A random thought from an interested party

[mia]

Qav!

I am an artlanger, but I thought I'd give Paqatyl a try for the same reason I bothered looking at Esperanto-- purely for fun and as a social activity.

I do have a question though. What's up with "Iank" (... what was it in a previous edition? Jagk?) for the USA? I can only assume it is derived from "Yankee", but that word is culturally charged, so I don't understand the reason it was chosen. "Yankee" is not a universally positive word, and I am not comfortable with it at all. I don't know many people from the US who would identify themselves as 'Yankees'. Also, it is sometimes used to refer to people from specific regions, like the North or Northeast in general, or to New England specifically, so it isn't a great choice to cover the whole country.

Also, 'yank' is a verb in English, and people from the US mostly speak English, so it is a little weird to have to identify your country with a word that means something else in your native language, even if the vowel is a little different.

[Kior Olfaa]

Hi, Mia!

Thanks for expressing yourself here. I hope others will start doing it too.

Indeed, to some the term Yankee may sound derogatory or offensive, but in many parts of the world even the word American is not used in a friendly way.

I didn't want to use the terms America and American because there is a continent with the same name. 'Yankee' does NOT have a bad connotation everywhere, is well-known and a single word. United States is not a real proper name, as it is made up of 'united' and 'state'.

For a better and longer explanation, see

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee

[chrissomerry]

Hello! I'm new to this forum, and I actually found it via a facebook friend's post about this website (I'm also an Esperantist, so shoot me while you can ) Anyway, I was looking around these forums because while I'm pessimistic about the rationale of the language, the language itself is very cool looking (as I said on an Esperanto board - it's a language which uses my pet hate of random derivation, and makes it look beautiful and loveable again haha). But I have a similar query about "Iank", simply because I know some yanks () whom I know have mixed feelings about the word.

That said, in Australian English, we use "yank" just as we'd use "american". In fact, even people using "yank" offensively would use "american" offensively (just look for the tone - if it's condescending, you know what sort of person they are!). "Yankee" however I think most Australians would find a little more offensive or patronising, despite the fact we aren't even Americans, so we don't use it at all. Yankee to us sounds like something a rogue Russian secret service agent might call the hero of some spy movie.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_United_States_citizens

Sorry for being a potentially disruptive visitor, and I would like to see this project continue as it looks awesome

EDIT: I apologise, I misread the rationale page!