toki:ma Amelika

Renaming of "ma Amelika lete" and "ma Amelika seli"

To me, these seem directly related to the eurocentric assumption that "North" is equivalent to cold and "South" equivalent to warm. Within the Americas, they particularly prioritize the experiences of people from the US and Canada (for whom this notion might seem accurate enough) over that of people in the rest of the region, where North America has plenty of warm regions and South America has plenty of cold (including the tallest mountain range in the region). After talking to other people from Latin America who feel the same, I think it is worth trying to move away from this naming convention.

I would avoid using non-proper descriptors: "north" and "south" don't have any equivalent words in common use, and out of the traits describable by pu words I cannot think of any that is particularly true for the South and not for the North, or vice versa. So personally I like using the terms "ma Sulamelika" (from Sudamérica/América do Sul) and "ma Nosamelika" (from Norteamérica/North America), but I would prefer any variant of these over a lete/seli distinction that only makes sense from an anglocentric perspective. SauceDLX (toki) 2024-07-06T20:32:48 (UTC)

a

pilin mi la, ma lete o ni: ona li lon poka pi ma pi ko lete walo mute. sama la ma seli o ni: ma tu pi ko lete walo mute la ma seli li lon insa li weka a tam ma pi ko lete mute. tan nasin ni la, ma Amelika seli li ma Amelika "insa". jan Ke Tami (toki) 2024-07-06T20:53:19 (UTC)

toki sina li pona. nasin ante la nimi "lete" en "seli" li kepeken sona nimi ante. ijo nimi "lete" o lete, ijo nimi "seli" o seli. ma Losansili lon ma Amelika seli, ma Usuwaja lon ma Amelika lete SauceDLX (toki) 2024-07-06T21:14:15 (UTC)