The Pope is dead

[ULIZOS]

3 hours ago, Confessit said:

Francis was from Latin America (South America) though.

That is different. It is a continent all of its own.

I don’t even think people from Argentina call themselves American they are Argentinian. It’s the same for all the other countries in Latin America, I don’t think any of them call themselves American.

So he is the first American Pope really, from the United States of America.

Outside of the USA its considered one continent, America. I asked Chat GPT to explain it for us: 

Here’s a simple explanation:

In many Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, especially in Latin America, school systems teach that there are six continents, and “America” is one big continent that includes North, Central, and South America.

This idea comes from the fact that all these regions are connected by land and share some cultural and historical ties, like colonization and the spread of certain languages and traditions.

On the other hand, in the United States and much of Europe, students are taught that there are seven continents, and they split America into North America and South America.

So, whether someone sees America as one or two continents mostly depends on where they grew up and how they were taught in school.

[ULIZOS]

So we’re both right. 

[ULIZOS]

Actually, no. We’re both not right. You could argue he’s the first NORTH American, or the first United States of American pope but he’s not the first American pope. 

[promise to try]

10 hours ago, Confessit said:

Francis was from Latin America (South America) though.

That is different. It is a continent all of its own.

I don’t even think people from Argentina call themselves American they are Argentinian. It’s the same for all the other countries in Latin America, I don’t think any of them call themselves American.

So he is the first American Pope really, from the United States of America.

believe me, people in argentina know that they are american. If I go to Colombia, I go to America.If I go to Guatemala, I go to America.It´s only in the USA, and probably, the anglo countries (I don´t know), where they separate American continent in smaller parts. As far as I know, they call themselves american, and Gringos-yankees to the citizens of the USA.

It´s interesting, because my grand mother, in basque,used to talked about going to the Americas, in plural

[promise to try]

7 hours ago, ULIZOS said:

Outside of the USA its considered one continent, America. I asked Chat GPT to explain it for us: 

Here’s a simple explanation:

In many Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, especially in Latin America, school systems teach that there are six continents, and “America” is one big continent that includes North, Central, and South America.

This idea comes from the fact that all these regions are connected by land and share some cultural and historical ties, like colonization and the spread of certain languages and traditions.

On the other hand, in the United States and much of Europe, students are taught that there are seven continents, and they split America into North America and South America.

So, whether someone sees America as one or two continents mostly depends on where they grew up and how they were taught in school.

I agree: but the reality is that, if I can go walking from Argentina to Alaska, that means, there´s only one continent

5 in total

[elijah]

I always saw it as two continents: South and North. Then under "American" most Bulgarians understand "person from USA" as opposed to Latin American or Southern American. As for Northern American most see them as Canadians, Americans (from USA) and Mexicans.

[Paul]

3 hours ago, promise to try said:

I agree: but the reality is that, if I can go walking from Argentina to Alaska, that means, there´s only one continent

5 in total

you can walk from korea to portugal and to south africa. "continents" are just an out-dated artificial construct and only important for those that need to label things. Australia used to be a continent, then it was Australasia, and now its Oceania - even though under any of those defintions, you cannot walk between all places.

Also, Antarctica is definitely a continent not part of the olympic rings.

But you are also correct, it is primarily an english-speaking problem, because for over 200 years people from the USA have called themselves American. I guess we have to respect that? As long as they don't start re-naming things that dont belong to them ....

[promise to try]

the USA can call themselves America if they want to, they are not the first ones to do so, Mexico did it before. But the rest of America doesn´t seem to be in the mood of changing the way they call themselves.

It´s like when they decided that the 2000 was the frist year of the 21th century...no, it´s not, but if they want to count it like that, I really don´t care

 

[ULIZOS]

4 hours ago, promise to try said:

I agree: but the reality is that, if I can go walking from Argentina to Alaska, that means, there´s only one continent

5 in total

Oh,no, I totally agree, I’m Mexican this pisses us off, I was brought up to believe I’m American, because we are, and now as an adult all of a sudden I’m not because US Americans said so

[Je5u5]

16 hours ago, Confessit said:

Francis was from Latin America (South America) though.

That is different. It is a continent all of its own.

I don’t even think people from Argentina call themselves American they are Argentinian. It’s the same for all the other countries in Latin America, I don’t think any of them call themselves American.

So he is the first American Pope really, from the United States of America.

Of course a argentieans or from any other country in North or South America call themselves Americans. The same as any french, german, spanish, italian, swede and so on call themselves Europeans.

