amerikano

This is the fence, and it is the reason the word is on the list.Amerikano means an inhabitant of the Americas - all of them, from Canada to Chile. A citizen of the United States is a usonano, built on the separate root Usono, and that word arrived a thousand ranks ago at 1,393. The two are not synonyms and swapping them is not a stylistic preference: amerikano for a New Yorker quietly annexes two continents, which is precisely what Esperanto's country system was built to avoid. A language designed for international use could hardly name one country after a hemisphere.

Which is also a grammar lesson. Usono is a Category 2 country: the root names the land and the people are built from it with -an-, so Usono gives usonano the way Brazilo gives brazilano and Kanado gives kanadano. Amerikano is made the same way, from a continent instead of a country, and -an- scales the whole distance: eŭropano a European, parizano a Parisian, vilaĝano a villager, klubano a club member.

Say the specific word first. The house rule in this course is the one the country article gives: reach for the narrower name before the category name. Brazilano before sudamerikano; meksikano before amerikano. Amerikano earns its keep when you genuinely mean the hemisphere - la amerikaj Esperanto-kongresoj, amerikanoj el kvin landoj - and not otherwise.