Posts from Carlos in thread „America“

Quote from EJLarson

That must be wearying. Does the average Argentine have any idea of the distinction between England and Wales?

(“Che, tenés tu propio duque, no?”)

I would say that the general argentinean do not distinguish the difference. However, there is a 20 % of cultured people which knows that. Even in many newspapers we speak about the "Reino Unido" (UK), which inplicitly says that there are parts inside it.

Racially speaking ( however this is now unpolitical) those cultured countrymen knows that Wales comes for Celtic people, as well as Scotland and Northern Ireland. England is predominanty Anglo-Saxon, and also they knows that the Anglos came from Denmark in the VI Century, along with the Jutes and Saxons. The original people were the Britons, conquered by the Romans.

Of course, it will be a very rough mistake to confuse Ireland with the UK, although in the XIX century that was a common error, perhaps due because they both spoke English.

Even knowing that "America" properly means all the continent between Europe, Africa and the Far East, we in Argentina accepts to say "los Americanos" referring to the US only.

A very well known statement of James Monroe, who said "America for the Americans", a doctrine that prevented the return of the European rule after the Vienna Congress of 1815, due to the expansion of the USA in northern Mexico, and the Caribbean, most people translated it as

"America for North Americans", in a funny way, of course.