land mass? population? stats?
THE NAME OF THE CONTINENT IS 'AMERICA', NOT 'THE AMERICAS'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.40.163.80 ( talk) 19:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps someone can find a map/image of the hemesphere that doesn't cut off the top third of Canada? -- Infrogmation 18:59, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I just went through the article again changing all the uses of "words as words" to italics and removing "quotes". This is done for clarity and readability, as per the Wikipedia: Manual of Style:
Please stop changing this. Ortolan88 16:28, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Doesn't seem to pass the "capitalised The in running text" test; naming conventions would seem to apply. Alai 02:52, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. violet/riga (t) 12:32, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yaddar 19:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC) The fact of Europe and Asia sharing a condition of 2 separate continents is a grandfathered term since Ancient Europeans didn't knew most of Asia actually existed... (see history of Eurasia here in wikipedia). In the case of the American Continent, it was recognized as a whole NEW LANDMASS for the Spanish, Portuguesse and Italian Sailors, thus people of the time named WHOLE NEW CONTINENT "America" (and then, the origin of the word would be that of an Italian Sailor)
And besides the US schools, in the vast rest of the world out there America is seen as a one Continent, with two subcontinents((North America and South America); or 4 Geographical Regions (North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean) or 2 Cultural Regions (Latin America and Anglo-saxon America, -Instead of "North America and Latin America" since we are talking about the LINGUISTIC origins of their population-)
So, the United States are the ONLY ONES who teach America the continent as plural and its in order to know if they are talking about the continent or their country... NOT because there are acctually TWO AMERICAS... "Americas" then would be a Regional terminology ruled by USAGE IN THE US and not for any Geographical nor Historical condition. (not the same as Europe and Asia, whose terminology comes across a Granfathered Historical condition).
Sice then we don't Speak of "Two Asias"... we don not say we have the Far East continent and the Middle East continent... we DO call them 'Geographical Regions'... North Amercia and South America aren't Continents, they are Subcontinents.
The following was previously by itself toward the top of the talk page without a heading. I've moved it here. For what it's worth, Central America is not a continent, and National Geographic does not recognize it as one. I believe it is more of a cultural division. Additionally, please sign comments in the future. If nothing else, it makes the flow of conversation much clearer. --
Dpark 00:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It is true that, as the article states, most references in English describe North America and South America as two continents. This article is a reference in English; why doesn't it do the same? It is confusing for the article to begin "The Americas is an alternative name in the English language for the continent of America," when for the typical reader the Americas are two continents.
AJD 20:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm not especially interested in trying to find a single theory for Wikipedia to put forward, at least not if there isn't a single widely accepted one, but the last sentence in this one strikes me as very, very odd:
Yet another theory states that Vespucci named America after Amorica, the continent of ancient Greek and Roman myth. It is assumed that the Italian Vespucci would have been familiar with Roman myth. Early explorers often believed they were rediscovering islands and continents of myth or religion, such as the idea that South America was the Garden of Eden or 'Earthly Paradise'. After Vespucci's death, people forgot where the name America came from, so they changed his name to Amerigo to explain the naming of America.
Is there any question of Vespucci's first name? If not, that last sentence is very strange, and extremely misleading. If so, then it's still very strange, and needs to be explained. Comments? -- Dpark 00:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I just changed Muke's edit again. I hope this doesn't turn into an edit war, but I feel confident enough to do the edit. First, the ambiguity was already stated in the same sentence and the link only pointed to a dictionary entry that also just restates what the sentence already states. I agree with changing 'politically charged' to 'politically incorrect' (though I'm not sure if the incorrectness is political - it's a geographical issue isn't it?). But I think I can safely state that calling the USA America is incorrect. DirkvdM July 6, 2005 07:56 (UTC)
TO: Muke Tever You need to read more. The name of the city is NOT Mexico, but Ciudad de México in Spanish, Mexico City in English. Please don't use lies to support your ideas. (Angel, Monterrey, Mexico).
I agree that Americas is the term to refer the continent America. It is a fact that US and UK people use that term. But what is incorrect is to think that the rest of the world thinks the same. I edited the article putting US slang at the beginning to let the US and UK users know that what they think is a world wide concept (this is Americas the continent) is indeed incorrect for the rest of the world. (Angel, Monterrey, Mexico)
I completely disagree with this point of view, America is a continent, I am from Mexico and in schools all over the spanish and portuguese speaker nations the term America refers exclusively to the continent. If you want to insist that America is two continents and then you decide to call them North America and South America for the georgraphy then you have to include Mexico and possibly Guatemala and Belice in that called North America. The contradiction comes from the name USA that is United States of America, if you want to insist and say that America is not a continent, then USA should be modified to USNA, i.e. United States of North America TO BE CONSISTENT. In my opinion the problem comes as well from the fact that USA does not have a proper name for their country, USA is only describing where they are and some of their politics. But things would be different if they would not kill all native americans or if they would be a mixed race with the native americans, then they could be United States Navajoes or Apache Republic of North America. Carlos Chavez
Ouch! Expecting language to work like logic is fallacious. I strongly resent that, but at the same time I have to admit it's true. At least for natural languages. A language is supposed to express meaning and without logic everything is meaningless. But language necessarily evolves. New findings disprove the logic of the old terminology (examples abound in science). But the old language will persist in everyday speech. However, in this case there are two 'logics' namely those of (the) America(s) being one or two continents, either of which can be said to be true. In the 'one continent' logic the name 'America' is already used for that, so logic dictates it cannot be used for something else. I suppose that using the name 'America' for the country comes from the habit of North Europeans to think about North America when they talked about America. For the Spanish however (and therefore in the Spanish language) the focus was on South America. In that language the name 'America' continued to mean the (one) continent, probably because there wasn't one single country that came to represent the Spanish colonies (although in the case of North America there's also Canada). There's just no simple answer here, so in that sense you're right. Language doesn't quite follow logic. DirkvdM July 7, 2005 07:14 (UTC)
Perhaps English-speaking readers will feel a bit offended by this, but reading some of the definitions in this article and in this discussion, I feel I must point out some things.
