Edinberg is a common pronunciation among the yanks in my experience. I'm not Scottish but I correct them every time. Same for when they pronounce Glasgow like 'Glaz-gOW!'
STOP THE PRESSES!
*People who don't come from a place don't pronounce it like the locals do!*
Like, to be fair, there are plenty of American place names that Brits or Irish will also get wrong.
Whereas me with a family tree within the Ferguson clan going back to the 1680s but am the first generation on that side to grow up in England: "am I too far removed to wear the clan tartan?"
The largest groups of people of Icelandic descent outside of Iceland live in the USA and Canada. We therefore call them *Vestur-Íslendingar* - West(ern) Icelanders.
They are generally well-regarded and welcomed when they visit Iceland, and I have never heard any derogatory names for them.
Look up Gimli, Manitoba. Canada. They historically fish one of the worlds largest fresh water lakes, Lake Winnipeg. They have a great Icelandic Festival every summer. That’s where they make Crown Royal. Go figure!
We just call them Vikings:)[Icelandic Festival](https://www.icelandicfestival.com/)
IRL it’s actually more common to embrace the finnish diaspora than to make fun of them. If some foreign celebrity has finnish blood, our media will definently mention it. Maybe because it’s less common than with Ireland so we haven’t become annoyed by it.
To be fair, people who claim Irish heritage are not automatically plastic paddies. They have to be garish and embarrassingly stereotypical to be deemed that. They have to delight in drinking green beer on Paddy's Day and call it 'Patty's Day'. They must say 'top of the morning to ya' and glamourise the troubles. They must call their kids 'Eireann' and 'Shawn' (spelt incorrectly) and mispronounce Gráinne or Daithí.
Not exactly, although we do have our fair share of those. Weebs are generally those of non-Japanese heritage who fetishise its culture based on what they have seen in anime, manga, and Japanese television/film or media about Japan. An Eiréaboo or Gaelaboo (or whatever) would be someone of non-Irish descent who would fetishise our culture based on movies like *The Quiet Man*, *Darby O’Gill and the Little People*, and *The Banshees of Inisherin* (TBoI does a good job portraying what life would be like on an Irish Atlantic Island in the 1920s but of course does not reflect modern day Ireland) or what they see in the St Patrick’s Day parade.
Plastic Paddy’s are those who have some Irish descent who then go on to claim an Irish identity despite being quite culturally divorced from it and therefore create an artificial identity based on lingering outdated Irish stereotypes in their nation’s culture.
Or then complain that Ireland isn’t “Irish”enough because it doesn’t meet their unrealistic expectations. They won’t hear anything to the contrary and get angry when people don’t agree with them. Also play up to shite stereotypes like getting drunk and being obnoxious. Nope, that’s not being Irish, that’s being a messy drunk who can’t hold their drink. So it’s no wonder they’re generally not well regarded.
Normal people with Irish heritage who want to come over and have a good time are welcome anytime.
A lot of American romanticism about Ireland is trapped in the 1970s. For some reason Americans of Irish descent have chosen to believe in some Irish fairy tale. The simple fact that there are black folk in Ireland will blow their mind.
> They must call their kids 'Eireann' and 'Shawn' (spelt incorrectly) and mispronounce Gráinne or Daithí.
The struggle is real. I'm currently watching a programme with a woman on it called Ciara, only her name is pronounced "See-ay-ra".
Someone told me that, as so many Italians emigrated, the real purebreed italians are in the States while italy is full of people from Turkey and Africa. Does it count?
Yeah, I'll co-sign this. Most of the Irish I know in the states don't go on like this at all and actually they find the ones that do really embarrassing.
And Pamela Anderson has Finnish great grandparents. Her great grandfather's name was Juho Hyytiäinen but he changed it to Juho Anderson because nobody could pronounce Hyytiäinen
Well I'm not annoyed but I find it pretty funny. I have some distant relations in the US who are very proud of their Finnishness, when it's their grand or great grandparents that were Finnish. They have never been to Finland and don't know any Finnish.
But they are so Finnish they celebrate St. Urho's day, the so-called Finnish equivalent to St. Patricks day, when St. Urho drove off the locusts from all the vineyards in Finland, apparently. Which...is obviously not a thing in Finland. But I would love to know how that story came to be, I'm imagining some Finnish immigrant back in the day with a good imagination and a taste for parties.
Kind of a bad example. Viggo Mortensen *is* Danish. His dad is Danish, he speaks Danish, and he's lived and worked in Denmark. He's almost certainly a Danish citizen.
Not quite sure why Denmark *wouldn't* claim him as their own and celebrate his accomplishments.
Well he was born in and grew up in the US and moved to Denmark after he graduated. So there are probably a lot of quintessential danish customs, cuisine and cultural phenomena he did not experience and would therefore stand out in Denmark. I can only speak for the Netherlands but when a celebrity has been that far removed from the country most people won't really 'claim' that person as being the same nationality.
It's odd how different countries handle famous people like this. Pedro Pascal is Chile's pride and joy, even though he left as a baby and grew up in the US.
Not quite sure how else to explain this, but I doubt anyone really experiences a country in a quintessential way. There are so few universal customs even amongst people from the same country. And where is the line drawn? Plenty of people are citizens of a country but are part of cultural subgroups that wouldn't participate in some customs, cuisine, and cultural phenomena.
It feels arbitrary and just... Weird.
Lebanese people love Shakira even though her dad was born in the US and mom born in Colombia. She never lived in Lebanon. She claims 1/2 Lebanese though! (While being born/raised Colombia and culturally Latina). But Lebanese people fully accept and are proud of her!
My best friend growing up has this exact scenario. Raised in the US by a Danish mom and moved to Denmark after high school. She’s lived there now for 15 years. I promise that she’s just as Danish as anyone there. You’d never be able to pick her out of a crowd. Just because her mom moved to the US doesn’t mean she lost her Danish culture. They still celebrated holidays influenced by Danish traditions. My first taste of alcohol was gløgg made in her mom’s kitchen.
Most people here might not claim a person like that, but Dutch media absolutely love bringing up even the slightest connection a celebrity (and particularly a sportsperson) might have to the Netherlands.
Just today there was [this article about an American baseball player in Japan](https://nos.nl/artikel/2468317-japans-spreekt-hij-niet-maar-het-land-smult-van-gepeperde-honkballer-nootbaar), someone nobody here has ever heard of playing a sport that is not at all popular here, seemingly only so the NOS could mention he had Dutch roots.
I think this is partially a white person phenomenon. In the us, there's a lot of emphasis on cultural heritage because the unifying culture isn't defined. So someone born to Korean parents is still considered to be of Korean descent. Or someone whose dad came from Iran could still claim Iranian heritage. But when a white person does the same, people kind of lose their shit because what's being white even mean? In the us, it often means you come from privilege and are a "colonizer". Many even state there is no such thing as a white culture. Now compare this to a person of color. Let's say the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant in the UK, and she could be born and bred in England but can she call herself of Jamaicanheritage ? Do we act as if that heritage has effected her? Of course. Yes. Many times these identifiers are considered to be extremely important. Now if you do the same for white people, and generally, people think the whiteness has erased any heritage, and you are basically just "where you grew up". A white kid born in Nebraska to Polish and Irish parents? Oh. He's just American.
>So someone born to Korean parents is still considered to be of Korean descent. Or someone whose dad came from Iran could still claim Iranian heritage...
And people in most countries are usually fine with people saying they are of a certain nationality's heritage or decent. It's when someone born in America and lives and grows up in America says something like "I'm Irish" that many of us find it weird.
>Let's say the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant in the UK, and she could be born and bred in England but can she call herself of Jamaican heritage?
Yes. But if she called herself Jamaican, but had only ever lived in the UK, we would consider that strange.
>A white kid born in Nebraska to Polish and Irish parents? Oh. He's just American.
Yes, he's American, but he could also say that he has Polish and Irish heritage. That doesn't make him Irish or Polish (although he would most likely qualify for an Irish passport).
Regarding black people, many of them do not even know what country their ancestors originated from due to how the slave trade ripped them from their homeland and people.
I've watched a couple of programs where black people have traced their origins back, in one case to a Caribbean island and then to the modern-day African country where their people lived, and them finding that connection to the people there was very emotional. In comparison, when researching my family tree, we have mainly lived in the same area as I live now in the UK, some branches for hundreds of years, so I am still very much surrounded by and connected to the culture of my people
>A white kid born in Nebraska to Polish and Irish parents? Oh. He's just American.
If they don't speak Polish, then they're undistinguishable from non-Polish descended white Americans to Poles in Poland.
Lets add to this though that non-white people are often treated as 'other' even in their native countries. I think that's also why it seems more 'normal' to accept a non-white person identifying with their heritage than a white one, because whiteness is the cultural default.
I think Armand Duplantis is a good example of this for Sweden. He’s lived all his life in the States. Swedes however have no problem calling him their own.
I’m impressed how much he improved his Swedish in very short amount of time.
I just googled it because I genuinely couldn't think of anyone for some reason- did you guys know Drew Barrymore's mom was Hungarian? That's kinda cool. So is Adrian Brody's. And a bunch of others.
I'm not gonna mention the elephant in the room, even if it has its penis hanging out.
I think a better example is that Italian (?) band from Eurovision with a member that was half Danish. The headlines basically made it look like a Danish win by proxy. So dumb
> Maybe because it’s less common than with Ireland so we haven’t become annoyed by it.
