Yankee

"Yank" redirects here. For other uses, seeYank (disambiguation).

For the baseball team, seeNew York Yankees.For other uses, seeYankee (disambiguation).

Yankees
Yankee Americans

Flag of the United States
Regions with significant populations
United States,Northern States,New England
Languages
English
Religion
Majority: Christianity(Protestantism)

The termYankeeand its contracted formYankhave several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the United States. Their various meanings depend on the context, and may refer toNew Englanders,theNortheastern United States,theNorthern United States,or to people from the US in general.

Outside the United States,Yankis used informally to refer to a person or thing from the US. It has been especially popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand where it may be used variously, either with an uncomplimentary overtone, endearingly, or cordially.In theSouthern United States,Yankeeis a derisive term which refers to all Northerners, and during theAmerican Civil Warit was applied byConfederatesto soldiers of theUnionarmy in general. Elsewhere in the United States, it largely refers to people from theNortheastern states,but especially those withNew Englandcultural ties, such as descendants ofcolonial New Englandsettlers, wherever they live.Its sense is sometimes more cultural than geographical, emphasizing theCalvinistPuritanChristian beliefs and traditions of the Congregationalists who brought their culture when they settled outside New England. The speech dialect ofEastern New England Englishis called "Yankee" or "Yankee dialect".

Etymology and historical usage of the term

New Netherland origin

New Netherlandflag

TheNew Netherlandcolony in America

Most linguists look toDutch languagesources, noting the extensive interaction between the Dutch colonists inNew Netherland(parts of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware) and the English colonists inNew England(Massachusetts,Rhode Island,andConnecticut).The exact application, however, is uncertain; some scholars suggest that it was a term used in derision of the Dutch colonists, others that it was derisive of the English colonists.

Michael QuinionandPatrick Hanksargue that the term comes from the DutchJanneke,a diminutive form of the given nameJanwhich would be Anglicized by New Englanders as "Yankee" due to the Dutch pronunciation ofJbeing the same as the EnglishY.Quinion and Hanks posit that it was "used as a nickname for a Dutch-speaking American in colonial times" and could have grown to include non-Dutch colonists, as well.TheOxford English Dictionarycalls this theory "perhaps the most plausible".

Alternatively, the Dutch given namesJan(Dutch:[jɑn]) andKees(Dutch:[keːs]) have long been common, and the two are sometimes combined into a single name (Jan Kees). Its Anglicized spellingYankeecould, in this way, have been used to mock Dutch colonists. The chosen nameJan Keesmay have been partly inspired by a dialectal rendition ofJan Kaas( "John Cheese" ), the generic nickname that Southern Dutch used for Dutch people living in the North.

TheOnline Etymology Dictionarygives its origin as around 1683, attributing it to English colonists insultingly referring to Dutch colonists. English privateerWilliam Dampierrelateshis dealingsin 1681 with Dutch privateer Captain Yanky or Yanke. LinguistJan de Vriesnotes that there was mention of a pirate namedDutch Yankyin the 17th century.The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves(1760) contains the passage, "Haul forward thy chair again, take thy berth, and proceed with thy story in a direct course, without yawing like a Dutch yanky."According to this theory, Dutch settlers ofNew Amsterdamstarted using the term against the English colonists of neighboring Connecticut.

New England use

Flag of New England

Map ofNew England

British GeneralJames Wolfemade the earliest recorded use of the word "Yankee" in 1758 when he referred to the New England soldiers under his command. "I can afford you two companies of Yankees, and the more, because they are better for ranging and scouting than either work or vigilance".Later British use of the word was in a derogatory manner, as seen in a cartoon published in 1775 ridiculing "Yankee" soldiers.New Englanders themselves employed the word in a neutral sense; the "Pennamite–Yankee War",for example, was a series of clashes in 1769 over land titles in Pennsylvania between settlers fromConnecticut Colonyand "Pennamite" settlers fromPennsylvania.