First of all, as stated above, America (the continent) is not USA. Some of you might argue that they have the same name, (such as NY state, and NY city) but this is incorrect. The name of America, refering to the nation of USA began to be widely used, mainly by USA residents (which is an important topic) in the first half of the XX century, in a way to increase the reach of its nation Cultural Imperialism and supremacy over the American continent. The reasoning behind this is, "if other people think/say they also live in [America] it will be easier for them to be assimilated to our culture". Another issue raised with this is that all lands in the American continent are "America" - thus making the taking of that land more "natural", as the US have done with Puerto Rico and more blatlantly with (New) Mexico.
Second, the article is terribly wrong at its very first sentence; America is not divided into two parts, but three. North, Central and South America. Central America is composed by all the Caribbean Isles, and continental mass south of Mexico and North of Venezuela.
Third, as implied from the above paragraphs, the term "The Americas", although grammatically correct, is a geographical and political fallacy, in an imperialist attempt to subdue the third world countries to a "mother country".
When adressing two parts of the continent, one still uses the singular form, which serves to conclude that "America" is a term that should be used in the singular, and only to refer the continent. ("The poverty in Central and South America has ...") We have an example of the same logic in Europe: All of us are aware of the differences between Eastern European and Western European countries. Does that mean that there are two Europes? The continent is one, and thus its name should be always used in the singular. The Far East and the Middle East indicate the presence of "two Asias"? ~~LtDoc~~
And reffering to Muke Tever´s comment, a huge mistake has been made. He claims that "in most contexts outside of things like "Columbus discovered America", the continent is referred to as the Americas, and America by itself refers exclusively to the country." + - It shows an obvious non-neutral POV, expressing his opinion trying to make it sound like "general knowledge" something accepted worldwide, which couldnt be more untruthful. In Latin America, and in most "Latin Europe" ("non-English Europe") the term ´America´ refers to the continent as a whole, not as the nation of USA. The term ´The Americas´ is actually not used at all, since the continent is one, and whole. He tries to back this information by says that google will only point to pages where [America] means the nation and [The Americas] mean the continent. He fails to see to see that most internet pages are in the US domains, thus reflecting the same "politically incorrect" views of US residents.~~Lt Doc~~
Bkonrad just referred to this talk page in his edit, which I reverted. So let's talk. I suppose you referred to this section when you said there is considerable disagreement about the correct usage of America. I hope you've gone beyond the superficial glance you speak of. This discussion resulted in the text as it was (and now is again), so if you're referring to this, you should agree with it or comment. To get you going; How can South America not be part of America? DirkvdM 09:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Ah, so you're Bkonrad. Confusing to go by two names. Just as it's confusing for the term America to have two meanings. My point was, If the USA is America, then South America is apparently not part of America. And that's weird. I don't care about the 'political' bit. I claim it is linguistically incorrect. America first meant the entire continent (or continents if you will). Then, in northern Europe and GB in particular, it came to mean the part of it that was most important to people there. Normally, something like that could lead to a change in the meaning of a word, possibly causing problems if not everyone follows (which is always the case initially), but eventually the language will change and America could justifiably be used for the USA. However, there is a perpetual problem here, namely that the term is also used for something different and especially confusing is that the two meanings overlap (America is part of America?). This could only be changed by changing the name of the other thing, but all that's been done in that respect is that some have started calling it the America's, but that's still confusing (America is part of North America? How can the whole be part of a part of it?). And South America hasn't changed names, so there's still a problem. The result would be that South America is not part of America, which is logically wrong and therefore linguistically incorrect. About your last remark: there is no article on incorrect, but I suppose that's not what you mean. It's a result of the presentation with politically in brackets. DirkvdM 08:14, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Indeed, natural languages are not logical in many senses, but that's no excuse to throw in the towel. I agree that the introductory sentence (it's actually just one sentence!) is rather contorted. The reason can be found hereabove; it's the result of long negotiations (now you know why oficial documents are often incomprehensible). Alright then, how about this;
It's easier to read now, although still a bit contorted. The last sentence might be dropped. Note that a further discussion can be found in the second paragraph of the next section. DirkvdM 10:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Well, the ambiguity was the origin of the emergence of the term the Americas (I assume), so that needs to be mentioned and the illogical consequence that South America is not in America is certainly worth a mention too, I'd say. Which pretty much leads to the above. Except for the politically incorrect bit. Someone else put that in, so I left it in. So that might be dropped now. But not the last sentence, in retrospect. DirkvdM 09:18, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that's my point. Or am I missing your point now? No one says that South America in not in America. What do you mean by that? I'm using a reasoning ad absurdum. I assume that something is correct, follow that through, end up with an absurdity and conclude that the assunption was not correct. Of course I next have to bow to the masses who have already made the absurdity commonplace (but I can still bitch about it). I've studied philosophy with a specialisation in Logic, so you'd better think your next move through .... :) DirkvdM 07:25, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Facile sophistry? Reasoning ad absurdum is one of the cornerstones of Logic and therefore of Science! Well, maybe that's overdoing it a bit, but it's certainly a very accepted method. DirkvdM 16:07, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
The cultural imperialism is covered by the 'politically incorrect' bit (maybe this explanation should be added to it - I have done that above). About having two meanings for 'America', I'd say it's that which inherently shifts the frame of reference (although this is linguistic nitpicking). It is true that most people will have no misunderstandings when using the term 'America' (although I once heard someone accidentally refer to the southern US states as 'South America'). But my point is that having two meanings for one word is wrong from a Logical point of view. And that is what the term 'illogical' refers to. DirkvdM 09:54, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree with DirkvdM, and disagree to Bkonrad that the use of the term "America" referring to the nation of the US is illogical. That is beyond dispute; just follow the thought. America (continent) is divided in three parts, Northern, Central and Southern. A part of the North American subcontinent (therefore a part of America - continent) is the nation of US. Therefore, the nation of US is part of America, the continent. Calling the US "America" is saying that America is part of America, which is illogical. And also very pollitically incorrect, yes. And also insulting to any American (one who lives in the continent of America) that is a non-US resident. What Bkonrad states afterwards, however, makes perfect sense, that the cultural imperialism of the US causes problems with the terminology. (Ive already made a few comments above this, if interested, please read).