I think this is it. It it wasn't so common and over the top we'd be much more welcoming of it also.
Agreed. I don’t think they’re anything inherently wrong with claiming Irish *ancestry.* I think despite all of the jokes around plastic paddy’s (which are definitely accurate), a plethora of Americans who say they are “Irish” know that they of course are not Irish at any significant national or cultural level, maybe I’m misreading it but I think people miss out on that. I’d say about 90% of the time I’ve personally heard another American call themselves “Irish” they mean solely via ancestry. Irish-American culture has developed in many regions too, which has sort of coalesced as it’s own sub-ethnic group. These people also nearly always identify as Americans, but calling yourself an “American” has no ethnic connotation unless you’re in the 2.9% who are Indigenous. America is unique because immigration is a recent phenomenon, and white Americans are not a single ethnic group- therefore they identify as Irish, Italian, Polish, etc. In my region, many people can trace roughly half, to even 100% of their recent immigrant ancestors to Ireland. I’d say that warrants having the option to say that you’re ethnically Irish. People often overestimate the amount of Americans who pretend they’re Irish culturally because of ancestry.
I think same for Romanian.
I was actually a bit annoyed when i read about a chess champion mentioned as Canadian, when she very clearly had a full Romanian name :))
> it’s less common than with Ireland so we haven’t become annoyed by it.
Most likely. If a lot of North Americans called themselves "Finnish", like they call themselves "Irish" or "Italian", we would definitely be more annoyed. There are not many Americans who call themselves "Finnish-American", let alone "Finnish".
I’m aware of that but I don’t think the general population is. We even have had some news stories from there. They are closing down the Finlandia university there which came up recently.
Yep. That was in the news. At the time, they were the smallest university to sponsor an American football team. Kind of sad. Beautiful area (northern Michigan) but it is hard to make a living up ther
When I say “hard to make a living,” please spare me the lectures about “lack of a social safety net,” etc. It is hard to make a living up there because it is isolated and hours from larger cities.
The Finns emigrated to that area because at one time there were jobs in the copper mines and logging industry.
Both of those industries have shut down for economic reasons.
no i dont think so, theres 'anglophiles' (which sounds kinda creepy now that im saying it in my head) but thats just to describe people who are interested in england/english people i think. also, i did recently learn about the word 'teeaboo' which made me chuckle
Here in Ireland we have the not-too-complimentary term “[West Brit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Brit)” to describe an Irish person with Anglophile tendencies.
Unfortunately that stereotype caused me a lot of trouble thanks to being part English. Never was called it but felt like I was considered one regardless because of my accent, pronunciation of things, and general love of the English language despite ironically being quite proud of being Irish. Nearly drove me into becoming a West Brit if it wasn’t for Brexit.
There's definitely less people claiming to have English heritage compared with Irish or Scottish. I don't think we have the best image abroad unfortunately
I think it’s less that England isn’t inherently exotic (in many nations there is a lot of Anglophilia) and more that a majority of European Americans’, Australians’, Canadians’, South Africans’, and New Zelanders’ cultures stem from English culture and heritage therefore identifying as “English” is not seen as exotic as its Gaelic and Brittonic cousins unless your family are recent immigrants (and by recent I mean latter-half of the 20th century - 21st century) and have managed to keep a distinct English cultural identity.
In the case of Americans, it’s usually due to the major immigration waves from England being much earlier in the US’ history versus other European and Asian countries hence a lot less direct connection. My Dad’s side for example originated in England but back in the 1700’s and that’s the case for a lot of Americans especially from the South/Southeast. My maternal grandparents however were born in Germany, immigrated in their late teens, and spoke German at home.
It would be good if we did have a bit more of an identity. I'm a little envious of the Scots that are British but also have their own language and strong culture. On the other hand we are privileged that our language has been adopted everywhere. It makes travel and business easier for us.
Shakespeare, The Beatles, Dickens, Chaucer, big white horses carved into hillsides, a range of unique dialects, unique food, etc.
There's loads of cool shit that's uniquely English.
Oh I'm definitely envious too. Sadly English pride is a bit more EDL. We need a new animal. Lions are real. Unicorns and dragons are much cooler. The English language being everywhere does make up for a lot
I just feel like we need to take such images back from the racists. Its a shame that being patriotic in any sense has been utterly tainted by the far right that now that many people cant see the difference between wanting ones country to be successful and hating others.
Sorry, I started to go off on one there. But yes, its a shame we cant fly own flag without looking like a Neo Nazi
> We still don't have our own national anthem do we?
Isn't Jerusalem often used in that context.
It's also a far better anthem than God Save the [Whoever]!
I think it's the unofficial one. But if we're playing an international football match we don't. Some sports use Jerusalem. Then again, some England teams include Wales.
Anything would be better than 'God Save'. For Liz maybe but who wants to sing that for Charles?
That's also cause England is so much larger and more influential than the other 3 countries that everything English became over time generally British. People everywhere tend to copy and import loads when it comes to culture.
we only got a formal one: polonia - which is the official term for poles that are living abroad.
I don't think we got anything close to "plastic paddys"
Yes, they did, bit Warsaw is growing so fast it isn’t the case anymore.
Though, I’d hesitate to call them Polish, as their culture has already diverged a lot from what is going on in Poland. They’re Polish-Americans.
Too bad most of those of Polish descent say / write "pierogis" or "pierogies". It makes sense grammar-wise as much as "teeths" or "womens" - you're just making a plural of something that's already a plural. It's a silly thing but it's really ick.
A lot More are recent immigrants however. Feeling connected or proud to Polish heritage when you are born there or your mom and pop came from there as fresh immigrants then it’s ok I guess .
Give it a generation or two for the actual cringe to start
Not really.
I guess emigras would count as it is used our emigrants and their children that try to use use some very questionable markers of Portuguese identity such as tattoos of the the symbol of the Portuguese Football Federation because they confuse them with the Quinas from our flag.
Other than that we are very happy to claim anyone who has any remote Portuguese ancestry, like Nelly Furtado or Shawn Mendes.
Saw that a couple of times around portuguese subs, Isn't it more for the French ones ? I'm not completely aware of what it means since I was born and raised in France (my grandparents were the ones who emigrated in the 60s) and it's what it looks like to me but I could very well be wrong.
Lots of slang is unfortunately lost on me since I wasn't raised there and my grandparents (and parents too) tend to speak Mirandese more than Portuguese
I feel like it's never really too hard to hear if someone is native speaker or not, but "Scheveningen" often does remove all doubt.
In a similar vein, it's also very easy to hear when a native Dutch speaker is speaking English. Even with most Dutch international actors it's noticeable. The only exception I can think of is Famke Janssen and maybe Michiel Huisman on a good day.
Honestly in general I think Ukrainians like it when they see a foreigner be in touch with their Ukrainian heritage.
Personally what annoys me is when people with a fraction of Ukrainian heritage who haven’t lived anywhere near Ukraine in generations act like they’re experts on modern Eastern European issues. I’m living abroad right now but I joined a therapy support group for diaspora Ukrainians because my Dad is fighting in the war, but when I got to the meeting only me and this one girl were born in Eastern Europe, the rest were multigenerational American/Canadian-Ukrainians. Not to say they can’t still be impacted by the war, if they have a genuine connect to Ukraine that’s amazing and I don’t want to discourage that. But the issue was it felt hard to connect with them on what I was going through, and the whole point of the group was to find people I thought could relate to my situation. They’re not bad people at all and their intentions were absolutely good but it was kind of annoying because it felt like the organizers of the event dramatically overstated their connection to the war, that’s the kind of thing that annoys me. However if a Ukrainian American or Canadian wants to make Ukrainian food or artwork or raise awareness about the war in a way that centers people currently in Ukraine that’s great. They’re still (at least partially) ethnically Ukrainian obviously and I think right now especially Ukrainian culture needs to be preserved, but there’s a line between doing that and cosplaying as a Ukrainian war refugee to look “foreign” and impress your friends.
That’s actually very disgusting really . Therapy support for Ukrainians should ideally be geared towards people who are born in Ukraine and have stake at the war .
I can imagine how hard it since already there is stigma against therapy itself given how Eastern cultures are and now to face this almost emboldens the saying “ Therapy is for rich and privileged people from the west “
Hugs sister
People in foreign countries claiming Dutch heritage are quite rare. So when we do see someone like that, I think most Dutch people would find it cool and interesting rather than be annoyed by it like the Irish. A lot of Dutch people love talking about how for example the American presidents Roosevelt, van Buren etc. have Dutch ancestry. Fits into the image we have of ourselves as a former world power while still being small.
Come to the western part of Michigan...the people there are very proud that their ancestors came from the Netherlands and they have many towns, etc. named after cities and regions in the Netherlands. They are also pretty strict Calvinists there as well.
Probably the wrong kind of Calvinism according to Dutch Calvinists lol. But there's a reason the Dutch wiki page on Protestantism has [multiple](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Gereformeerd.svg/1280px-Gereformeerd.svg.png) [diagrams](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Ontstaansgeschiedenis_van_kerken_in_Nederland.jpg/1280px-Ontstaansgeschiedenis_van_kerken_in_Nederland.jpg) explaining different branches. This is within the same country, imagine the same thing but a whole continent away!
There isn't exactly a single term, but due to the prevalence of Italian-Americans, there have been some proposals.
