Yankeeという長文の翻訳お願いします
If would be hard to find a word that
has been more diligently studied than this one. Unfortunately very little has been found out about its origin.
Some students are inclined to think it may be the Dutch word Jan, the name for john, with a diminutive -ee at the end, somewhat as cookee, usually spelled cookie, cooky,
is a diminutive of koek,"cake." It seems certain that the word did not originate in this country, for "Yankee Dutch," and other examples of the term, have been found in British
use as early as 1683.
But it was on this side of the ocean that the word was first applied as a scornful nickname to some New England frontiersmen serving in the army of General ]ames Wolfe
in the French and Indian War. The general did not have the slightest respect for these backwoodsmen.
They were not disciplined. They had no thought of standing up in an open place and being shot down like
well-trained European soldiers would. They got behind
trees and rocks and fought as the Indians did. General Wolfe and his soldiers thought this was cowardly. And when they cared to, these fellows left the army and went
home.
So in 1758 General Wolfe referred to them in far from complimentary terms as "Yankees." Where he got the expression nobody knows. Probably it was a slang term that
had sprung up among the British soldiers as a term of contempt for the frontiersmen who pretended to be soldiers with them. The nickname proved popular and was soon much in favor with those who did not care much for the New Englanders.
A term of scorn and disdain sometimes develops into an
expression of honor and pride. This change took place in Yankee. The tide began to turn in its favor on April 19, 1775. On that date some British soldiers marched out of
Boston to destroy some military stores the Americans had at Concord, twenty-two miles away. The patriots learned about the expedition by the time it started, and the whole countryside along the route swarmed with enraged citizens
armed with such guns and clubs as they could get.
Before the day was over, these undisciplined Americans had prevented the British soldiers from destroying much of their supplies and had killed and wounded about three hundred of them. No wonder these "country burnpkins," as the soldiers regarded them, were proud of their success.
For the first time they now began to call themselves "Yankees," and to take pride in their new name. They
also took up the catchy tune "Yankee Doodle," which their enemies had been fond of playing in scorn of them; and from then on the Americans dinned it into the ears of the redcoats until these soldiers were sick and tired of it.
Besides advancing in dignity, Yankee became more widely applied. Now it is often used by people abroad as a name for Americans in general, but here at home it is still restricted to New Englanders and those of the
Northern states.
お礼
ありがとうござました！！ 是非参考にさせて頂きます。