As for calling the name of the nation of the U.S. "America" being incorrect, I totally agree. Even if it sounds harsh to english speakers, to non-english speakers is a blunt attempt to colonize them culturally. If you add up all the people in the world, one will come to the conclusion that most people use the term meaning the continent, not the country. Another thing that increases the "incorrectabilty" of the use is that the cultural imperialism imposed by the U.S. is such that it "forces" people to acknoldge them as "Americans" (i.e. citzens of U.S.), thus implying in its use that those who are "american" (born in the U.S.) are the owners of "America" (the continent), that all of America (continent) is the place of rule of americans (born in the U.S.).
I was born in Latin America. Im no more or no less american than any one who has been (or ever will be) born in this continent as well.~~LtDoc~~
True, strictly speaking, but do you truly believe everything in Wikipedia is 'totally sourced'? By that I mean that no interpretation whatsoever takes place. Which would come down to literally copying texts. And doing that whilst not violating copyright would severely cripple Wikipedia. But I'm diverging. Of course it isn't easy to determine how much interpretation is acceptable. But if the source is Logic and the interpretation is the application of the rules of Logic then that's hardly POV. DirkvdM 09:45, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
I refer to Formal Logic (maybe that should be made a bit clearer), which is just about reasoning. It doesn't care if the assumptions are correct, just if the reasoning is. The prescriptive bits here (the assumptions, called propositions in logic or axioms in Mathematics) are that America is the U.S.A., that the Americas are made up of three parts, two of which are North and South America and, lastly, that America (the USA) is located in North America. This cannot be true. It leads to a falsum. At least, if you apply the rule that South-X is part of X (a subset). Which seems obvious. So there is something wrong with the assumptions (prescriptions, propositions, axioms, whatever). They contradict themselves.
By the way, the double negative you mention is no problem in logic. They cancel each other out. The double negative article states they don't. But then it's about something different, like 'I can't get no sleep'. Logically that means 'I sleep all the time'. But the article says such things are either wrong (which is prescriptive) or acceptable in the way they're meant (which is descriptive). But that's a different matter. DirkvdM 12:50, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
Huh? That U.S.A. is America (in the way you say it is sometimes used) is an assumption (the definition that leads to the coming about of the term 'the Americas'). Following that through, one reaches a conclusion that cannot be right, so there's something wrong. It's illogical. That's the reasoning. DirkvdM 07:50, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
The US, America, The Big One, wahtever you call it, should just come up with a name! it is the only country which has no name! I just hope one of the candidates for 2008 thiks about that. ps.: i'm just being sarcastic ;)
I think the point is not much whether America is one continent or two. That is a geographical issue. The main point is that the whole "New World" (north and south) was given the name of America in the sixteenth century. And actually the America of those times was mainly the south part (somebody call it "the First America"). So, America is historically and properly the name for the whole landmass.~~Carlos C.~~
I am from Chile, South America. The first time I heard the term "American" refering to a US citizen was while I was in the USA. I was shocked. In the Castilian-American speaking countries, the term "estadounidence" is the correct way to refer to a US citizen. Also, we are taught that America is a continent (starting in Canada, and ending in Chile). America is not a country. For us, America is not divided into South or North America, however, to specify where a country is, we say "Mexico is in the northern part of America" or "Honduras is in the central part of America". If you look at the history of the US, you can see why they call themselves Americans. They were the first Democratic nation stablished in the American Continent (North and South), I think that's the reason why in english, and even BRE english there isn't a distintion. I want to make this clear, if a US citizen goes to Latin America, please, don't call yourself an American, because there, you are not. For us, "Americans" mean Native Americans, like Mayas, Azstecas, Mapuches, Incas. American has a more ancestral meaning. With this being said, I never use the word American to refer to a US citizen, not even when I speak English, becuase I find it rude.
Although I do think that the Americas are one continent, I must point out that, from my experience, I lived among Russians, Germans, and Paraguayans, and am currently in the U.S., again among Germans and Russians, most people refer to The United States of America simply as America, and to their citizens as Americans (even americano in South America). They simply do not care about it. This is not about common usage, though. The term continent is defined, therefore it is one continent. I do not know if it could be any simpler. Artur Buchhorn 08:43, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi, sorry for anymistake, first time editing here...
I am Brazilian and for me - and for the population there - no problem calling people from USA as Americans. That is how we work and we accept.
However, for us AMERICA means the whole continent. WE never say Americas, as it is just one that Christopher Colombus discovered (and he didn´t step into what is nowadays USA soil). It is composed by 3 continents: North America (easy Canada, USA and Mexico), Central America (the istm in between plus some islands in the Caribbean, most of them) and South America (where Brazil is and some Caribbean islands are also there).
Caribbean and Latin America are 2 cultural regiones. Caribbean is not only islands, it also covers some countries like Colombia (where I live). Latin America is basically all countries which speak Spanish or Portuguese (even though French is also a Latin language, French countries are not considered as Latin America).
In Colombia, we call Americans as North Americans and many others parts of Latin America it is like that.
About ressentment... in me and many people I know it is more amusement - it is funny that one country tries to call itself as the whole continent. Do Americans believe Christopher Colombus discover them? Don´t they bother to use an Italian name (from Americo Vespucio) as their country name?