The meaning ofYankeehas varied over time. In the 18th century, it referred to residents of New England descended from the original English settlers of the region.Mark Twainused the word in this sense the following century in his 1889 novelA Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.As early as the 1770s, British people applied the term to any person from the United States. In the 19th century, Americans in the southern United States employed the word in reference to Americans from the northern United States, though not to recent immigrants from Europe. Thus, a visitor toRichmond, Virginia,commented in 1818, "The enterprising people are mostly strangers; Scots, Irish, and especially New England men, or Yankees, as they are called".

Historically, it has also been used to distinguish American-born Protestants from later immigrants, such as Catholics of Irish descent.

Rejected etymologies

Many etymologies have been suggested for the wordYankee,but modern linguists generally reject theories that suggest it originated in any Indigenous languages.This includes a theory put forth by a British officer in 1789, who said that it was derived from theCherokeewordeankkemeaning "coward" —despite the fact that no such word existed in the Cherokee language.Another theory surmised that the word was borrowed from theWyandotpronunciation of the Frenchl'anglais,meaning "the Englishman" or "the English language", which was sounded asY'an-gee.

American musicologistOscar Sonneckdebunked a romanticized false etymology in his 1909 workReport on "The Star-Spangled Banner", "Hail Columbia", "America", "Yankee Doodle".He cited a popular theory that claimed the word came from a tribe who called themselvesYankoos,said to mean "invincible". The story claimed that New Englanders had defeated this tribe after a bloody battle, and the remainingYankooIndians transferred their name to the victors—who were "agreeable to the Indian custom". Sonneck notes that multiple American writers since 1775 had repeated this story as if it were fact, despite what he perceived to be holes in it. It had never been the tradition of any Indian tribe to transfer their name to other peoples, according to Sonneck, nor had any settlers ever adopted an Indian name to describe themselves.Sonneck concludes by pointing out that there was never a tribe called theYankoos.

Yankee nationality

Yankee settlement in the United States

Manifest Destiny,settlement of the United States

Yankee settlers

The original Yankees diffused widely across the northern United States, leaving their imprints in New York, theUpper Midwest,many taking advantage of water routes by theGreat Lakes,and places as far away asSeattle,San Francisco,andHonolulu.

Yankeeism is the general character of the Union. Yankee manners are as migratory as Yankee men. The latter are found everywhere and the former prevail wherever the latter are found. Although the genuine Yankee belongs to New England, the term "Yankee" is now as appropriate to the natives of the Union at large.

Yankees settled other states in various ways: some joined highly organized colonization companies, others purchased groups of land together; some joined volunteer land settlement groups, and self-reliant individual families also migrated.Yankees typically lived in villages consisting of clusters of separate farms. Often they were merchants, bankers, teachers, or professionals.

Village life fostered local democracy, best exemplified by the opentown meetingform of government that still exists today in New England. Village life also stimulated mutual oversight of moral behavior and emphasized civic virtue. The Yankees built international trade routes stretching to China by 1800 from the New England seaports ofBoston,Salem,Providence,Newport,andNew London,among others. Much of the profit from trading was reinvested in the textile and machine tools industries.

Yankee politics

After 1800, Yankees spearheaded most American reform movements, including those for the abolition of slavery, temperance in use of alcohol, increase in women's political rights, and improvement in women's education.Emma WillardandMary Lyonpioneered in the higher education of women, while Yankees comprised most of the reformers who went South duringReconstructionin the late 1860s to educate theFreedmen.

Historian John Buenker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Midwest:

Boston,New Englandcapital

Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life. They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest, and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stock ambitions. Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior…. This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of theForty-Eighters.

Yankees dominated New England, much of upstate New York, and much of the upper Midwest, and were the strongest supporters of the new Republican party in the 1860s. This was especially true for theCongregationalists,Presbyterians,and Methodists among them. A study of 65 predominantly Yankee counties showed that they voted only 40 percent for theWhigsin 1848 and 1852, but became 61–65 percentRepublicanin presidential elections of 1856 through 1864.

Ivy Leagueuniversities remained bastions of old Yankee culture until well afterWorld War II,particularlyHarvardandYale.

