Yankee

The term Yankee and its contracted form Yank have several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the United States. Their various meanings depend on the context, and may refer to New Englanders, the Northeastern United States, the Northern United States, or to Americans in general. Outside the United States, Yank is used informally to refer to an American person or thing. It has been especially popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand where it may be used variously with uncomplimentary overtone, endearingly, or cordially. In the Southern United States, Yankee is a derisive term which refers to all Northerners, and during the American Civil War it was applied by Confederates to soldiers of the Union army in general. Elsewhere in the United States, it largely refers to people from the Northeastern states, but especially those with New England cultural ties, such as descendants of colonial New England settlers, wherever they live. Its sense is sometimes more cultural than geographical, emphasizing the Calvinist Puritan Christian beliefs and traditions of the Congregationalists who brought their culture when they settled outside New England. The speech dialect of Eastern New England English is called "Yankee" or "Yankee dialect". British General James Wolfe made 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 from Connecticut Colony and "Pennamite" settlers from Pennsylvania. The meaning of Yankee has varied over time.