That is all. marcelobulk Marcelobulk 16:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The article contains the following sentences that strike me as misleading: "In contrast to the rest of the continent, the majority of Canadian and United States residents are white, English-speaking, and of predominantly European ancestry. The native American Indian tribes of the region have mostly been absorbed, displaced, or wiped out and now form small minorities in these two countries." Although both sentences are true statements about Canada and the U.S., they misleadingly imply that the majority of people in the rest of the countries in America are not of predominantly European ancestry. My understanding is that this varies quite a bit from country to country. For example, a large majority of Mexicans claim at least some Native ancestry, but in some of the South American countries (Argentina particularly comes to mind) the population is almost exclusively of European descent. However, I don't have the information at hand to provide a more accurate statement, so I'm noting this in hopes that someone more knowledgeable will provide a correction. Russ Blau (talk) 11:47, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
Someone changed that, but see also top of next entry. DirkvdM 20:01, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I am mexican and also caucasian so it is wrong to place that only such diversity exusts only in Canada and the United States, when the rest of the nations in this continent have also immigrant roots. SqueakBox
What abou the "Organization of American States"?
By this international agreement, all countries in the continent are american states.
I do not understand why US people want to distort things... —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
138.40.163.80 (
talk)
17:29, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
The issue of the previous entry was avoided by largely removing it. But now it reads The majority of the American people live in Latin America. Most of Latin America is Spanish-speaking, with Portuguese-speaking Brazil as the major exception. Canada and the United States are the countries most culturally, politically, and economically separate from Latin America. Ehm, ... Canada and the US are the only countries outside Latin America, right? So I changed that a bit, adding some of the previous version as well. How are these countries politically different from Latin American countries? I removed that. Feel free to put it back, but then explain.
Roy da Vinci (RAAAH!) added an interresting point about the US treating Latin America as its back yard. But this needs some more explaining. During the 19th century there was sort of an agreement (I don't know how much this was 'official') between the USA and Europe that their foreign influences should not cause any conflict; the USA would stay out of Eurasia if Europe stayed out of Latin America. WWII changed that, though. And now the USA are everywhere. And was it just 'southern Latin America' (and what is that?), not the whole of Latin America? Also, I'm not sure if this is the right article to point this out, though I can't think of a better one.
Roy da Vinci also alphabetised the nationalities of the colonists of European descent, but that didn't seem to make sense to me, so I reverted that, so he reverted that. It's a very minor thing, but that doesn't mean I'll give way :) . It seems to make more sense to me to put them in an order of importance (quantitatively speaking, that is). So I'd say Spanish, British, Irish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German and Dutch. Notice my 'modesty' in moving the Dutch way to the back of the list. But more seriously, I'm not quite sure about the order, but it would be enlightening to mention this, so not just to give the list, but also to say in what order they are.
I assume not all blacks are descendants from slaves. There must be more recent immigrants from Africa (such as Eddy Murphy in 'Coming to America' :) ). Or is this group too small to be worth mentioning?
What is 'from the Balkan' in one word? Balkanese? I circumvented the issue in my edit.
DirkvdM 20:00, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
True, not all countries outside the US and Canada are predominantly 'latin language-speaking'. And usually I prefer to stay close to the literal meaning of a word, but here it's not just that most people understand Latin America to mean Central and South America. Consider this. You'd be hard put to find an English-speaking country where only English is spoken. Still, you'd call even the US an English-speaking country, right? (Well, the UK, then...) Similarly, it isn't strange to call the part of America that's predominantly Latin-speaking Latin America. Also, you wouldn't call Quebec part of Latin America. The Latin America article backs this up. DirkvdM 07:52, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
I spoke with a geographer, and he said, "Continents are fungible."
And someone posted a lengthy and informative note on my user page, which I've moved to User talk:4.18.44.157.
I daresay that the US English usage of America to refer "the United States of America" is an irritant to (what US folks would call) "non-Americans". As in How dare you say we're not Americans, you European white trash colonial imperialist bahstahds!
I hope to capture the flavor of their discontent, and balance that with how America is actually used in the media, in books and in private conversation. Not being a professional linguist, surely anything I do by myself will fail to hit the mark. But if we work on this together, I think we'll find that "all of us" are smarter than "any of us". Uncle Ed 16:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Ya'll need to realize North America and South America are two seperate continents. Are Europe, Asia, and Africa one big continent just because they're connected? No. Don't forget that North and South America were also seperated in prehistory, and sorta "crashed" into each other. And Central America is not a continent, it's southern North America.
Agreed as well. See North America, though this is not universally held as a Costa Rican editor bitterly railed against the idea of Central America being part of North America. Not only geographically is this so but politically as well, SqueakBox 16:01, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Nope sorry, it is all a single continent. Even the Olympic Comitee places things as 5 continents. ElChompiras
Please, Chompiras and the rest of you well-meaning but linguistically confused Latin Americans. It is confusing, so let's break it down by language, shall we?
In Portuguese and Spanish
In English
So, languages evolve around popular uses of the terms. So what we Portuguese and Spanish native speakers need to understand is that, however dismal it may be to us, the fact is that the equivalent word in English is not equivalent. Think of it as you will; take comfort in the fact that the order of punctuation and quotes is not the same, either; in English the most correct form is to put the quotes after the punctuation, thus: "hello," and in Spanish or Portuguese you have to write "hola". Or "olá".
I'm not a native speaker of English, so if a native asks me what America means I'll give him the Portuguese/Spanish definitions, since these are also true in English. If she asks me how many continents there are, I'll answer "six," and wait for her "a-ha!" to add, "counting Antarctica, of course." – Tintazul msg 17:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
A continent west of the Atlantic ocean is mentioned by Homer, Plato, Apollodoros, Plutarch, Eratosthenes, Stesichorus, Strabo and more.
Plutarch for example, gives an account of a continent west of Britain in his work Moralia: Volume XII. Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon, chap. 26.
The "great number of currents" can be identified today as the Gulf Stream currents. The distance of five thousand stadia between the continent and Ogygia, is equivalent to 900 kilometers.