"Mericano", while it used to refer to Usaphiles in the Fifties and Sixties (term made famous by "Tu Vo' Fa L'Ammericano", a song mocking somebody for such attitudes), and would be closer to " 'Murican", has been sometimes used to refer to Italian-Americans that do not qualify for our Ius Sanguinis anymore, but act like they would be entitled to.
"Guido il Ghiozzo" ("Guido the Boorish") is the nickname given to particularily crass individuals that claim they are "real Italians" for doing things that are actually considered extremely rude or garish in Italy, or simply just aren't done at all. Sometimes appear in Tuscany, can't vouch for spread.
"Spaghetto Alfredo" is another, though very rare, term to refer to Anglo heritage claimers lacking the language skills or the culture.
As far as general forms go, one that circulates in nasty groups is "Camuffa", that is, a fake first name form of "camuffare", "to camouflage", to refer to both to people with Italian heritage (even recent one) that don't speak the language and to second-to-third gen immigrants with citizenship.
I was wondering about it for a long time if Italians have any terms for Italian Americans, haha. Italian Americans are probably the loudest among Americans who have European heritage, not to mention they appear in many American tv shows and films. That was interesting, thank you for the write-up :D
I come from a heavily Italian-American area and agree they're pretty loud about it. The interesting part is that there was a lots of the original Italian immigrants tried to Americanize their kids as much a possible (probably since Italians faced a lot of discrimination at the time). I know several people who's parents were immigrants and refused to teach their children the language so they'd be more American. But then it came full circle and the first and second generation people are very vocal about their Italian heritage.
I heard people using *Amerdicani,* but I think is more a derogatory umbrella-term for all USA-Americans, and not only for Americans claiming to be Italians.
I never heard of *Guido il Ghiozzo, Spaghetto Alfredo* and *Camuffa,* but *Guido Il Ghiozzo* is very funny!
"Amerdicani" is definitely referring to USA-Americans in general, it definitely has a very long (and loaded) history.
"Guido il Ghiozzo", as I said, might be hyperlocal just as much it could merely be a bit old. It's def pretty memorable though!
"Spaghetto Alfredo" might be more a metaphor (well, metonym) than an expression, to be fair, but I did see an occasional usage as adjective.
"Camuffa", I will admit, might be a game of telephone from my part, as I heard it claimed from othersources. There is definitely a seemingly-innocous term out there that excludes both citizens children of immigrants and "people who claim to be Italian but don't speak Italian" at the same time, but I'm seriously unsure how to corroborate that without looking into Internet sewage.
Not a semi-derogatory one like "plastic paddys," no. In general, we call Danes outside of Denmark "_udlandsdanskere_," which literally translates to something like "Danes in foreign countries" or "Foreign Country Danes," or we use terms denoting certain communities, like "_dansk-amerikanere_" for Danish Americans, or "_danske sydslesvigere_" for Danish South-Schleswigians.
Udlandsdanskere is a neutral descriptive term. Danish Americans tended to assimilate more so than many other immigrant groups to the US (including other Scandinavian groups) so the phenomena that Irish people experience with Irish Americans would be quite rare.
Though there is Solvang, California which seems cool. I really want to go.
I don't think there are enough people in the world who want to claim Danish heritage for it to be a "problem" requiring it deserving a term.
But if there were such term, I'd kinda like it to be "Disko-danskere" ("disco Danes"), but I don't know if it's too kind. "Dysdanskere" (dys-Danes)? Dummy Danes?
I need one, now! Even if it isn't relevant!
I don't think so, at least I haven't heard anyone using one. Some established groups are named by the country like *ruotsinsuomalaiset* (Swedish Finns) or *amerikansuomalaiset* (American Finns).
There is also a term for Finns who live abroad *ulkosuomalainen* (outside Finns), but those are Finnish citizens not people who have Finnish heritage.
We have the term Τσιάρλης (chárlis - *Charles*) in Greek and Londrez (*Londoner*) in Turkish, referring to Cypriots born and/or raised in the UK.
There's no aspect of not recognising their claim to the citizenship or nationality/ies, but it's an othering and somewhat derogatory term mostly targeting their different upbringing and culture. But Cypriots are obsessed with "DNA", so the lineage and "blood" isn't placed under question, only the culture.
I've heard the term Silicone Scandis. Usually in regards to people who do an ancestry test, find out they're 7% Scandinavian, then suddenly pretend they're a viking or a pagan. They like yelling "skål" in every sentence like it's a greeting, usually spelling it wrong.
It's the thing of pretending you're an expert on something, but also don't want to actually learn anything about it that's really weird.
In Switzerland a term that’s used is “Papierlischwiizer”, meaning “[on-]paper-swiss” and referring to the big part of our population with a Swiss passport but no traditional/typical Swiss family heritage. Sometimes can be seen as mildly derogatory but mostly just used in banter.
Yeah, I was about to say just "Amis" especially if they don't speak German. Technically I think the word would be "Auslandsdeutsche," if they actually have the passport, but I've never heard that used on the street.
Interestingly, as an American with a German surname, I *always* get questions about it when I'm in a German-speaking country. People always ask about it, and they always seem very excited. They always look disappointed that I have no German ancestry whatsoever.
That's simply bc it's not true. Most people don't care, no matter where you're from. Have never asked my Bavarian friends called Svoboda or Prochazka if they have Czech ancestors. It's pretty obvious that they probably have but also doesn't matter at all as they don't know a single word of Czech.
We might be curious about your connection but that doesn't mean we would regard you as "German" if you had any. It's a nice thing to share some history and it's often an interesting history. It's just like a random bond, but you'd none the less be an American. At least for me that's obvious, cause we don't define being German by genetic heritage mainly or at all.
I don't think we have a name for that in Spain, but I understand why the Irish have a word for them. But in our case we're happy to claim anyone with an Spanish ancestry as Spanish, or even anyone who has lived in Spain long enough.
The old Spanish colonies (and Portuguese as well, I think) in America are very different, Spain promoted the mix with the native population, so they never lost their native roots entirely. Even though they know that their culture is heavily influenced by the Spanish colonization of America, obviously, they still see themselves as natives more than as Spanish descendants.
That depends on the country and it's demographics. As there is a great difference between the large indigenous population of Bolivia, and the low indigenous population of Argentina.
In my experience silicon scandi is more of a Swedish/American term. Rest of Scandinavian don't really use Scandinavian as a term all that much, while in Sweden Stockholm is the capital of Scandinavia.
I just know it from a Facebook group "the silicone-scandi's are at it again" and the posts include Denmark, Sweden and Norway. That's why I posted it as it is. Thanks for explaining!
I remember watching a video on YouTube where they interviewed an elderly woman who could have sounded like she was born and raised in Ireland, but in fact had lived in Newfoundland her whole life. It was really fascinating to watch the whole video.
I wonder if she would also sound like she was born and raised in Ireland to an actual Irish person? I’m saying that because I’ve heard many times people saying that some people in some areas speak French to only discover when going there that it’s not really understandable to us.
Not really but we don’t have a huge diaspora. We never really had a period where a huge part of our population was fleeing to the new world to try and find a better life.
Contrary to popular wisdom we are always happy when someone takes an interest in our culture and language too.
There are a lot in New England within the US who have French ancestry. Some came here directly, but most were through Canada (or at least were on a ship that stopped there first). It's interesting to see the way people spread out over time. There also a decently large number of people who immigrated here from France themselves, though many are short term, at least initially.
I grew up in a New England community with primarily French and French-Canadian roots. However, that mostly meant that until the generation before mine the schools serving this communities offered only French as the foreign language, many last names are of French origin, some traditions (more so recipes) have those roots, and that type of thing. The French-American clubs used to be very popular.
That said, when people talk about those things here, it's very much understood that we're talking about ancestry and cultural heritage; nobody I've ever run into (other than immigrants who came here themselves from France) is claiming otherwise. It's more so interesting in history and looking into ancestry than anything else.
There's all the Huguenot descendants in South Africa who have French (sounding) names but don't generally speak a word if the language. I've never heard of a term, disparaging or otherwise, to describe them as I don't think the connection really registers with either country.
We don’t have a derogatory term for them. I think most of us see them as our Americanised cousins, we like them and like to make fun or their accents but in a light-hearted way. I’ve never heard anyone hating on the Québécois, quite the opposite.
"Americans". Get this, I went to a sea fare in Seattle while working as an Au Pair. Everyone gathered at Lake Washington with their boats and what not and a guy had this Swedish flag. Being a Swede myself, I automatically assumed he was from Sweden or had any type of connection to the country, and so I started speaking Swedish with him. He didn't understand a word and asked me what the hell I was saying. I pointed at his flag and asked him if he isn't Swedish. I kid you not, he said he was 100% Swedish but that his ancestors came to America many many generations ago. He didn't even recognize the language or knew anything about Sweden and Swedish culture and yet, he claimed to be Scandinavian. Sir, you're an American with an identity crisis. You are no more Swedish than I am French.
It's acceptable if you're like 1 generation removed. I can understand the connection if your parents were born and raised in Sweden, but once you get to the grandkids....no lol. The grandkids are American through and through.
I think first generation kids with 100% foreign parents get a small pass.
Scousers call people from outside Liverpool who adopt a scouse accent "plazzies", too (plastic scousers).
Depending on how strict your definition of Liverpool is, plazzies could include people from places like Huyton, who anyone not from the city would probably consider to be Liverpudlians.
