Well, everybody born in the american continent is technically “american” too, including Central and South America. Is there a specific term in english for these people?
Edit: Thanks for all your answers, especially the wholesome ones and those patient enough to explain it thoroughly. Since we (South Americans) and you (North Americans) use different models/conventions of continent boundaries, it makes sense for you to go by “Americans”, while it doesn’t for us.
Language rules (in English at least) are descriptive not prescriptive. They try to explain why Americans are called Americans, not determine what they’re called. They’re called Americans, whether or not it’s logical, or the ideal descriptor, or fits with other names, that’s what they’re called.
Also most English speaking countries don’t have an “American” continent, they have North and South America as separate continents, so you would say someone is North or South American to refer to the continent, not just American. Similar to how some people consider Eurasia a single continent but very few people would identify as Eurasian.
When referring to the entire continent, I’ve heard “The Americas” in English.
Just a reminder: Central America is another division of the American continent.
Um
AKSHUALLY
It’s debatable that North and South America are separate continents. I prefer the continental plate system but some countries literally teach that there is an “American” continent that includes both landmasses.
They also typically merge Europe and Asia, which is absolutely the right thing to do regardless.
The reason you have this disagreement is that there simply isn’t a good, concise definition of “continent,” and because at the end of the day it only matters for semantics and racism.
So the number of continents in the world is between 5 to 7, all debatably correct, depending on who you ask.
Possibly even 4 if you want to get particularly spicy and say any large, connected landmass is a single continent, merging Africa, Europe, and Asia into a single entity.
Which is also a more valid take than “Europe is its own continent because white people live there.”
Edit: I forgot to mention the Indian homies are more deserving of a continent than Europe, thanks to having their own tectonic plate.
Tl;DR the world has 4-8 continents, but it is typically taught as anywhere from 5-7, it just depends on how actually consistent you want to be with your rules for what defines a continent, and 7 is just straight up the scientifically worst option unless India is recognized as a separate continent from Eurasia.
Yeah that’s kinda my point haha. Continents are made up and don’t mean anything. If you’re going by plates then there’s dozens of continents.