Plato in Timaios also mentions a continent west of the Atlantic.
Strabo proposed that Ogygia and Skhería described by Homer in Odyssey were located in the Atlantic Ocean:
The river-stream of Oceanus quoted by Homer can be identified today as the Gulf Stream.
If Homer was the first writer to mention the continent west of the Atlantic ocean, then America could possibly refer to Homerica.-- Odysses 11:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd be interested to know more of what this tidbit, which I have removed, was getting at:
While this is certainly interesting, it looks more like an editor just read Chomsky's Necessary Illusions and wanted to make a point. I removed it mostly because it is vague: there are some clear ways that the U.S. has "overshadowed" and "attempted to manipulate," and it might be useful to detail this with more information.
Also, the phrase "southern Latin America" is more incorrect than vague. I have a feeling it was meant to refer to Central America.
I also removed it because its current wording makes it seem like a POV generalization. The North/South division of the world doesn't seem to be especially relevant without further explanation . Additionally it seems to blame the economic position of the United States (and, by association, the ENTIRE "Northern World") for its actions during the Cold War, which is altogether too simplistic. ANYTHING the U.S. did during that time period was complex, and mentioning only economic factors leaves out important political motivations. Actually, the way it's worded doesn't make a motivation clear at all, and doesn't even describe what has happened.
NPOV perhaps would be to explain what is known about the States' political, eco. & soc. relationship with Central America during the Cold War, using its economic position when relevant.
In short...Help! That line didn't sink well with me but I don't know enough about this topic to fix it on my own! Markmtl 07:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
There is quite obviously a dispute over how many continents to divide "America" into:
The UN, ever mindful of member states' sensitivities, uses terms like "macro" and " subregion". Their division goes like this:
Note that each level is sorted alphabetically, L before N in the 2nd level and C, C, S in the 3rd level; just like countries at the lowest level. -- Uncle Ed 21:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
The first sentence:
is clearly unsatisfactory as a definition:
Any suggested improved definition? jnestorius( talk) 11:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Anthony, you might have missed this, but I removed the word "dropped" from my version. You might want to reconsider your 2nd reversion of the day. I respect you too much to play a game of 3RR with you, so I'll just leave it as for a day or so. -- Uncle Ed 12:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
An awkward phrase in the article:
I added bold markup the awkward phrase.
We've lost the subject of the sentence here, which I assume is "usage". Are we trying to say that because many individuals resenst the appropriaton thus the usage is frequently avoided? If so, the passive voice is obscure here.
We need to say WHO avoids this usage. Or who WANTS OTHERS to avoid this usage. -- Uncle Ed 16:41, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
That's fine. Moving on:
Now I've heard many non-US Wikipedians say they refer to themselves as American, but I see no references in any article showing how often this usage occurs outside of this web site. My impression thus far is:
Moreover, I think we cannot afford to neglect the recent political movement for relaxing immigration laws for Latin American immigrants who want to work and/or live in the US. Don't they use slogans like "We are Americans, too"? (If so, how are they using the word "American" here?) -- Uncle Ed 17:41, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I think Uncle Ed's impression is wrong. I am from Peru, and (like others) always called myself "Americano" until I came to live in Canada and found out that I am not suppossed to call myself like that. Of course, I call myself American in the same way that a French would call himseld European. ~~Carlos C.~~
These sources below may neither support nor apply to the useage of the term.
The article currently starts with (or it did when I started writing this):
I see two problems with that:
1. "the lands of the western hemisphere" would, technically*, include part of Europe, Africa, Macaronesia, etc. Maybe it would work better if the following comma was removed, since it would then unambiguously specify which lands of the western hemisphere are considered "America". But I think it would be better to just get rid of that altogether, due to ambiguity (and also #2 below).
(* note: the western hemisphere page talks about a non-capitalized "western hemisphere" as the literal, geographical one, and a capitalized "Western Hemisphere" as a cultural notion referring just to the Americas (which is a distinction I personally had never heard about, but that's irrelevant); therefore, this complicates the sentence, as the expression itself can then assume two meanings, and context doesn't provide obvious clues).
Furthermore, since North America and South America are components of "the Americas", it is a bit of a self-referential definition.
2. It explicitly mentions that the Americas are composed of two continents, which, as we all know, is a contentious issue.
I thought of replacing it with something like this (this is just a draft):
This way we avoid both using the ambiguous "western hemisphere" term, as well as the debate over whether it's one or more continents.
Comments, suggestions? I didn't want to "be bold" and change that right away, without input from other people. Thanks... -- Cotoco 20:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree to User:Cotoco at this point. At the same time, hopefully, remove the word, New World, which I have concerned as a vandalism.-- User:PhillC 14:59, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Re the assertion (which I agree with): A few alternative theories regarding the landmass' naming have been proposed, but none of them has achieved any widespread acceptance. To me it almost leaves the impression, after the scepticism expressed about the Vespucci theory, that there is no acceptable theory. But there is, the Vespucci theory. Or at least that's the majority view.
Richard Amerike theory: This seems the best choice linguistically but that's POV. Critics of this theory though point out that the name would only have described fishing grounds, not the North American landmass. I wonder if that's worth mentioning.
Amerrique theory: It's not stated where the word 'Amerrique' originates and I expected to see that. I gather it's purported to be a Mayan word, although I also read: An imaginative anthropologist studying the mayan culture in Yucatan, Le Plongeon had written to Marcou: "The name AMERICA or AMERRIQUE in the Maya language means, a country of perpetually strong wind, or the Land of the Wind, and sometimes the suffix '-ique' and '-ika' can mean not only wind or air but also a spirit that breathes, life itself." (Scholars today, however,recognize that America doesn't derive from the Mayan language,which was not spoken in Nicaragua, though the name almost resembles in sound the Quiche Maya iq'amaq'el meaning perpetual wind). Paraphrased from here. It sounds like "myth busted" (if true). Does this theory have popular belief in say Central America in the way the Vespucci theory has in the north?