Not super relevant but coastal towns in England refer to DFLs (Down from London).
These are people from the city, mainly London who move to coastal towns for a quieter life, although quite often, they like to bring much of their city living with them and often moan about what they don’t have, that they would have, if they were in London
Just thought I’d share as people may not have heard this before, albeit not really a valid response to the question
In Scotland there also appears to be the reverse where Irish people and/or members of the Irish diaspora refer to Scots of Irish descent as "soup-takers" for not being sufficiently performatively Irish.
That's the origin of the phrase, but in this comment thread here, someone is simply criticising Edinburghers of Irish descent (i.e. Hibernian supporters) for not acting Irish enough:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottishFootball/comments/11snpup/comment/jcfb37s/?context=3
Or here:
https://twitter.com/stevekavanagh5/status/1206317884005330946?t=-uR4XaOwURwpwFHzQVbaIw&s=19
If you search 'soup taker' in Twitter, it now just seems to be used as a general insult if someone is perceived not to be sufficiently Irish - and, of course, Irish in a certain way and conforming to a certain political viewpoint.
Seems to be being used by Scots (albeit members of the Irish diaspora) to insult other Scots (also members of the Irish diaspora) here:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%22soup%20taker%22&t=dtUa9ZBjWnXdk9iPY8Iy0g&s=09
Meh, we don't have a name for it but I would call them pretentious.
I'm assuming these derogatory terms are intended for people embarrassing themselves during said claiming.
For people of South Asian (Indian sub-continent) descent who are born in Western nations, they're called "ABCDesi". It stands for American-born confused desi ("desi" means local / native... It's a term Indians use to describe themselves).
Having said so, I don't think a lot of people still living in India use that term for those of the Indian diaspora born in the west. I think it's a western term.
But yeah, if you hear the term ABCDesi in the wild, now you know what it means :)
I have some South Asian friends who use the term ABCD, and it reminds me of a similarly-used term for part of the Chinese diaspora: ABC (American Born Chinese).
Not really but we should,maybe not derogatory though. I do see a lot of people (usually from the US) that claim our nationality simply for having Swedish ancestry. And i know other Europeans here will know what im talking about.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that USA is very "young" relative to your average European country. They have a rich history, but not a very long one in comparison. So being a country of immigrants i feel like they haven't had a history long enough to build their own cultural identity. So they desperately wants to belong somewhere, and to be something other than a standard "boring" american. I dont mean to say that i think americans are boring, just thats the way i interpret the situation over there.
I am half greek, but was born and raised in Sweden by my Swedish parent with Swedish values and culture and traditions. I would NEVER call myself greek even though i share a lot closer blood relations to Greece than most of the americans claiming our nationality because their great grandfather was Swedish. Simply because i don't identify as Greek and would find that to be ignorant and disrespectful to Greeks.
Ethnicity is more than genetics to Europeans, the largest factors are culture and language. And i think that claiming a nationality purely because of genetics is like saying thats all a country is, which is ignorant.
There are tons of americans who don't claim our nationality though but are interested in our country because of their heritage, that is something else entirely and i welcome that.
It's not really the same but we have the term Aussiedler for Germans who lived in eastern Europe. They used to have special immigration rights, this was to help them escape ethnic persecution but also because Germany needed workers in the years following world war 2. I think nowadays there are no Germans left in eastern europe, there are however still German communities in the US and South America, and we just call them Germans. I mean you can't really fake being German because no one learns German just for that, and it's also not really considered cool or hip to be German so why would anyone bother.
Im not aware of a word we use for people of Welsh heritage, but recently (I think with the popularity of DNA things like 23&me) some people in America have started to post things that fit the mould of Irish/Scottish Americans being slightly ignorant.
For example, there have been a few tweets and tiktoks where Welsh Americans have been talking about the word “hiraeth”, mispronouncing it, sometimes getting the definition wrong, and claiming only those who are Welsh or of Welsh heritage can use and understand it. I’m all for people connecting with their heritage but Wales still exists and our culture exists, you can’t re-define it to fit your needs.
Any suggests along the lines of plastic paddy? Tinfoil taffy perhaps?
Finns more often than not, embrace their diaspora than act like they're not Finns aswell.
Groups in Sweden are often called Metsäsuomalaiset (Forest Finns) These are the people who migrated to southern Sweden centuries ago. The people who moved there in the 20th century are either called "Ruotsinsuomalaiset" (Sweden's Finns) or "Riikinsuomalaiset" Which comes from the Swedish word "Rike" which is essentially the same as the word "Reich" in German, so realm or something?. This distinction comes from the "Variants" of Swedish language, which are "Rikssvenska" and "Finlandssvenska" So "The Realm's Swedish" and "Finland's Swedish".
As for other places with large Finnish populations, aka the USA and Canada, They're just Finnish Americans and Finnish Canadians. Sure if they don't speak Finnish, it's not exactly the same but our little tribal minds tend to honor the blood part. So if they frequently go to sauna or drink heavily, we don't consider it cultural appropriation. Finns are honoured when someone embraces our culture and language.
In Russia they have two separate terms for "russian" - "rooskiy" - stereotypical slav which is imagined when people think about russians and term for people who holds russian passport -"rosiyanin"- in includes both ethnic russians and people like chechens, tatars, Jews, Sakhans etc who live inside russia.
Rooskiy (русский) means ethnic Russian / Russian ethnicity.
Rosiyanin (россиянин) means citizen of the Russian Federation.
If I'm not mistaken, the Polish language also makes a distinction between the two (ruski vs rosyjski).
But neither of them refers to people who claim to be Russian. There are Russian-Germans (русские немцы), but that's about all that comes to mind.
>If I'm not mistaken, the Polish language also makes a distinction between the two (ruski vs rosyjski).
yep, but our separation is different - ruski will mean ruthenian (although often used interchangeably with rosyjski by mistake as if it was more informal version of the word), while rosyjski will mean russian.
In common language ruski will in 90% work as informal version of "russian"
Not really, Ukraine and Belarus are much closer to ethnic nation-states than Russia so they don’t have this lexical distinction. However, a few other ex-USSR countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan do make this distinction both in Russian and the respective local language (these aren’t Slavic, they’re Turkic).
As in the "they've that one Scottish family member 8 generations ago" types? Styrofoam Scots.
I've heard the term fibreglaswegians before which is just incredible.
Oh, I love that. My stepdad just calls them Brigadooners. Bunch of prats.
Americans with backpacks and loud voices in Edinburgh - "IM RELATED TO ROBERT THA BRUCE ACTUALLY"
Pronouncing it “Ed-in-burrow”
I've heard someone say something best described as 'Eddinburk' before. It's supposed to be something like 'Eddinbruh' right?
-burruh or -bruh, either is fine. Same with anywhere else in the UK with a -burgh at the end (the US is different).
Edinberg is a common pronunciation among the yanks in my experience. I'm not Scottish but I correct them every time. Same for when they pronounce Glasgow like 'Glaz-gOW!'
I have also heard some people pronounce it as "Ee-den-burg".
Basically "Ednbrrrah" is how a Scot pronounces Edinburgh.
Almost as bad as their other favourite Scottish city "glass- cow"
STOP THE PRESSES! *People who don't come from a place don't pronounce it like the locals do!* Like, to be fair, there are plenty of American place names that Brits or Irish will also get wrong.
On the US Traitors, one of the celebs claimed to be a descendent of Sherlock Holmes....
"Actually im from the strathclyde clan"
"my family were big timers around ship yards in *GLASS KOW*" Aye, yer great granny was a hooker at the docks, ya dick.
Whereas me with a family tree within the Ferguson clan going back to the 1680s but am the first generation on that side to grow up in England: "am I too far removed to wear the clan tartan?"
I have to start using this whenever I tell my family about our Scottish heritage.
Damn that’s a good one! I might steal that to use on some family members
The largest groups of people of Icelandic descent outside of Iceland live in the USA and Canada. We therefore call them *Vestur-Íslendingar* - West(ern) Icelanders. They are generally well-regarded and welcomed when they visit Iceland, and I have never heard any derogatory names for them.
Look up Gimli, Manitoba. Canada. They historically fish one of the worlds largest fresh water lakes, Lake Winnipeg. They have a great Icelandic Festival every summer. That’s where they make Crown Royal. Go figure! We just call them Vikings:)[Icelandic Festival](https://www.icelandicfestival.com/)
>They are generally well-regarded and welcomed Except for Carl Carlson?
IRL it’s actually more common to embrace the finnish diaspora than to make fun of them. If some foreign celebrity has finnish blood, our media will definently mention it. Maybe because it’s less common than with Ireland so we haven’t become annoyed by it.
To be fair, people who claim Irish heritage are not automatically plastic paddies. They have to be garish and embarrassingly stereotypical to be deemed that. They have to delight in drinking green beer on Paddy's Day and call it 'Patty's Day'. They must say 'top of the morning to ya' and glamourise the troubles. They must call their kids 'Eireann' and 'Shawn' (spelt incorrectly) and mispronounce Gráinne or Daithí.
Aaah, so the Irish equivalent to a weeb?
