Think fast: what term do you use in Portuguese for those born in the United States?
American? North American? American?
Whatever your answer is, it is correct according to Portuguese language guides and dictionaries. But your choice can somehow reveal how you think…
The Houaiss Dictionary, one of the most respected in Portuguese, puts the terms as equivalent: “American = to the United States (United States of America) or its native or resident; American, North American, Yankee.”
The Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation of Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs states: “Strictly speaking, ‘American’ is ‘American’ or ‘America’s gentile; ‘North America’ is ‘North America’s gentile’; and ‘American’, ‘non-Jewish of the United States. When context does not allow questionable interpretations, the forms ‘American’ or ‘North American’ may be used with reference to the United States”.
Portuguese language teacher and counselor Thais Nicoleti explains that the use of each is optional. although the dispute about it is not new.
“It is worth noting that the name of the country is ‘United States of America’ and the full name of Brazil, once ‘United States of Brazil’, is ‘Federal Republic of Brazil’ or ‘Federative Republic’ refers to the country type. Actually the name is from America and Brazil comes later.”
Rules and standards aside, the use of the word “American” has often been questioned by news readers and social media commentators.
After all: if there is a continent “America”, how can “American” describe only one country? This debate goes back to the emergence of the United States as a nation.
Origin of “America”, country and continent
The first record of the appearance of the word “America” is the 1507 map of the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. The most accepted theory is that the “baptism” was a tribute to the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (Amerigo Vespucci), who first described the landmass called the “New World” as a continent separated by oceans.
The first record of “America” as part of the United States name is credited to the draft Declaration of Independence in 1776. Previously, the area was known as the Thirteen Colonies and later the United Colonies. At that time, it was these regions that came together to form the new country, the first independent country in the Americas.
Canadian Sean Purdy, professor of US History at the University of São Paulo (USP), points out other names suggested at the time: Imperial America, the Greater Republic, and the Greater United States.
According to the professor, the adjective “American” (as in “American music”) and the name “American” (“that American”) began to be used together with regional or state names shortly after the founding of the republic. From ancestors such as Southern (South), New Yorker (New Yorker), or Scottish (Scottish) and Irish (Irish).
“But consistent usage took time, because the founders knew that the new republic didn’t cover all of America. Over the decades, many rulers used the words ‘United States’, ‘Republic’, ‘Union’ and ‘Colombia’ for countries,” says Purdy.
The term “America” began to be widely used as the United States became a power through foreign interventions in Latin America at the end of the 19th century.
“Presidents and other rulers of the republic rarely referred to the country as America until the late 19th century. After the Spanish-American War of 1898 against Spain, when the United States conquered Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, presidents like Theodore Roosevelt and everyone else have since ‘He started using America as their home country. So it reflects how language is constructed in the context of power and social relations,’ says Purdy.
Why do we embrace the “American” in Brazil?
Although Brazilians rarely use the name “America” to refer to the United States, “Americano” remains the most common non-Jewish person in the country.
In other languages, such as Spanish spoken in Latin America or French spoken in Canada, it will be the most commonly used “American” equivalent.
“I believe this has a lot to do with the fact that Spanish speakers in America identify more with the term America than with Brazilians, and with other Latin American countries (especially where they speak Spanish). It identifies a lot with the rest of America,” says Sean Purdy.
Consultant Thaís Nicoleti points out that the word “American” has been spelled that way in Brazil since the works of writers Machado de Assis and Lima Barreto, “proving that it was a common form in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” Inside Prison MemoriesA book by Graciliano Ramos written in the 1930s, both “American” and “North American” seem to mean the same thing.
Ideological disagreement?
According to the two experts consulted, an aversion to US “imperialism” (a policy of expansion and regional and cultural domination) would be the main reason for the effort to use the term “American”.
“Many researchers want to separate the United States from the rest of the United States. It has to do with an anti-imperialist policy towards the United States, but also with strengthening ties and identities between Brazil and other Latin American countries,” says Sean Purdy. academy.
Thaís Nicoletti, on the other hand, associates the use of the words “American” or “North America” with left-wing publications as “an attempt by a single country to prevent America’s imperial power from taking over on its own, not by chance”. gentile of the entire continent”.
This argument “does not seem to have any basis”, in his view, as the context would not allow us to confuse the word “American”, which refers to the country, with its homonym regarding the continent.
“To me, these usages, although they can translate a political position, have an almost insignificant effect as a form of resistance in and of themselves. It comes from the ‘giant of the North,'” he thinks.
But can this change?
His Portuguese teacher explains that “rule” in language is “orderliness,” that is, what is repeated often.
When it comes to gentiles, there is a wide variety of forms, although there are some more common suffixes (like -ês in English, French, or Senegalese).
Nicoleti explains the case of “Fluminense”, which describes both those born in the State of Rio de Janeiro and those born in the city of Rio de Janeiro until the early 20th century. Carioca, which had a pejorative meaning at first, was adopted by the people of the capital in the following years.
“All this debate about which term is legitimate to use. But the ultimate majority adoption of the American term, for example, will depend on whether there are significant changes in social relations, power relations between countries, closer identification with other Latin American countries. “I don’t see that happening in the near future,” he says. Professor Sean Purdy.
“Not everything in language can be reduced to ‘true/false’ – in fact, everything can always be deepened,” concludes Nicoleti.
Text originally published at: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/salasocial-62245257
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source: Noticias
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