And there is also the Scandinavian: Amteric theory [2] :)
In short all these theories are territorial and/or nationalistic. I wonder if it's worth acknowledging that. The Vespucci claim for the naming of America is dominant because it's the view of the majority of people who live there. Hakluyt bean 18:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I've removed a sentence claiming Canadians don't use America to refer to the US. I'm Canadian, and 'America' is probably the most commonly used term here to refer to The United States of America. I realize that the statement was cited, but I'm convinced there is some sort of misunderstanding or poor wording involved. The statement as it stood is, as far as I know, completely wrong. -- Kinst 01:49, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
The section on languages is pretty crummy. Mentioning Dutch as a language spoken in the continent (however gringos insist in calling it) while ignoring the _hundreds_ of native languages (Mexico only has sixty of them still alive) is not on. Ben.
Furthermore, it says 240 million speak English. How does this work when almost all of the United States' 300 million speak it, along with 4/5ths of the 30 million Canadians?
-Jackmont, 18 July 2007
Ok, we've had a slow edit war over whether to include this term in the introduction. I've seen claims that it's biased, but no explanation yet. As far as I know, it's simply common term used to describe the Americas, especially in biology, e.g. "old world monkeys" vs. "new world monkeys" and so forth. To anyone who doesn't want it in the article: would you mind discussing it here? -- Yath 05:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I think it's quite appropriate, since you'll find that reference in most of the first entries in the "Archivos de Indias" in Seville. It is a term of reference of the continent, the same way we used to say long ago "Las Américas" in plural, but nowadays it's not in fashion and we don't use it anymore in Spain. Well, I agree it should be noted that europeans called it the New World, I'm sure the aztecs and incas didn't called themselves the New World, ;).
I was thinking ot including a little more information on the discussion on the term "America". It seems everybody forgot to mention the book "Las venas abiertas de latinoamerica" of Eduardo Galeano, a uruguayan journalist/historian ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano ). In this book he strongly critisices the appropriation of the term by the US, making the americans of south america "second class americans". So since this has become a moral issue, I think someone should include the other version of the story, latin america's point of view, very well described in the work of this man. I would do it myself but I'm terrible with pc's and I'd probably end up erasing the whole document!! Lol* however, i'll check in a while and if it's not included, I'll do my best. Nemi 13:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
As I read the following I decided it needed more qualifiers than I have time to add:
Obviously this refers to "states" not in the international sense but in the United States sense and obviously this also means a particular royal family. These are not assumptions that an international encyclopedia should make. Could someone clean this up? Durova 16:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
From 2nd para: "The designation is a relatively recent and less ambiguous alternative to America, which may refer to either the entire landmass or (colloquially) the United States of America. The original usage to describe what is sometimes considered a single continent or supercontinent is deprecated for clarity, for which the Americas is used to collectively refer to the landmass and various regions of it."
Wouldn't it be clearer, without repetition and without loss of essential meaning to say:
The term the Americas is a relatively recent alternative to the term America, which is ambiguous as it may refer to either this entire landmass or (colloquially) just the United States of America.
I mean, "... deprecated for clarity, for which the Americas is used ..." is not very accessible writing. If you don't like my suggestion, please come up with something else which is clearer than the present wording. Nurg 10:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand something. If I'm reading this right, Martin Waldseemüller was the first cartographer to use the name "America", and the book that accompanied his map says "America" came from Vespucci. Doesn't that pretty much clear up the controversy? Why would "Vespucci's role in the naming issue...[be] most probably a tale" if Waldseemüller named it after him? Something's being left out here. — Chowbok 22:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
How recent is the name "The Americas"? Does anyone know? It seems more imprecise and unwieldy than America. Deepstratagem 01:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Here would be the right place. Intuitionz 04:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
This is the current and only flag of the Americas that were ever produced, the problem is for non-american political reasons they are hard to find. I have some examples of the British version of the flag with the Union Jack in the corner at http://themidlands.net/victoria/index.php?title=British_America but can't find any more sources which displays the flag of the Americas. It is a rare occurance to find one. Intuitionz 22:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
It is the peoples liberal choice and wikipedias to perserve this flag. Cogito ergo sumo: It is the only one that has been created as I know of. If chosen NOT to opt this flag it is our sole discretion. Lets us choose wisely in this matter please. Intuitionz 22:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree lets opt the Canadian version of the O.A.S. : http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/latin-america/latinamerica/contact/about-logo-en.asp OR we can opt the Universal Version which is displayed right now. OR we can OPT FOR A LATER TIME TO DECIDE. Intuitionz 23:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Why are the two Americas considered separate continents?
I think German should be on the list of languages. Only Pennsylvania Dutch is mentioned, but there are German speaking communities in the Americas as far apart as New England, Jamaica, Argentina and Paraguay.
U need to add Texas also.
Done!!-- 68.80.207.22 01:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario in Canada, as well as Paraguay, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, and Belize, also have large populations of Plautdietsch. There is more detail here. There are also significant populations of other Low German dialects present as well. Fehrgo 03:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
What about to speak about the History, Geography, Climate, etc. of this continent, America, in its article? What about a list of the countries that composes America? I think the article is so uncomplete.
Please try to remember that even though there is a section on the term American, this article is about the Americas. There is no need to focus on the different names of citizens of the United States. An article already exists for that purpose ( Use of the word American), so this article doesn't need terms like gringo or yanqui which have nothing to do with an article on the Americas. Only when conflicts exist between the expected usage of the term American as translated (or a variant) should it be noted (i.e. americano or americana in Spanish does not have all of the same meanings as American in English and norteamericano or norteamericana are very context sensitive). Cheers.-- Burzum 13:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
There is any reference of that?-- 194.65.151.249 11:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I will change that. These ideia only appears in two editions of the user 72.132.147.88 and many of his editions seems "strange" .-- 81.84.199.93 22:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
The use of the word "Nations" in this article as a heading is incorrect (see Nation and State). It should be either States or Countries. States refers to sovreign governments, while nations refers to groups of people who have a shared identity (for example the Kurds or the Scottish). States would be the preferable word, though I think countries would be acceptable as well.