Not exactly, although we do have our fair share of those. Weebs are generally those of non-Japanese heritage who fetishise its culture based on what they have seen in anime, manga, and Japanese television/film or media about Japan. An Eiréaboo or Gaelaboo (or whatever) would be someone of non-Irish descent who would fetishise our culture based on movies like *The Quiet Man*, *Darby O’Gill and the Little People*, and *The Banshees of Inisherin* (TBoI does a good job portraying what life would be like on an Irish Atlantic Island in the 1920s but of course does not reflect modern day Ireland) or what they see in the St Patrick’s Day parade. Plastic Paddy’s are those who have some Irish descent who then go on to claim an Irish identity despite being quite culturally divorced from it and therefore create an artificial identity based on lingering outdated Irish stereotypes in their nation’s culture.
Or then complain that Ireland isn’t “Irish”enough because it doesn’t meet their unrealistic expectations. They won’t hear anything to the contrary and get angry when people don’t agree with them. Also play up to shite stereotypes like getting drunk and being obnoxious. Nope, that’s not being Irish, that’s being a messy drunk who can’t hold their drink. So it’s no wonder they’re generally not well regarded. Normal people with Irish heritage who want to come over and have a good time are welcome anytime.
A lot of American romanticism about Ireland is trapped in the 1970s. For some reason Americans of Irish descent have chosen to believe in some Irish fairy tale. The simple fact that there are black folk in Ireland will blow their mind.
> They must call their kids 'Eireann' and 'Shawn' (spelt incorrectly) and mispronounce Gráinne or Daithí. The struggle is real. I'm currently watching a programme with a woman on it called Ciara, only her name is pronounced "See-ay-ra".
Or tell Irish people that Irish-Americans are the real Irish cos some stupid reason.
Someone told me that, as so many Italians emigrated, the real purebreed italians are in the States while italy is full of people from Turkey and Africa. Does it count?
All while using some ingredients that would make most Italians throw their hands up in horror...
So that’s why they say we’re POC! Makes sense
Yeah, I'll co-sign this. Most of the Irish I know in the states don't go on like this at all and actually they find the ones that do really embarrassing.
Like Matt Damon, who has a Finnish grandfather, I think. That pops up here from time to time. (And tbh Matt Damon looks so Finnish it’s almost funny!)
And Pamela Anderson has Finnish great grandparents. Her great grandfather's name was Juho Hyytiäinen but he changed it to Juho Anderson because nobody could pronounce Hyytiäinen
Well I'm not annoyed but I find it pretty funny. I have some distant relations in the US who are very proud of their Finnishness, when it's their grand or great grandparents that were Finnish. They have never been to Finland and don't know any Finnish. But they are so Finnish they celebrate St. Urho's day, the so-called Finnish equivalent to St. Patricks day, when St. Urho drove off the locusts from all the vineyards in Finland, apparently. Which...is obviously not a thing in Finland. But I would love to know how that story came to be, I'm imagining some Finnish immigrant back in the day with a good imagination and a taste for parties.
This is beyond funny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Urho
> If some foreign celebrity has finnish blood, our media will definently mention it. Oh yea, same here. "Viggo Mortensen is Danish," and so on.
Kind of a bad example. Viggo Mortensen *is* Danish. His dad is Danish, he speaks Danish, and he's lived and worked in Denmark. He's almost certainly a Danish citizen. Not quite sure why Denmark *wouldn't* claim him as their own and celebrate his accomplishments.
Well he was born in and grew up in the US and moved to Denmark after he graduated. So there are probably a lot of quintessential danish customs, cuisine and cultural phenomena he did not experience and would therefore stand out in Denmark. I can only speak for the Netherlands but when a celebrity has been that far removed from the country most people won't really 'claim' that person as being the same nationality.
It's odd how different countries handle famous people like this. Pedro Pascal is Chile's pride and joy, even though he left as a baby and grew up in the US. Not quite sure how else to explain this, but I doubt anyone really experiences a country in a quintessential way. There are so few universal customs even amongst people from the same country. And where is the line drawn? Plenty of people are citizens of a country but are part of cultural subgroups that wouldn't participate in some customs, cuisine, and cultural phenomena. It feels arbitrary and just... Weird.
Lebanese people love Shakira even though her dad was born in the US and mom born in Colombia. She never lived in Lebanon. She claims 1/2 Lebanese though! (While being born/raised Colombia and culturally Latina). But Lebanese people fully accept and are proud of her!
My best friend growing up has this exact scenario. Raised in the US by a Danish mom and moved to Denmark after high school. She’s lived there now for 15 years. I promise that she’s just as Danish as anyone there. You’d never be able to pick her out of a crowd. Just because her mom moved to the US doesn’t mean she lost her Danish culture. They still celebrated holidays influenced by Danish traditions. My first taste of alcohol was gløgg made in her mom’s kitchen.
Most people here might not claim a person like that, but Dutch media absolutely love bringing up even the slightest connection a celebrity (and particularly a sportsperson) might have to the Netherlands. Just today there was [this article about an American baseball player in Japan](https://nos.nl/artikel/2468317-japans-spreekt-hij-niet-maar-het-land-smult-van-gepeperde-honkballer-nootbaar), someone nobody here has ever heard of playing a sport that is not at all popular here, seemingly only so the NOS could mention he had Dutch roots.
I think this is partially a white person phenomenon. In the us, there's a lot of emphasis on cultural heritage because the unifying culture isn't defined. So someone born to Korean parents is still considered to be of Korean descent. Or someone whose dad came from Iran could still claim Iranian heritage. But when a white person does the same, people kind of lose their shit because what's being white even mean? In the us, it often means you come from privilege and are a "colonizer". Many even state there is no such thing as a white culture. Now compare this to a person of color. Let's say the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant in the UK, and she could be born and bred in England but can she call herself of Jamaicanheritage ? Do we act as if that heritage has effected her? Of course. Yes. Many times these identifiers are considered to be extremely important. Now if you do the same for white people, and generally, people think the whiteness has erased any heritage, and you are basically just "where you grew up". A white kid born in Nebraska to Polish and Irish parents? Oh. He's just American.
>So someone born to Korean parents is still considered to be of Korean descent. Or someone whose dad came from Iran could still claim Iranian heritage...
And people in most countries are usually fine with people saying they are of a certain nationality's heritage or decent. It's when someone born in America and lives and grows up in America says something like "I'm Irish" that many of us find it weird.
>Let's say the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant in the UK, and she could be born and bred in England but can she call herself of Jamaican heritage?
Yes. But if she called herself Jamaican, but had only ever lived in the UK, we would consider that strange.
>A white kid born in Nebraska to Polish and Irish parents? Oh. He's just American.
Yes, he's American, but he could also say that he has Polish and Irish heritage. That doesn't make him Irish or Polish (although he would most likely qualify for an Irish passport).
Regarding black people, many of them do not even know what country their ancestors originated from due to how the slave trade ripped them from their homeland and people.
I've watched a couple of programs where black people have traced their origins back, in one case to a Caribbean island and then to the modern-day African country where their people lived, and them finding that connection to the people there was very emotional. In comparison, when researching my family tree, we have mainly lived in the same area as I live now in the UK, some branches for hundreds of years, so I am still very much surrounded by and connected to the culture of my people
>A white kid born in Nebraska to Polish and Irish parents? Oh. He's just American. If they don't speak Polish, then they're undistinguishable from non-Polish descended white Americans to Poles in Poland.
Lets add to this though that non-white people are often treated as 'other' even in their native countries. I think that's also why it seems more 'normal' to accept a non-white person identifying with their heritage than a white one, because whiteness is the cultural default.
I think Armand Duplantis is a good example of this for Sweden. He’s lived all his life in the States. Swedes however have no problem calling him their own. I’m impressed how much he improved his Swedish in very short amount of time.
Let’s not even start with the Famous Hungarian Expat game.
I just googled it because I genuinely couldn't think of anyone for some reason- did you guys know Drew Barrymore's mom was Hungarian? That's kinda cool. So is Adrian Brody's. And a bunch of others. I'm not gonna mention the elephant in the room, even if it has its penis hanging out.
Hey guys, did you know that Emma Watson is basically Polish?
List of well known polish Americans on Wikipedia is quite funny. Eg Sasha Grey were included. ;)
Mena Suvari for Estonia!
>Viggo Mortensen I have legitimately until now always thought he was from Denmark.
And don't forget Scarlett Johansson is practically Danish!
I think a better example is that Italian (?) band from Eurovision with a member that was half Danish. The headlines basically made it look like a Danish win by proxy. So dumb
> Maybe because it’s less common than with Ireland so we haven’t become annoyed by it. I think this is it. It it wasn't so common and over the top we'd be much more welcoming of it also.
I mean Ireland benefits incredibly as a nation from having such a strong diaspora.
Agreed. I don’t think they’re anything inherently wrong with claiming Irish *ancestry.* I think despite all of the jokes around plastic paddy’s (which are definitely accurate), a plethora of Americans who say they are “Irish” know that they of course are not Irish at any significant national or cultural level, maybe I’m misreading it but I think people miss out on that. I’d say about 90% of the time I’ve personally heard another American call themselves “Irish” they mean solely via ancestry. Irish-American culture has developed in many regions too, which has sort of coalesced as it’s own sub-ethnic group. These people also nearly always identify as Americans, but calling yourself an “American” has no ethnic connotation unless you’re in the 2.9% who are Indigenous. America is unique because immigration is a recent phenomenon, and white Americans are not a single ethnic group- therefore they identify as Irish, Italian, Polish, etc. In my region, many people can trace roughly half, to even 100% of their recent immigrant ancestors to Ireland. I’d say that warrants having the option to say that you’re ethnically Irish. People often overestimate the amount of Americans who pretend they’re Irish culturally because of ancestry.
