YANKEE, ITS ORIGIN AND MEANING.
The meaning of the term Yankee, which our transatlantic brethren now willingly adopt as their collective name, has acquired more notoriety than it deserved from the unlucky and far-fetched derivations which it has received in so many different publications. The term is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and of home-growth. We all know, from the veritable Diedricht Knickerbocker's History of New York, that its earliest settlers were exclusively Dutchmen, who naturally named it, though from anything but similarity in local situation, New Amsterdam. We may, of course, suppose that in the multitude of these Dutch settlers the names they carried over would be pretty nearly in the same proportion as at home. Both then and now the Dutch Jan (the a sounded very broad and long), abbreviated from the German Johann, our John, was the prevailing Christian appellative; and it even furnished, in Jansen, &c. (like our Johnson), frequent patronymics, particularly with the favourite diminutive cke, Jancke: and so common does it still remain as such, that it would be difficult to open the Directory of any decent-sized Dutch or Northern German town without finding numerous instances, as Jancke, Jaancke, Jahncke, &c., according as custom has settled the orthography in each family. It is scarcely necessary to say that the soft J is frequently rendered by Y in our English reading and speaking foreign words (as the Scandinavian and German Jule becomes our Yule), to show how easily and naturally the above names were transformed into Yahnkee. So much for the name as an appellative; now for its appropriation as a generic. The prominent names of individuals are frequently seized upon by the vulgar as a designation of the people or party in which it most prevails. We have Paddies for Irishmen, Taffies for Welshmen, and Sawnies (abbreviated Alexander) for our Scotch brethren: so, therefore, when English interests gained the upper hand, and the name of New Amsterdam succumbed to that of New York, the fresh comers, the English settlers, seized upon the most prominent name by which to designate its former masters, which extended to the whole of North America, as far as Canada: and the addition of doodle, twin brother to noodle, was intended to mark more strongly the contempt and mockery by the dominant party; just as a Sawney is, in most of the northern counties, a term next door to a fool. It is, however, to the credit of our transatlantic brethren, and the best sign of their practical good sense, that they have turned the tables on the innuendo, and by adopting, carried the term into repute by sheer resolution and determinate perseverance.
The term slave is only the misappropriation, by malevolent neighbours, of the Slavonic term slaus or laus, so frequent in the proper names of that people; Ladislaus, Stanislaus, Wratislaus, &c., meaning, in their vernacular tongue, glory or praise, like the Latin laus, with which it is no doubt cognate: and so servi and servants is but a derivative from the Serbs, Sorbs, or Servians, whose glorious feats in arms against their Turkish oppressors have proved that there is nothing servile in their character.
William Bell, Phil. Dr.
17. Gower Place, Euston Square.