Yankee stereotypes

PresidentCalvin Coolidgeof New England

PresidentCalvin Coolidgeexemplified the modern Yankee stereotype. Coolidge moved from ruralVermontto urbanMassachusettsand was educated at eliteAmherst College.Yet his flint-faced, unprepossessing ways and terse rural speech proved politically attractive. "That Yankee twang will be worth a hundred thousand votes", explained one Republican leader.Coolidge's laconic ways and dry humor were characteristic of stereotypical rural "Yankee humor" at the turn of the 20th century.

Yankee ingenuitywas a worldwide stereotype of inventiveness, technical solutions to practical problems, "know-how," self-reliance, and individual enterprise.The stereotype first appeared in the 19th century. As Mitchell Wilson notes, "Yankee ingenuity and Yankee git-up-and-go did not exist in colonial days."The great majority of Yankees gravitated toward the burgeoning cities of the northeast, while wealthy New Englanders also sent ambassadors to frontier communities where they became influential bankers and newspaper printers. They introduced the term "Universal Yankee Nation" to proselytize their hopes for national and global influence.

Religion

New England Yankees originally followed thePuritantradition, as expressed inCongregationalandBaptistchurches. Beginning in the late colonial period, many becamePresbyterians,Episcopalians,Methodists,or, later,Unitarians.Strait-laced 17th-century moralism as derided by novelistNathaniel Hawthornefaded in the 18th century. TheFirst Great AwakeningunderJonathan Edwardsand others in the mid-18th century, and theSecond Great Awakeningin the early 19th century underCharles Grandison Finneyand others emphasized personal piety, revivals, and devotion to civic duty.

Historic uses

Yankee Doodle

Main article:Yankee Doodle

Loyalist newspaper cartoon fromBostonridicules "Yankie Doodles" militia who have encircled the British forces inside the city

A pervasive influence on the use of the term throughout the years has been thesong "Yankee Doodle"which was popular during theAmerican Revolutionary War(1775–1783). The song originated among the British troops during the French and Indian or Seven Years' War, creating a stereotype of the Yankee simpleton who stuck a feather in his cap and thought that he was stylish,but it was rapidly re-appropriated by American patriots after thebattles of Le xing ton and Concord.Today, "Yankee Doodle" is the officialstate songof Connecticut.

Canadian usage

An early use of the term outside the United States was in the creation ofSam Slickthe "Yankee Clockmaker" in a newspaper column inHalifax,Nova Scotia,in 1835. The character was a plain-speaking American who becomes an example for Nova Scotians to follow in his industry and practicality; his uncouth manners and vanity were qualities that his creator detested. The character was developed byThomas Chandler Haliburton,and it grew between 1836 and 1844 in a series of publications.

Damn Yankee

A Yankee cavalry raid

American Civil War map,Federal Unionand Southern States

Thedamned Yankeeusage dates from 1812.Confederates popularized it as a derogatory term for their Northern enemies during and after theAmerican Civil War(1861–1865). Rhode Island GovernorBruce Sundlunhad been a pilot in World War II, and he named hisB-17FbomberDamn Yankeebecause a crewman from North Carolina nicknamed him with that epithet.

Contemporary uses

In the United States

The termYankeecan have many different meanings within the United States that are contextually and geographically dependent. Traditionally,Yankeewas most often used to refer to a New Englander descended from the settlers of the region, thus often suggesting Puritanism and thrifty values.By the mid-20th century, some speakers applied the word to any American inhabiting the area north of theMason–Dixon Line,though usually with a specific focus still on New England.New England Yankeemight be used to differentiate.However, within New England itself, the term still refers more specifically to old-stock New Englanders of English descent. For example:

Certainly the Irish have for years complained of Yankee discrimination against them.

— William F. Whyte

There were no civil rights groups then. Even the Federal Government was controlled by bigoted Yankees and Irish who banded together against the Italian immigrant.

— Fred Langone

The one anomaly of this era was the election of Yankee Republican Leverett Saltonstall as governor in 1938, and even then Saltonstall jokingly attributed his high vote totals in Irish districts to his 'South Boston face'.