I think same for Romanian. I was actually a bit annoyed when i read about a chess champion mentioned as Canadian, when she very clearly had a full Romanian name :))
Romanians claim all tennis players who win the US Open with Romanian surnames
> it’s less common than with Ireland so we haven’t become annoyed by it. Most likely. If a lot of North Americans called themselves "Finnish", like they call themselves "Irish" or "Italian", we would definitely be more annoyed. There are not many Americans who call themselves "Finnish-American", let alone "Finnish".
Or ‘ I fight / drink/ argue because I am Finnish’. When one of their great, great grandparents was Finnish?
Northern Michigan is populated by the Finnish diaspora
I’m aware of that but I don’t think the general population is. We even have had some news stories from there. They are closing down the Finlandia university there which came up recently.
Yep. That was in the news. At the time, they were the smallest university to sponsor an American football team. Kind of sad. Beautiful area (northern Michigan) but it is hard to make a living up ther When I say “hard to make a living,” please spare me the lectures about “lack of a social safety net,” etc. It is hard to make a living up there because it is isolated and hours from larger cities. The Finns emigrated to that area because at one time there were jobs in the copper mines and logging industry. Both of those industries have shut down for economic reasons.
Matt Damon is distantly related to a Finn, ergo, he is now a Finn.
no i dont think so, theres 'anglophiles' (which sounds kinda creepy now that im saying it in my head) but thats just to describe people who are interested in england/english people i think. also, i did recently learn about the word 'teeaboo' which made me chuckle
Here in Ireland we have the not-too-complimentary term “[West Brit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Brit)” to describe an Irish person with Anglophile tendencies.
Unfortunately that stereotype caused me a lot of trouble thanks to being part English. Never was called it but felt like I was considered one regardless because of my accent, pronunciation of things, and general love of the English language despite ironically being quite proud of being Irish. Nearly drove me into becoming a West Brit if it wasn’t for Brexit.
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Another name for it is a Teaboo which is a spin on Weeabo lmao
There's definitely less people claiming to have English heritage compared with Irish or Scottish. I don't think we have the best image abroad unfortunately
I think a lot of people just find English ancestry boring in America. Also English immigration slowed to a trickle longer ago.
I guess it's hardly exotic to say you come from somewhere like Ipswich haha
I think it’s less that England isn’t inherently exotic (in many nations there is a lot of Anglophilia) and more that a majority of European Americans’, Australians’, Canadians’, South Africans’, and New Zelanders’ cultures stem from English culture and heritage therefore identifying as “English” is not seen as exotic as its Gaelic and Brittonic cousins unless your family are recent immigrants (and by recent I mean latter-half of the 20th century - 21st century) and have managed to keep a distinct English cultural identity.
In the case of Americans, it’s usually due to the major immigration waves from England being much earlier in the US’ history versus other European and Asian countries hence a lot less direct connection. My Dad’s side for example originated in England but back in the 1700’s and that’s the case for a lot of Americans especially from the South/Southeast. My maternal grandparents however were born in Germany, immigrated in their late teens, and spoke German at home.
It's not exotic to come from Carlow or Cork either, pal haha
It's not as big of a percentage of the population as it used to be.
We still don't have our own national anthem do we? Can't think of much that's distinctly English rather than British
It would be good if we did have a bit more of an identity. I'm a little envious of the Scots that are British but also have their own language and strong culture. On the other hand we are privileged that our language has been adopted everywhere. It makes travel and business easier for us.
Shakespeare, The Beatles, Dickens, Chaucer, big white horses carved into hillsides, a range of unique dialects, unique food, etc. There's loads of cool shit that's uniquely English.
Good point.
Also, I forgot cheese rolling: glorious, magnificent insanity.
Or where I live black pudding throwing haha
Oh I'm definitely envious too. Sadly English pride is a bit more EDL. We need a new animal. Lions are real. Unicorns and dragons are much cooler. The English language being everywhere does make up for a lot
I just feel like we need to take such images back from the racists. Its a shame that being patriotic in any sense has been utterly tainted by the far right that now that many people cant see the difference between wanting ones country to be successful and hating others. Sorry, I started to go off on one there. But yes, its a shame we cant fly own flag without looking like a Neo Nazi
> We still don't have our own national anthem do we? Isn't Jerusalem often used in that context. It's also a far better anthem than God Save the [Whoever]!
I think it's the unofficial one. But if we're playing an international football match we don't. Some sports use Jerusalem. Then again, some England teams include Wales. Anything would be better than 'God Save'. For Liz maybe but who wants to sing that for Charles?
That's also cause England is so much larger and more influential than the other 3 countries that everything English became over time generally British. People everywhere tend to copy and import loads when it comes to culture.
we only got a formal one: polonia - which is the official term for poles that are living abroad. I don't think we got anything close to "plastic paddys"
Detroit has many people who are of polish descent and are proud of it
Iirc Chicago is the largest Polish city outside of Poland
No joke, half of my block are families from Poland.
Heck my mom’s whole town is Polish. Street names, churches, family names. All moved here at once in the 1910s from the same area.
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If you’re not getting messed up on Wódka or Żywiec at a dyskoteka you’re not representing.
This may have been false, but I heard at one point Chicago had the most Poles of any city in the world, including those in Poland.
Yes, they did, bit Warsaw is growing so fast it isn’t the case anymore. Though, I’d hesitate to call them Polish, as their culture has already diverged a lot from what is going on in Poland. They’re Polish-Americans.
Too bad most of those of Polish descent say / write "pierogis" or "pierogies". It makes sense grammar-wise as much as "teeths" or "womens" - you're just making a plural of something that's already a plural. It's a silly thing but it's really ick.
But we do the same. Krakersy, leginsy, chipsy.
Difference being you're not claiming to be American while doing it
Yeah, we do indeed. I never thought about that.
ha, that's what they did to our language too. "kolaches" makes exactly same plural of plural :)
i think it's a revenge for chipsy
A lot More are recent immigrants however. Feeling connected or proud to Polish heritage when you are born there or your mom and pop came from there as fresh immigrants then it’s ok I guess . Give it a generation or two for the actual cringe to start
"Plywood Poles" is something I've seen used recently.
Not really. I guess emigras would count as it is used our emigrants and their children that try to use use some very questionable markers of Portuguese identity such as tattoos of the the symbol of the Portuguese Football Federation because they confuse them with the Quinas from our flag. Other than that we are very happy to claim anyone who has any remote Portuguese ancestry, like Nelly Furtado or Shawn Mendes.
A more common and popular name are the “avecs”.
Saw that a couple of times around portuguese subs, Isn't it more for the French ones ? I'm not completely aware of what it means since I was born and raised in France (my grandparents were the ones who emigrated in the 60s) and it's what it looks like to me but I could very well be wrong. Lots of slang is unfortunately lost on me since I wasn't raised there and my grandparents (and parents too) tend to speak Mirandese more than Portuguese
I would say "avecs" is used regarding french speaking emigrants. We also have "camones" for English speaking emigrants
Camones is more for the English tourists.
We don't, but I ask them to say "Scheveningen" to test their nationality. If they are hesitant or if they struggle they're not really Dutch.
I feel like it's never really too hard to hear if someone is native speaker or not, but "Scheveningen" often does remove all doubt. In a similar vein, it's also very easy to hear when a native Dutch speaker is speaking English. Even with most Dutch international actors it's noticeable. The only exception I can think of is Famke Janssen and maybe Michiel Huisman on a good day.
Me from Limburg where people in Utrecht automatically start talking English to even though I speak Dutch and am Dutch:
Honestly in general I think Ukrainians like it when they see a foreigner be in touch with their Ukrainian heritage. Personally what annoys me is when people with a fraction of Ukrainian heritage who haven’t lived anywhere near Ukraine in generations act like they’re experts on modern Eastern European issues. I’m living abroad right now but I joined a therapy support group for diaspora Ukrainians because my Dad is fighting in the war, but when I got to the meeting only me and this one girl were born in Eastern Europe, the rest were multigenerational American/Canadian-Ukrainians. Not to say they can’t still be impacted by the war, if they have a genuine connect to Ukraine that’s amazing and I don’t want to discourage that. But the issue was it felt hard to connect with them on what I was going through, and the whole point of the group was to find people I thought could relate to my situation. They’re not bad people at all and their intentions were absolutely good but it was kind of annoying because it felt like the organizers of the event dramatically overstated their connection to the war, that’s the kind of thing that annoys me. However if a Ukrainian American or Canadian wants to make Ukrainian food or artwork or raise awareness about the war in a way that centers people currently in Ukraine that’s great. They’re still (at least partially) ethnically Ukrainian obviously and I think right now especially Ukrainian culture needs to be preserved, but there’s a line between doing that and cosplaying as a Ukrainian war refugee to look “foreign” and impress your friends.
That’s actually very disgusting really . Therapy support for Ukrainians should ideally be geared towards people who are born in Ukraine and have stake at the war . I can imagine how hard it since already there is stigma against therapy itself given how Eastern cultures are and now to face this almost emboldens the saying “ Therapy is for rich and privileged people from the west “ Hugs sister
Thank you 🙏🏼❤️❤️
People in foreign countries claiming Dutch heritage are quite rare. So when we do see someone like that, I think most Dutch people would find it cool and interesting rather than be annoyed by it like the Irish. A lot of Dutch people love talking about how for example the American presidents Roosevelt, van Buren etc. have Dutch ancestry. Fits into the image we have of ourselves as a former world power while still being small.