Okay, I'll start by admitting one of the things I really dislike about the article is that is says almost nothing about the Americas - it only says things about how the Americas are named, or referred to. The article blows, because there's not History of the Americas, Geography of the Americas, Inhabitants of the Americas, Biology of the Americas, Politics of the Americas and so on. The Demography section is the only section that actually tells me anything about the Americas that I could actually go out and see today. So I moved it to the top, and the trivia sections down a bit. Is there really any rational for moving the usual information to the bottom? I can sort of buy moving "Naming" to the top, as it's basically a very tiny "History" section, so History - Demographis - Trivia ordering can probably be easily enough justified. WilyD 15:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Looking at this, I'm not strongly aware of any trend. Anyways, it wasn't so much "naming" at the top that bugged me as much as "use of" section which really doesn't tell us anything about the Americas, but just some junk. Anyways, the issue is that there isn't really much content, so I'll try to focus on adding content, rather than trying to make something from nothing. WilyD 18:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this, the burden is not on either of us to prove that this arguable statement is true or false. We are both saying that it is arguable, and it is up to the editor who wishes to include the information to include a reliable source. See WP:ATT. Again, I don't want to debate the merits of the statement. I just do not want an encyclopedia that makes arguable claims without attributing them to a published source. Haber 17:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Why is this article listed as Americas, and not America? Deepstratagem 20:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Word Usage
The use of America to mean the United States may cause offense to people from Canada and Central and South America, and should be avoided. The term North America may be used to refer to the United States and Canada together.
Okay, there's obviously some dispute about the use of the word - I've personally not removed nor added it while working on the section, but let's talk about it rather than fight about it. Questions I have:
But maybe I'm totally fuckin' nuts. Thoughts? WilyD 03:16, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi WilyD, I added the ref to genocide. I can't tell you how much the discussion is spread because I'm still researching. On you second question I think that massive violence is always very notable regardless of other causes of death; it is notable also from a political point of view, because the history of the continent is rooted on the prevailing of a society of warriors/colonizers over a pacific society.-- BMF81 13:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
For centuries, "AMERICA" has always been a continent. And it will continue being one continent for long time. There is no such thing like "Americas". I wonder, who was the guy here to introduce that term. I would like to see where did you get that term from? And I want a good source. The British academy of language defines "AMERICA" to name the whole contient. If that is not enough, you can look at wikipedia articles and maps, that contradict your term "Americas". All those british maps and german maps, display "America" or "Amerika" to name the whole continent. At this point, it's clearly, that the term "Americas" was introduced by some USA individual and we all know why. The USA consensus in this place is really strong, and that makes many articles not "Objective". I love Wikipedia and I have contributed to Wikipedia in other languages, since english is not my main language, but when I find articles like this one, I can tell I'm reading the New York Times cheap articles. I hope the USA consensus gets weaker some day and maybe we will have more "Objective" articles. The term "Americas" was made in USA and is wrong.
As you can see in the below links, no language in this world, uses the term "Americas". They use the correct term "America". Also, the real british english language uses the term "America".
Only USA slang introduced the term "Americas". Probably, because they think America is a country and not a continent. What a shame, USA slang has become stronger than British English language. Just incredible. 300 million people contradicting 5 1/2 billion people.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_%28Kontinent%29
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica
http://an.wikipedia.org/wiki/America
http://frp.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A8rica
http://ast.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica
http://ay.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%ABrika
http://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika
http://bar.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika
http://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika
http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A8rica
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rique
http://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameerika
http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameriko
http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/America
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_%28continent%29
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameryka
http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/America
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika
Ale2007
16:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I also have no idea what do you mean with that article. It's just an article of a newspaper. I would even trust in Wikipedia before trusting an article of a newspaper, specially that one. If you want to get the correct answer, check out what the british academy says about this. Well, like I said above, check out the british maps. I repeat, check out the "British maps" of America. There are a lot of those maps in Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Is that too hard to understand?
Ale2007 02:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
To user: Ale2007 You reply in a very poor way just concerning about the topic that British called America the continent "the Americas". But what about the rest. The facts are there. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE AMERICAS. It is just a slang from the United States, supported by the UK of course. I repeat, THE FACTS ARE THERE BECAUSE ONLY IN UK ENGLISH OR USA ENGLISH YOU CAN USE THE TERM AMERICAS.
I am mexican, and there is no such thing as Americas. I have friends in Mexico, Peru, Spain, Italy, France and Argentina and America has only one meaning: a continent of the world.
I agree that in English there has to be an article called the Americas, cause for english native speakers of US and UK this is the continent known for the rest of the world America.
I edited this article addind to the world Americas US slang, and this is to let the US and UK users know that what they think is a world wide concept is incorrect for the rest of the world. Regards (Angel, Monterrey Mexico).
Another user wrote: "Just incredible. 250 million people contradicting 6000 million people." 300 million people is more up to date.
Americas is a name invented by the people of the United States and making America as the name of this country. citizens of the United States have many geographical problems. Sorry I have much respect for them. but the truth is the truth
Is there reason to believe the Muslim explorers are any more credible than the rest of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact? If so, did the Muslims ever colonise the Americas rather than just explore? Or should we reorder? WilyD 22:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
While only indirectly affecting this page, based on previous discussions on this page, there may be some interest in participating in the discussion about a request to move America → America (disambiguation) and ultimately replace America with a redirect to United States. older ≠ wiser 21:39, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I was just reading over this article when I came across a sentence that said something like English is by far the most spoken and important language in The Americas. Now I know that cant be true because 2 paragraphs down it says that Spanish is spoken by about 80 million more people and is the language of most American countries. I would fix this myself but I don’t have the time. Can someone do this for me?-- 66.176.63.70 19:20, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Hey guys, what is going on in this paragraph??