Historically, the name America was originally used for South America after the Columbus voyages.

In the rest of American countries people think it's ridiculous/arrogant/uneducated how people from the United States have tried to take over the word.

[Je5u5]

And yes, in the rest of America the notion of the new Pope being the first American Pope is absurd. Pope Frances was the first one.

[ThomasW]

18 hours ago, Confessit said:

Francis was from Latin America (South America) though.

That is different. It is a continent all of its own.

I don’t even think people from Argentina call themselves American they are Argentinian. It’s the same for all the other countries in Latin America, I don’t think any of them call themselves American.

So he is the first American Pope really, from the United States of America.

been many times to various LatAm countries and the opinion they have on what constitutes "America" is vastly different to what we in the Anglo world think of it. 

There's songs, poems , books and general culture that refer to America as a unity of the entire continent and most of them refer to "Americanos" as the people living in the entire continent not only the USA

we were taught in "America" (the US) that America is only the USA and the rest is basically not there/not important and/or NOT America but North and South America -and sometimes Central America doesn't even exist- ..the excuse being that it's short for Unites States of America.  (I use it like that btw I say America as in the USA )

Hell, some of the people I know -in the States- even think of Mexico as South America and will die swearing it's like that and they'd say it's not even part of America

so for Argentinians they call themselves Argentinos yeah but they call themselves Americanos also-as in being part of the Americas- same could be said for other nationalities -they literally have told me so

 

[promise to try]

sometimes there´s also another mistake, that Mexico is in south america

[Je5u5]

1 hour ago, ThomasW said:

been many times to various LatAm countries and the opinion they have on what constitutes "America" is vastly different to what we in the Anglo world think of it. 

There's songs, poems , books and general culture that refer to America as an unity of the entire continent and most of them refer to "Americanos" as the people living in the entire continent not only the USA

we were taught in "America" (the US) that America is only the USA and the rest is basically not there/not important and/or NOT America but North and South America -and sometimes Central America doesn't even exist- ..the excuse being that it's short for Unites States of America.  (I use it like that btw I say America as in the USA )

Hell, some of the people I know even think of Mexico as South America and will die swearing it's like that and they'd say it's not even part of America

so for Argentinians they call themselves Argentinos yeah but they call themselves Americanos also-as in being part of the Americas- same could be said for other nationalities -they literally have told me so

 

"America" as a name was originally given to the lands reached by Columbus so central/south America and later on extended to the rest of the continent.

To the rest of America, (maybe excluding Canada?) they are the United States. Los Estados Unidos. 

Claiming the name of the whole continent for themselves is as ridiculous as if a new country formed by, let's say, Norway and Sweden called themselves United States of Europe and insisted their citizens were Europeans and people from the rest of the continent were not.

[Confessit]

@Je5u5 @ThomasW @promise to try @ULIZOS @elijah

I don’t want to quote everything but I have found it fascinating and interesting reading the comments!

I totally accept that people in Latin American countries refer to themselves as American I didn’t realise that originally.

I am a Brit and over here we are taught from school that America the continent is split in general terms between North America & South America (commonly referred to as Latin America).

I absolutely understand that people from France, Italy ect. are also Europeans in the same way the Chinese & Japanese are Asian.

Referring back to the reports of The Pope being the first I suppose it doesn’t help the fact that America is the only country in the world that shares its name with a continent.

I was aware that the term pre-dates the US by a few centuries. But the fact there has been a country of America since 1776 and the fact it has emerged as a super power in the last century does of course mean that in most peoples minds, when they hear the term America they think about the country US over anything else (people outside of Latin America).

In terms of reporting over here in the West and largely across the world that The Pope is the first American pope is of course driven by the fact he comes from America the country. He speaks English as a first language and with an accent synonymous with the US. And of course American is a nationality as well.

We have a huge list of Popes from many European countries, we have only had 1 from America the continent and now 1 from America the country.

I think both are stand alone scenarios in that sense.

So I do understand it, but also with the knowledge gained in here and thinking more overall with the benefit of history and culture he isn’t the first for the Americas.

Its amazing to chat in here to so many people from across the globe because culturally we have so many different perspectives.

[elijah]

It's weird because the term American is 1) a nationality for USA 2) consciousness (belonging to the American continent/s) for USA and the rest of the American nations. It's the first time I thought about it. In Europe we don't have such a phenomenon. Maybe the same is true for the Central African Republic nation or the South African nation?

