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From: bob@cadovax.UUCP (Bob "Kat" Kaplan)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Derivation of Yankee
Message-ID: <501@cadovax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Mar-85 12:57:34 EST
Article-I.D.: cadovax.501
Posted: Tue Mar 26 12:57:34 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Mar-85 00:50:10 EST
References: <660@oddjob.UUCP>
Reply-To: bob@cadovax.UUCP (Bob "Kat" Kaplan)
Organization: Contel Cado, Torrance, CA
Lines: 29

From: sra@oddjob.UUCP (Scott R. Anderson)

> We were discussing the origin of the word "Yankee", which originally
> referred to New Englanders.  Webster's Third states that it is unknown.

Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition
(World Publishing Co., 1956) states:

    [prob < D. _Jan_Kees_ (taken as pl.); _Jan_, John + _Kees_, dial. 
    form of _kaas_, cheese; orig. (_Jan_Kaas_) used as disparaging
    for a Hollander, later for Dutch freebooter; applied by colonial
    Dutch in New York to English settlers in Connecticut.  For discussion
    of this and other hypotheses see H. L. Mencken, _Am._Lang,_Suppl._I_,
    pp 192-197]

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (G. & C. Merriam Co., 1953) states:

    [often derived through an early _Yengee(s)_, fr. Am. Ind. corrupt.
    of _English_ or F. _Anglais_, but prob. fr. a D. dim. of _Jan_ John,
    as applied by the Dutch of N. Y. to the English of Conn.]

The OED lists the above etymologies and more, including the derivation of
_Yankee_ from the Cherokee _eankke_, which means slave or coward.

It looks like the best thing to do is to take a look at Mencken.
-- 
Bob Kaplan

"Where is it written that we must destroy ourselves?"