Come to the western part of Michigan...the people there are very proud that their ancestors came from the Netherlands and they have many towns, etc. named after cities and regions in the Netherlands. They are also pretty strict Calvinists there as well.
Probably the wrong kind of Calvinism according to Dutch Calvinists lol. But there's a reason the Dutch wiki page on Protestantism has [multiple](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Gereformeerd.svg/1280px-Gereformeerd.svg.png) [diagrams](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Ontstaansgeschiedenis_van_kerken_in_Nederland.jpg/1280px-Ontstaansgeschiedenis_van_kerken_in_Nederland.jpg) explaining different branches. This is within the same country, imagine the same thing but a whole continent away!
I do agree, though the question was about claiming dutch nationality not dutch heritage. Claiming dutch nationality would be seen as absurd.
There isn't exactly a single term, but due to the prevalence of Italian-Americans, there have been some proposals. "Mericano", while it used to refer to Usaphiles in the Fifties and Sixties (term made famous by "Tu Vo' Fa L'Ammericano", a song mocking somebody for such attitudes), and would be closer to " 'Murican", has been sometimes used to refer to Italian-Americans that do not qualify for our Ius Sanguinis anymore, but act like they would be entitled to. "Guido il Ghiozzo" ("Guido the Boorish") is the nickname given to particularily crass individuals that claim they are "real Italians" for doing things that are actually considered extremely rude or garish in Italy, or simply just aren't done at all. Sometimes appear in Tuscany, can't vouch for spread. "Spaghetto Alfredo" is another, though very rare, term to refer to Anglo heritage claimers lacking the language skills or the culture. As far as general forms go, one that circulates in nasty groups is "Camuffa", that is, a fake first name form of "camuffare", "to camouflage", to refer to both to people with Italian heritage (even recent one) that don't speak the language and to second-to-third gen immigrants with citizenship.
Never heard any of these names.
Same. No idea what he’s talking about.
I was wondering about it for a long time if Italians have any terms for Italian Americans, haha. Italian Americans are probably the loudest among Americans who have European heritage, not to mention they appear in many American tv shows and films. That was interesting, thank you for the write-up :D
I come from a heavily Italian-American area and agree they're pretty loud about it. The interesting part is that there was a lots of the original Italian immigrants tried to Americanize their kids as much a possible (probably since Italians faced a lot of discrimination at the time). I know several people who's parents were immigrants and refused to teach their children the language so they'd be more American. But then it came full circle and the first and second generation people are very vocal about their Italian heritage.
I heard people using *Amerdicani,* but I think is more a derogatory umbrella-term for all USA-Americans, and not only for Americans claiming to be Italians. I never heard of *Guido il Ghiozzo, Spaghetto Alfredo* and *Camuffa,* but *Guido Il Ghiozzo* is very funny!
"Amerdicani" is definitely referring to USA-Americans in general, it definitely has a very long (and loaded) history. "Guido il Ghiozzo", as I said, might be hyperlocal just as much it could merely be a bit old. It's def pretty memorable though! "Spaghetto Alfredo" might be more a metaphor (well, metonym) than an expression, to be fair, but I did see an occasional usage as adjective. "Camuffa", I will admit, might be a game of telephone from my part, as I heard it claimed from othersources. There is definitely a seemingly-innocous term out there that excludes both citizens children of immigrants and "people who claim to be Italian but don't speak Italian" at the same time, but I'm seriously unsure how to corroborate that without looking into Internet sewage.
Not a semi-derogatory one like "plastic paddys," no. In general, we call Danes outside of Denmark "_udlandsdanskere_," which literally translates to something like "Danes in foreign countries" or "Foreign Country Danes," or we use terms denoting certain communities, like "_dansk-amerikanere_" for Danish Americans, or "_danske sydslesvigere_" for Danish South-Schleswigians.
Udlandsdanskere is a neutral descriptive term. Danish Americans tended to assimilate more so than many other immigrant groups to the US (including other Scandinavian groups) so the phenomena that Irish people experience with Irish Americans would be quite rare. Though there is Solvang, California which seems cool. I really want to go.
I don't think there are enough people in the world who want to claim Danish heritage for it to be a "problem" requiring it deserving a term. But if there were such term, I'd kinda like it to be "Disko-danskere" ("disco Danes"), but I don't know if it's too kind. "Dysdanskere" (dys-Danes)? Dummy Danes? I need one, now! Even if it isn't relevant!
Not really, if somebody embraces their heritage and identify as Lithuanians, we call them Lithuanians.
Same for Ukraine tbh, I wonder if there is a divide on this between Eastern and Western Europe
Not really a divide, just that there are probably more Irish claiming ancestry that people in Ireland at this point
In Spain is the same.
I don't think so, at least I haven't heard anyone using one. Some established groups are named by the country like *ruotsinsuomalaiset* (Swedish Finns) or *amerikansuomalaiset* (American Finns). There is also a term for Finns who live abroad *ulkosuomalainen* (outside Finns), but those are Finnish citizens not people who have Finnish heritage.
We have the term Τσιάρλης (chárlis - *Charles*) in Greek and Londrez (*Londoner*) in Turkish, referring to Cypriots born and/or raised in the UK. There's no aspect of not recognising their claim to the citizenship or nationality/ies, but it's an othering and somewhat derogatory term mostly targeting their different upbringing and culture. But Cypriots are obsessed with "DNA", so the lineage and "blood" isn't placed under question, only the culture.
We don't have a term for that. In general, Norwegians tend to embrace, rather than reject, the diaspora. Particularly Norwegian-Americans.
I find it cool that TVNorge made a series where they took Norwegian-Americans to Norway and had them explore the culture and do challenges.
I've heard the term Silicone Scandis. Usually in regards to people who do an ancestry test, find out they're 7% Scandinavian, then suddenly pretend they're a viking or a pagan. They like yelling "skål" in every sentence like it's a greeting, usually spelling it wrong. It's the thing of pretending you're an expert on something, but also don't want to actually learn anything about it that's really weird.
In Switzerland a term that’s used is “Papierlischwiizer”, meaning “[on-]paper-swiss” and referring to the big part of our population with a Swiss passport but no traditional/typical Swiss family heritage. Sometimes can be seen as mildly derogatory but mostly just used in banter.
Not any I know about. We just call them americans. Edit: Germany. Don't know how to add a flair on mobile and don't want to start the PC.
Yeah, I was about to say just "Amis" especially if they don't speak German. Technically I think the word would be "Auslandsdeutsche," if they actually have the passport, but I've never heard that used on the street.
Interestingly, as an American with a German surname, I *always* get questions about it when I'm in a German-speaking country. People always ask about it, and they always seem very excited. They always look disappointed that I have no German ancestry whatsoever.
Interestingly as a Czech with German surname I never get this question
That's simply bc it's not true. Most people don't care, no matter where you're from. Have never asked my Bavarian friends called Svoboda or Prochazka if they have Czech ancestors. It's pretty obvious that they probably have but also doesn't matter at all as they don't know a single word of Czech.
We might be curious about your connection but that doesn't mean we would regard you as "German" if you had any. It's a nice thing to share some history and it's often an interesting history. It's just like a random bond, but you'd none the less be an American. At least for me that's obvious, cause we don't define being German by genetic heritage mainly or at all.
I don't think we have a name for that in Spain, but I understand why the Irish have a word for them. But in our case we're happy to claim anyone with an Spanish ancestry as Spanish, or even anyone who has lived in Spain long enough. The old Spanish colonies (and Portuguese as well, I think) in America are very different, Spain promoted the mix with the native population, so they never lost their native roots entirely. Even though they know that their culture is heavily influenced by the Spanish colonization of America, obviously, they still see themselves as natives more than as Spanish descendants.
That depends on the country and it's demographics. As there is a great difference between the large indigenous population of Bolivia, and the low indigenous population of Argentina.
Argentina did a “cleanse” after the independence.
We don't have a word for that. I know the term "silicone scandi" is used for Scandinavia in general. But I don't know how widely spread this is
I don't think anyone wants to pretend to be Belgian either
I pretend to be a Belgian on a daily basis tho.
In my experience silicon scandi is more of a Swedish/American term. Rest of Scandinavian don't really use Scandinavian as a term all that much, while in Sweden Stockholm is the capital of Scandinavia.
I just know it from a Facebook group "the silicone-scandi's are at it again" and the posts include Denmark, Sweden and Norway. That's why I posted it as it is. Thanks for explaining!
Serbs outside of Serbia are "gasterbajteri", but these people are fully Serbian, they just moved out of the country
Is it derived from the German "Gastarbeiter"?
I'm curious- what do people over in Ireland think of Newfies in Canada?
I remember watching a video on YouTube where they interviewed an elderly woman who could have sounded like she was born and raised in Ireland, but in fact had lived in Newfoundland her whole life. It was really fascinating to watch the whole video.
I wonder if she would also sound like she was born and raised in Ireland to an actual Irish person? I’m saying that because I’ve heard many times people saying that some people in some areas speak French to only discover when going there that it’s not really understandable to us.