[Confessit]

17 minutes ago, elijah said:

It's weird because the term American is 1) a nationality for USA 2) consciousness (belonging to the American continent/s) for USA and the rest of the American nations. It's the first time I thought about it. In Europe we don't have such a phenomenon. Maybe the same is true for the Central African Republic nation or the South African nation?

That’s absolutely right.

The fact is it’s the only example on Earth a continent and a country are named the same thing.

But when most people in the world think of America they are thinking about  and when people say it’s American I think they also are referring to the USA.

In my country we don’t call ourselves European we are split into 4 separate nations, we are English, Scottish, Welsh & Northern Irish.

Overall British but never ever European but I know that’s a big term in the rest of land locked Europe.

[Je5u5]

4 hours ago, Confessit said:

But when most people in the world think of America they are thinking about  and when people say it’s American I think they also are referring to the USA.

No. That's incorrect. 

English speaking people might think that. But that's not the case in the rest of the world.

Starting with the rest of America, as mentioned, but in the rest of the world it's the same.

French wiki for America = the whole continent

https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amérique

German wiki for America = the whole continent

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika

Italian wiki for America = the whole continent 

https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/America

Portuguese wiki for America = the whole continent

https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/América

Danish wiki for America = the whole continent 

https://da.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika

Polish wiki for America = the whole continent

https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameryka

Russian wiki for America = the whole continent 

https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Америка

Chinese wiki for America = the whole continent 

https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/美洲

And so on.

[Rain]

As usual with semantics, it just shows who's been dominating the world culturally.

[elijah]

9 hours ago, Confessit said:

That’s absolutely right.

The fact is it’s the only example on Earth a continent and a country are named the same thing.

In my country we don’t call ourselves European we are split into 4 separate nations, we are English, Scottish, Welsh & Northern Irish.

Overall British but never ever European but I know that’s a big term in the ref of land locked Europe.

Yes, British are the exception: the rarely say they are European, but all the rest of the EU (and not only) definitely do. There is European consciousness which has emerged and this is a nice summery about it: https://journals.ucc.ie/index.php/chimera/article/view/4230/chimera-4-3 I d say pretty much the EU brought about the European consciousness in today sense. I wonder if this phenomenon is seen in the Americas or Africa or Asia. Is there American consciousness on continental level, on supranational level? Is there South American? I know there are similar organisations to EU in America or Africa, but I think they aren't as unified and politically charged as EU. Maybe EU is different because Europe is small (compared to other continents) and between big players (USA, China) and Russia...

[promise to try]

the term Europe is used also for the UK here. I mean, you are europeans too, even if you are not in the union anymore, or being an island. Actually, the problem here is that people use England as a synonime of the Uk. And of course, UK-GB, that´s another complicated difference in everyday life.Everything is England and that´s it. I guess is shorter

[Je5u5]

1 hour ago, promise to try said:

the term Europe is used also for the UK here. I mean, you are europeans too, even if you are not in the union anymore, or being an island. Actually, the problem here is that people use England as a synonime of the Uk. And of course, UK-GB, that´s another complicated difference in everyday life.Everything is England and that´s it. I guess is shorter

My partner lived in the UK through Brexit and would always make fun when some Brits would say that they're no longer part of Europe asking them if they lifted the anchor and sailed somewhere else.

 

[Paul]

Do Spanish people consider themselves Eurasian or Afro-Eurorasian??

 

[Confessit]

17 hours ago, Je5u5 said:

No. That's incorrect. 

English speaking people might think that. But that's not the case in the rest of the world.

Starting with the rest of America, as mentioned, but in the rest of the world it's the same.

French wiki for America = the whole continent

https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amérique

German wiki for America = the whole continent

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika

Italian wiki for America = the whole continent 

https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/America

Portuguese wiki for America = the whole continent

https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/América

Danish wiki for America = the whole continent 

https://da.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika

Polish wiki for America = the whole continent

https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameryka

Russian wiki for America = the whole continent 

https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Америка

Chinese wiki for America = the whole continent 

https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/美洲

And so on.

Thank you for this I absolutely appreciate that Wiki shows all these countries indicating the term America is the continent and not the a country.

I absolutely appreciate as well from my previous post that culturally, as you say, non-English speaking territory/counties typically think of America as the continent and not the country.

Bringing it back to the original point though of Pope Leo being the first American Pope, I do wonder if all those countries you have listed have reported him NOT being that and instead the 2nd which is what you were saying it should be….