— Stephen Puleo

In the Southern United States, the term is used in derisive reference to any Northerner, especially one who has migrated to the South and maintains derisive attitudes towards Southerners and the Southern way of life. Alabama lawyer and author Daniel Robinson Hundley describes the Yankee as such inSocial Relations in Our Southern States:

Yankee with all these is looked upon usually as a term of reproach—signifying a shrewd, sharp, chaffering, oily-tongued, soft-sawdering, inquisitive, money-making, money-saving, and money-worshipping individual, who hails from Down East, and who is presumed to have no where else on the Globe a permanent local habitation, however ubiquitous he may be in his travels and pursuits.

SenatorJ. William Fulbrightof Arkansas pointed out as late as 1966, "The very word 'Yankee' still wakens in Southern minds historical memories of defeat and humiliation, of theburning of AtlantaandSherman's March to the Sea,or of an ancestral farmhouse burned byQuantrill's Raiders".Ambrose Biercedefines the term inThe Devil's Dictionaryas: "In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)"

E. B. Whitehumorously draws his own distinctions:

To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.

Major League Baseball'sNew York Yankeesacquired the name from journalists after the team moved from Baltimore in 1903, though they were officially known as the Highlanders until 1913. The regionalYankees–Red Sox rivalrycan make the utterance of the term "Yankee" unwelcome to some fans in New England, especially to the most dedicated Red Sox fans living in the northeastern United States.

The termSwamp Yankeeis sometimes used in rural Rhode Island, Connecticut, and southeastern Massachusetts to refer to Protestant farmers of moderate means and their descendants, although it is often regarded as a derogatory term.Scholars note that the famous Yankee "twang" survives mainly in the hill towns of interior New England, though it is disappearing even there.

Mark Twain's 1889 novelA Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Courtpopularized the word as a nickname for residents of Connecticut, and Connecticut Air National Guard unit103d Airlift Wingis nicknamed "The Flying Yankees."

In other countries

"Yankee, go home", anti-American banner inLiverpool,United Kingdom

The shortened formYankis used as a derogatory, pejorative, playful, or colloquial term for Americans in Britain,Australia,Canada,South Africa,Ireland,and New Zealand.The fullYankeemay be considered mildly derogatory, depending on the country.The Spanish variationyanquiis used in Latin American Spanish,often derogatorily.Venezuelan Spanish has the wordpitiyanquiderived around 1940 frompetty yankeeorpetit yanqui,a derogatory term for those who profess an exaggerated and often ridiculous admiration for anything from the United States.

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, the termseppo,shortened from traditionalrhyming slangyank==>septic tank,is sometimes used as a pejorative reference to Americans.

In Finland, the wordjenkkiis sometimes used to refer to any American citizen, andJenkkilärefers to the United States itself. It is not considered offensive or anti-American, but rather a colloquial expression. In Sweden, the wordjänkareis a derivative of Yankee that is used to refer to both American citizens and classic American cars from the 1950s that are popular in rural Sweden.

Japan

A man dressed as a 1990s Japaneseyankī(2015)

In the late 19th century, the Japanese were called "the Yankees of the East" in praise of their industriousness and drive to modernization.In Japan, the termyankī(ヤンキー)has been used since the late 1970s to refer to a type of delinquent youth associated with motorcycle gangs and frequently sporting dyed blond hair.

South Korea

Around theAmerican occupation of Koreaand theKorean Warperiods, Korean black markets that sold smuggled American goods from military bases were called "yankee markets" (Korean:양키시장).The term "yankee" is now generally viewed as ananti-American slur in South Korea,and is often used in the exclamation "Yankee go home!" (『양키 고 홈!』).