"" The majority of the people live in Latin America, named for its dominant languages, Spanish and Portuguese, both of which are descended from Latin. Latin America is typically contrasted with Anglo-America where English, a Germanic language, prevails: namely, Canada and the United States (in Northern America) have predominantly British roots and are quite different in terms of linguistic, cultural, and economic situation from other countries in the Americas ""
I tried to remove that weird sentence about the cultural and economic diference, but somebody revert my edit... I don't understand, i mean of course there are significant diferences between Canada/US and other countries in Latin america, but if we say that, we should also mention the diferences(culturally/economic) within all the countries in Latin american that are even bigger; and that would be nonesense.
The cultural and economic diference between a canadian and a mexican is not bigger than the one between an Uruguayan and a Bolivian.. (just to put one example) That is what i'm trying to explain 201.231.42.162 23:05, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
The term "Americas" is wrong...
I'm agree the term Americas is wrong. For centuries, "AMERICA" has always been a continent. And it will continue being one continent for long time. There is no such thing like "Americas". I wonder, who was the guy here to introduce that term. I would like to see where did you get that term from? And I want a good source. The british academy of language defines "AMERICA" to name the whole contient. If that is not enough, you can look at wikipedia articles and maps, that contradict your term "Americas". All those british maps and german maps, display "America" or "Amerika" to name the whole continent. At this point, it's clearly, that the term "Americas" was introduced by some USA individual and we all know why. The USA consensus in this place is really strong, and that makes many articles not "Objective". I love Wikipedia and I have contributed to Wikipedia in other languages, since english is not my main language, but when I find articles like this one, I can tell I'm reading the New York Times cheap articles. I hope the USA consensus gets weaker some day and maybe we will have more "Objective" articles. The term "Americas" was made in USA and is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.17.26.137 ( talk) 18:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Looking back over the history of the talk page, not surprised that the edit war happened. It's been a highly contentious issue going way back. As I understand the essence of the dispute, the question is whether the term America refers to the United States or the combined continents of North, South, and Central America. If the latter is true, then Americas could be considered an invalid term. In my experience, America = United States, and Americas = combined continents, but clearly that is not the only view. Let's get reliable sources and build consensus to determine which one is the correct way of referring to the continents, and what to do (if anything) about the appropriate article names. ~ Eliz 81 (C) 04:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I can't do it, but I suggest this part:
America may be ambiguous, as it can refer to either this entire landmass or just the United States of America.
to be removed. One could say that "Americas" isn't correct, because America is a continent and not a country. Which isn't wrong. Although people in United Stated call their country "America", this is just a short for the offial name, "United States of America" (note that it isn't "United States of Americas", by the way). The fact that the land is one, two, or three continents isn't a scientific truth. There's no unanimity about it.
In short: The use of the word "America" in the singular or in the plural is a polemic stuff. I think it would be better to avoid this polemic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.51.16.231 ( talk) 22:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
In favor of eliminating ambiguous terms.
Intuitionz ( talk) 01:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Intuitionz ( talk) 02:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Intuitionz, "the Americas" refers to the two continents and the isthmus between them. It does not refer to every country in the hemisphere; i.e. every country is not an America. So "the Americas" are just three: North America, South America, and Central America; just one of each. SamEV ( talk) 00:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
(rv to version of 15:41, 15 December 2007, by Lucasbfr - changes this odd and potentially confusing need to be discussed on Talk page)
Perhaps I can add some perspective to this discussion. The term 'America' has long been understood to refer to all the land mass stretching from the Artic in what is now Canada to the tip of what is now Chile/Argentina. Even in all those movies that show emigrants intending to ‘go to America,’ it is well understood that they didn’t necessarily mean the country that contained New York or Boston or any of those places in particular; they just meant ‘across the pond.’ Think of that viewpoint when you think about this issue. When the American colonies committed sedition in 1776 and formed their own 'country' by 'uniting' a host of 'states,' there came to be a country called the 'United States of America.' This is the kind of name for a country that contains a preposition (i.e., 'of') and therefore dealing with it is irritatingly awkward. Think about it - what does one call a place that has a difficult name? "Where are you from? Are you from Canada? Britain? Scotland? United States OF America?" "Are you a Canadian? A Brit? A Scot? A United States-an?" Huh? See my point? Canadians are from Canada. Brits are from Britain. Scots are from Scotland. 'Americans' are from the 'United States of America.' Perhaps they should change the stupid name of their country and call it something more demonstrative, adaptable and unambiguous --- maybe ‘Washington’? It is not really that Americans are trying to commandeer a word, it's that their country is so awkwardly named that there are few options in the English language to do anything but say 'America' and 'American.' What if all the countries in Europe united themselves and called the new entity ‘The United States of Europe’? Where would I then be going if I said I was going to Europe? Would it be London, Zurich? Constantinople (oops…that ain’t really Europe, now is it?)?-- 137.186.251.55 ( talk) 21:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
The cited source only gives numbers for what it terms North America - the part of the Americas north of the Rio Grande (its definition). It gives 375 000 as the number present in 1900, and historical estimates of the ~1500 population as 1 153 000 to 18 000 000 which gives 67% - 98% dead (primarily from disease) in North America (Canada, United States, Greenland, Bermuda, St. Pierre & Miqqy, presumably) (I gather the choice of area is basically where they could get good data for). Wily D 14:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
ChesterTheWorm ( talk) 08:31, 22 January 2008 (UTC)Sorry but i was trying to make my own post not add to yours but i dont know how to make a post
Either spoken language numbers are old or are wrong. It says 300 million speaking English. Is this talking about speaking the language as a primary language? It does not say that. 93% of the Canadian Population and 97% of US population speak English, that alone is over 325 million. So either the number is wrong, or the statement of what the number is referring to is inaccurate. Cool10191 ( talk) 21:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)