I did quick search on google as I was curious and I have found for France (one of the countries you listed)

Le Monde one of the biggest French newspapers apparently breaks the story as the first American Pope 

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/religions/article/2025/05/08/new-pope-elected-by-conclave_6741061_63.html
 

Also a French website France24 also breaks the story with the first American Pope

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250508-cardinals-elect-first-american-pope-as-robert-francis-prevost-becomes-leo-xiv

So it appears even in the countries you have listed there news are reporting the same as English-speaking counties and citing the new Pope as the first American Pope.

I havnt looked at anymore I don’t know how the rest of Europe are breaking the story ….I just looked at French media 

When Pope Francis was announced as Pope I remember the news breaking he was the first Latin American not American Pope.

I totally appreciate where you are coming from that the Latin countries consider him the 2nd American Pope but unfortunately I don’t think the world media does? And that’s even in the places you are saying that view America MORE as the continent and NOT the country.

I’m not saying that right but that’s what’s being reported even in one if the countries where you say the term American is still the continent over the country in people’s minds.

I guess it’s about where you live ultimately.

[Confessit]

9 hours ago, promise to try said:

the term Europe is used also for the UK here. I mean, you are europeans too, even if you are not in the union anymore, or being an island. Actually, the problem here is that people use England as a synonime of the Uk. And of course, UK-GB, that´s another complicated difference in everyday life.Everything is England and that´s it. I guess is shorter

The UK is absolutely part of Europe and we are Europeans in terms of geographical proximity.

But the term has never been popular over here and that pre dates leaving the EU by centuries.

I think some of it is the fact we are not land locked to Europe, the fact we had an empire for 200 years that was the British Empire, the fact we have our own church and broke with Rome when much of Europe remained Catholic.

The on going wars with France & Spain that stretched for centuries.

Plus we are made of 4 nations. England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Island.

If you talk to the average Scot they will tell you they are Scottish not British. It’s the same for England.

But the whole identity of not being European has a long history here before leaving the EU with many factors.

7 hours ago, Je5u5 said:

My partner lived in the UK through Brexit and would always make fun when some Brits would say that they're no longer part of Europe asking them if they lifted the anchor and sailed somewhere else.

 

Brexit was a prime example of just how much of the country rejected not only the EU but not seeing the UK as European.

[Beastialg]

I'm Argentinean. I live in America (the continent). I've never called myself American (or heard some else in my country call themselves "American"). It's an old term not really used by anyone even though we DO live in America and Pope Francis was the first American Pope. 

And we don't call people from USA american either. We call them norteamericanos (north americans) or Yankees.

I do get why the appropiated the term since is part of their country name (United States of America)

 

[Sanctuary1995]

26 minutes ago, Beastialg said:

And we don't call people from USA american either. We call them norteamericanos (north americans) or Yankees.

 

 

Really? Is that how the rest of South American countries call the ppl from USA?

[Confessit]

52 minutes ago, Beastialg said:

I'm Argentinean. I live in America (the continent). I've never called myself American (or heard some else in my country call themselves "American"). It's an old term not really used by anyone even though we DO live in America and Pope Francis was the first American Pope. 

And we don't call people from USA american either. We call them norteamericanos (north americans) or Yankees.

I do get why the appropiated the term since is part of their country name (United States of America)

 

Thanks for this insight from someone who actually lives in Latin America.  

That’s an interesting perspective to add into the debate the fact you say Argentine people don’t call themselves American. I did think that originally.

Out of curiosity can I ask you in Argentina (or the part of Latin America you now live in) how has the media declared Pope Leo, as the first or second American Pope?

[Beastialg]

40 minutes ago, Sanctuary1995 said:

Really? Is that how the rest of South American countries call the ppl from USA?

Don't know about rest of South America, but here in Argentina for sure we call people from USA, norteamericanos most of the time. Also estadounidenses and yankees.

40 minutes ago, Confessit said:

Out of curiosity can I ask you in Argentina (or the part of Latin America you now live in) how has the media declared Pope Leo, as the first or second American Pope?

Here in Argentina, most media call him the second American Pope, the first North American Pope (Primer Papa norteamericano)

[Je5u5]

17 hours ago, Beastialg said:

I do get why the appropiated the term since is part of their country name (United States of America)

 

Which was ridiculous in the first place. Like I said, it's like, say, Norway Sweden and Denmark suddenly deciding to become The United States of Europe and claiming the name European just for themselves and start calling the rest Mediterraneans, Eastern Europeans and so on.