See also

• Dixie,a term used to refer to the Southern United States
• Brother Jonathan
• Carpetbagger,Northerners in the South during Reconstruction
• 26th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade(Yankee Division)
• Jonkheer
• Anti-Americanism
• Yankee Doodle Dandy
• Yankee ingenuity
• Yanks Go Home,British sitcom
• Brit
• Canuck
• Aussie
• Kiwi
• Boer
• WASP
• Gringo

References

Further reading

• Beals, Carleton;Our Yankee Heritage: New England's Contribution to American Civilization(1955) online
• Conforti, Joseph A.Imagining New England: Explorations of Regional Identity from the Pilgrims to the Mid-Twentieth Century(2001) online
• Bushman, Richard L.From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765(1967)
• Daniels, Bruce C.New England Nation: The Country the Puritans Built(Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) 237 pp.excerpt and text search
• Ellis, David M. "The Yankee Invasion of New York 1783–1850".New York History(1951) 32:1–17.
• Fischer, David Hackett.Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America(1989), Yankees comprise one of the four
• Gjerde; Jon.The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830–1917(1999) online
• Gray; Susan E.The Yankee West: Community Life on the Michigan Frontier(1996) online
• Handlin, Oscar. "Yankees", inHarvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups,ed. by Stephan Thernstrom, (1980) pp 1028–1030.
• Hill, Ralph Nading.Yankee Kingdom: Vermont and New Hampshire.(1960).
• Holbrook, Stewart H.Yankee Exodus: An Account of Migration from New England(1950)
• Holbrook, Stewart H.;Yankee Loggers: A Recollection of Woodsmen, Cooks, and River Drivers(1961)
• Hudson, John C. "Yankeeland in the Middle West",Journal of Geography85 (Sept 1986)
• Jensen, Richard. "Yankees" inEncyclopedia of Chicago(2005).
• Kleppner; Paul.The Third Electoral System 1853–1892: Parties, Voters, and Political CulturesUniversity of North Carolina Press. 1979, on Yankee voting behavior
• Knights, Peter R.;Yankee Destinies: The Lives of Ordinary Nineteenth-Century Bostonians(1991) online
• Mathews, Lois K.The Expansion of New England(1909).
• Piersen, William Dillon.Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England(1988)
• Power, Richard Lyle.Planting Corn Belt Culture(1953), on Indiana
• Rose, Gregory. "Yankees/Yorkers", in Richard Sisson ed,The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia(2006) 193–95, 714–5, 1094, 1194,
• Sedgwick, Ellery;The Atlantic Monthly, 1857–1909: Yankee Humanism at High Tide and Ebb(1994) online
• Smith, Bradford.Yankees in Paradise: The New England Impact on Hawaii(1956)
• Taylor, William R.Cavalier and Yankee: The Old South and American National Character(1979)
• WPA.Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People.Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration of Massachusetts (1937).

Linguistic

• Davis, Harold. "On the Origin of Yankee Doodle",American Speech,Vol. 13, No. 2 (Apr., 1938), pp. 93–96in JSTOR
• Fleser, Arthur F. "Coolidge's Delivery: Everybody Liked It."Southern Speech Journal1966 32(2): 98–104.ISSN0038-4585
• Kretzschmar, William A.Handbook of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States(1994)
• Lemay, J. A. Leo "The American Origins of Yankee Doodle",William and Mary Quarterly33 (Jan 1976) 435–64in JSTOR
• Logemay, Butsee H. "The Etymology of 'Yankee'",Studies in English Philology in Honor of Frederick Klaeber,(1929) pp 403–13.
• Mathews, Mitford M.A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles(1951) pp 1896 ff for elaborate detail
• Mencken, H. L.The American Language(1919, 1921)
• The Merriam-Webster new book of word histories(1991)
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Schell, Ruth. "Swamp Yankee",American Speech,1963, Volume 38, No.2 pg. 121–123.in JSTOR
• Sonneck, Oscar G.Report on "the Star-Spangled Banner" "Hail Columbia" "America" "Yankee Doodle"(1909)pp 83ff online
• Stollznow, Karen.2006. "Key Words in the Discourse of Discrimination: A Semantic Analysis. PhD Dissertation: University of New England., Chapter 5.

External links

• Online Etymology Dictionary
• Wordorigins.orgArchived2017-12-06 at theWayback Machine