• Cethin@lemmy.zip
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    10 months ago

    And I guess South African should be something else, because there are other states in southern Africa? Language doesn’t really care about being “correct” with terms. It cares about being understandable. No one knows what USAian is. Everyone knows what American is. There isn’t really any debate anywhere around what to call people from the United States of America, even among other American nations.

    • onlinepersona@programming.dev
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      10 months ago

      And I guess South African should be something else, because there are other states in southern Africa?

      You are correct, it should be something else. To agree on what is pretty difficult though. Azania has been suggested, but there are 12 official languages that probably have their own terms. I won’t even attempt to guess how many different tribes were brutally merged into one country by imperialists when they drew the borders to call it South Africa. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did rename themselves someday.

      Even India doesn’t want to be called India. There’s a growing movement for it to be called Bharat.

      No one knows what USAian is

      Funny that, I didn’t have to explain to anyone what it is because the immediate reaction by people like you was "that’s not how you say ‘American’ ".