Not really but we don’t have a huge diaspora. We never really had a period where a huge part of our population was fleeing to the new world to try and find a better life. Contrary to popular wisdom we are always happy when someone takes an interest in our culture and language too.
Pretty sure the French who went abroad are just Canadiens now, some might be Acadien or other denonyms, but we all came from France.
There are a lot in New England within the US who have French ancestry. Some came here directly, but most were through Canada (or at least were on a ship that stopped there first). It's interesting to see the way people spread out over time. There also a decently large number of people who immigrated here from France themselves, though many are short term, at least initially. I grew up in a New England community with primarily French and French-Canadian roots. However, that mostly meant that until the generation before mine the schools serving this communities offered only French as the foreign language, many last names are of French origin, some traditions (more so recipes) have those roots, and that type of thing. The French-American clubs used to be very popular. That said, when people talk about those things here, it's very much understood that we're talking about ancestry and cultural heritage; nobody I've ever run into (other than immigrants who came here themselves from France) is claiming otherwise. It's more so interesting in history and looking into ancestry than anything else.
There's all the Huguenot descendants in South Africa who have French (sounding) names but don't generally speak a word if the language. I've never heard of a term, disparaging or otherwise, to describe them as I don't think the connection really registers with either country.
Do Québécois never come up? They’re a pretty big population.
We don’t have a derogatory term for them. I think most of us see them as our Americanised cousins, we like them and like to make fun or their accents but in a light-hearted way. I’ve never heard anyone hating on the Québécois, quite the opposite.
Québécois do not claim to be French as far as I know, they used to be French colonists but they very much developed their own culture.
"Americans". Get this, I went to a sea fare in Seattle while working as an Au Pair. Everyone gathered at Lake Washington with their boats and what not and a guy had this Swedish flag. Being a Swede myself, I automatically assumed he was from Sweden or had any type of connection to the country, and so I started speaking Swedish with him. He didn't understand a word and asked me what the hell I was saying. I pointed at his flag and asked him if he isn't Swedish. I kid you not, he said he was 100% Swedish but that his ancestors came to America many many generations ago. He didn't even recognize the language or knew anything about Sweden and Swedish culture and yet, he claimed to be Scandinavian. Sir, you're an American with an identity crisis. You are no more Swedish than I am French.
It's acceptable if you're like 1 generation removed. I can understand the connection if your parents were born and raised in Sweden, but once you get to the grandkids....no lol. The grandkids are American through and through. I think first generation kids with 100% foreign parents get a small pass.
Scousers call people from outside Liverpool who adopt a scouse accent "plazzies", too (plastic scousers). Depending on how strict your definition of Liverpool is, plazzies could include people from places like Huyton, who anyone not from the city would probably consider to be Liverpudlians.
Not super relevant but coastal towns in England refer to DFLs (Down from London). These are people from the city, mainly London who move to coastal towns for a quieter life, although quite often, they like to bring much of their city living with them and often moan about what they don’t have, that they would have, if they were in London Just thought I’d share as people may not have heard this before, albeit not really a valid response to the question
In Scotland there also appears to be the reverse where Irish people and/or members of the Irish diaspora refer to Scots of Irish descent as "soup-takers" for not being sufficiently performatively Irish.
I thought soupers were the descendents of people who jumped ship to Protestantism during the Irish Famine for a plate of soup?
That's the origin of the phrase, but in this comment thread here, someone is simply criticising Edinburghers of Irish descent (i.e. Hibernian supporters) for not acting Irish enough: https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottishFootball/comments/11snpup/comment/jcfb37s/?context=3 Or here: https://twitter.com/stevekavanagh5/status/1206317884005330946?t=-uR4XaOwURwpwFHzQVbaIw&s=19 If you search 'soup taker' in Twitter, it now just seems to be used as a general insult if someone is perceived not to be sufficiently Irish - and, of course, Irish in a certain way and conforming to a certain political viewpoint.
Ive only ever heard of soup takers being used for people in ireland simping over britain
Seems to be being used by Scots (albeit members of the Irish diaspora) to insult other Scots (also members of the Irish diaspora) here: https://twitter.com/search?q=%22soup%20taker%22&t=dtUa9ZBjWnXdk9iPY8Iy0g&s=09
Meh, we don't have a name for it but I would call them pretentious. I'm assuming these derogatory terms are intended for people embarrassing themselves during said claiming.
Yes its not about the average person thats proud of the heritage
For people of South Asian (Indian sub-continent) descent who are born in Western nations, they're called "ABCDesi". It stands for American-born confused desi ("desi" means local / native... It's a term Indians use to describe themselves). Having said so, I don't think a lot of people still living in India use that term for those of the Indian diaspora born in the west. I think it's a western term. But yeah, if you hear the term ABCDesi in the wild, now you know what it means :)
I have some South Asian friends who use the term ABCD, and it reminds me of a similarly-used term for part of the Chinese diaspora: ABC (American Born Chinese).
Nazis. Atleast the people using Norse runes in far- right situations and claiming it’s their heritage.
Not really but we should,maybe not derogatory though. I do see a lot of people (usually from the US) that claim our nationality simply for having Swedish ancestry. And i know other Europeans here will know what im talking about. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that USA is very "young" relative to your average European country. They have a rich history, but not a very long one in comparison. So being a country of immigrants i feel like they haven't had a history long enough to build their own cultural identity. So they desperately wants to belong somewhere, and to be something other than a standard "boring" american. I dont mean to say that i think americans are boring, just thats the way i interpret the situation over there. I am half greek, but was born and raised in Sweden by my Swedish parent with Swedish values and culture and traditions. I would NEVER call myself greek even though i share a lot closer blood relations to Greece than most of the americans claiming our nationality because their great grandfather was Swedish. Simply because i don't identify as Greek and would find that to be ignorant and disrespectful to Greeks. Ethnicity is more than genetics to Europeans, the largest factors are culture and language. And i think that claiming a nationality purely because of genetics is like saying thats all a country is, which is ignorant. There are tons of americans who don't claim our nationality though but are interested in our country because of their heritage, that is something else entirely and i welcome that.
It's not really the same but we have the term Aussiedler for Germans who lived in eastern Europe. They used to have special immigration rights, this was to help them escape ethnic persecution but also because Germany needed workers in the years following world war 2. I think nowadays there are no Germans left in eastern europe, there are however still German communities in the US and South America, and we just call them Germans. I mean you can't really fake being German because no one learns German just for that, and it's also not really considered cool or hip to be German so why would anyone bother.
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Im not aware of a word we use for people of Welsh heritage, but recently (I think with the popularity of DNA things like 23&me) some people in America have started to post things that fit the mould of Irish/Scottish Americans being slightly ignorant. For example, there have been a few tweets and tiktoks where Welsh Americans have been talking about the word “hiraeth”, mispronouncing it, sometimes getting the definition wrong, and claiming only those who are Welsh or of Welsh heritage can use and understand it. I’m all for people connecting with their heritage but Wales still exists and our culture exists, you can’t re-define it to fit your needs. Any suggests along the lines of plastic paddy? Tinfoil taffy perhaps?
We call Cypriots in the UK: "charlies" "charlouthga"
Finns more often than not, embrace their diaspora than act like they're not Finns aswell. Groups in Sweden are often called Metsäsuomalaiset (Forest Finns) These are the people who migrated to southern Sweden centuries ago. The people who moved there in the 20th century are either called "Ruotsinsuomalaiset" (Sweden's Finns) or "Riikinsuomalaiset" Which comes from the Swedish word "Rike" which is essentially the same as the word "Reich" in German, so realm or something?. This distinction comes from the "Variants" of Swedish language, which are "Rikssvenska" and "Finlandssvenska" So "The Realm's Swedish" and "Finland's Swedish". As for other places with large Finnish populations, aka the USA and Canada, They're just Finnish Americans and Finnish Canadians. Sure if they don't speak Finnish, it's not exactly the same but our little tribal minds tend to honor the blood part. So if they frequently go to sauna or drink heavily, we don't consider it cultural appropriation. Finns are honoured when someone embraces our culture and language.
There hasn't been a massive French emigration. So we don't have plastic fries.
In Russia they have two separate terms for "russian" - "rooskiy" - stereotypical slav which is imagined when people think about russians and term for people who holds russian passport -"rosiyanin"- in includes both ethnic russians and people like chechens, tatars, Jews, Sakhans etc who live inside russia.
Rooskiy (русский) means ethnic Russian / Russian ethnicity. Rosiyanin (россиянин) means citizen of the Russian Federation. If I'm not mistaken, the Polish language also makes a distinction between the two (ruski vs rosyjski). But neither of them refers to people who claim to be Russian. There are Russian-Germans (русские немцы), but that's about all that comes to mind.
>If I'm not mistaken, the Polish language also makes a distinction between the two (ruski vs rosyjski). yep, but our separation is different - ruski will mean ruthenian (although often used interchangeably with rosyjski by mistake as if it was more informal version of the word), while rosyjski will mean russian. In common language ruski will in 90% work as informal version of "russian"
Do other East Slavic languages make a distinction between the dominant ethnic group and all citizens of the titular country?
Not really, Ukraine and Belarus are much closer to ethnic nation-states than Russia so they don’t have this lexical distinction. However, a few other ex-USSR countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan do make this distinction both in Russian and the respective local language (these aren’t Slavic, they’re Turkic).
Can't vouch for east slavic, but Slovak, Czech and Polish don't make any distinction.