[Ads-l] "Yankee" as Adjective

Wed Aug 5 22:51:11 UTC 2026

Extraordinary find (Yankee as adjective), Jon !  One of the best antedatings of recent times.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, August 5, 2026 4:54 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Yankee

Might be worth reposting, from October, 2005:

Three tidbits concerning the mysterious etymology of "Yankee," which I
encourage others to follow up on :

1. Evidently there was a pirate called "Captain Yankey" who sailed the seas
in the late 17th C.

2. Some years ago I met a young fellow on campus named "Dennis Yankee."
Naturally, he had not the slightest idea of where the name came from.

3. The Algonquian conversations subtitled in the 1993 film of _The Last of
the Mohicans_ employ the word / 'yEngiz / (spelled "Yengees" elsewhere) to
refer to the English.  Whatever the case in the 18th C.,  the modern-day
film consultant on Algonquian evidently felt this word was genuine and
appropriate.  (I believe that doubt has been expressed as to whether
"Yengees" was a real word.)

JL

UPDATES:

The Kingsport [Tenn.] Times-News (Dec. 17, 1983), p.10B [N] has a story on
my former acquaintance Dennis Yankee. (Didn't know he'd been a football
hero.)   Ancestry.com reports that the surname "Yankee" (variously spelled)
is an "Americanized form of Dutch or North German Janke Jahnke or Jenke."
The assertion is not a surprise, but the genealogical source may be more
than ordinarily reliable.

OED's first ex. of "Yankee," adj., is from 1781.  This is earlier:

1769 _Bath and Bristol Chronicle_ (Feb. 16) 3 [N]: There is not an
officer...who cannot have his bedfellow for the winter; so that the Yankey
war, contrary to all others, will produce more births than burials.

OED now has a separate entry for "Yengees" (sic., pl.) with two cites so
early as 1819. But whether it is the etymon or a reflex of "Yankee" still
appears to be unknown.

JL

On Wed, Aug 5, 2026 at 3:39 PM victor steinbok <
000025123e35b025-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> As has become customary in my searches I was looking for something else,
> got sidetracked and stumbled on "Yankee". A quick OED check had a 1697
> pointer to Dampier's New Voyage Around The World. The OED citation is from
> page 38. The margin note identifies the timeline as 1681.
>
> Looking over the rest of the citations in OED etymology for Yankee, all the
> ones preceding Dampier's identify either "Captain Yanky" (with variant
> spellings) or "Pirate Yanky". One reference, which I have not checked
> identifies "Captain John Williams (Yankey)".
>
> So all the references appear to be to the same person, with Dampier's
> dating being the earliest (although published later). There are three
> factors that appear important to me.
>
> First, the odd reference to "John Williams (Yankey)" (1687, published
> 1899). There can be no doubt it's the same person, despite the Anglicized
> name. The second name that appears in the same citation is Captain Jacob
> Everson (Jacob). The subsequent citation in an English document refers to
> "the pirates Yanky and Jacobs" - again, undoubtedly the same two people.
>
> Second, the earliest available reference (1683 via 1898 publication)
> identifies pirates "Vanhorn and ... Yankey Duch". Instead of speculating,
> I'm just going to posit that this means "Yankee the Dutchman", supporting
> the part of the etymology note that ties "Yankee" to Dutch "Janke". More on
> that in a moment.
>
> Third, page 38 is not the earliest that Captain Yanky appears in Dampier's
> account. Rather than look in the English 1697 (or subsequent) edition, I
> took a peek at the 1698 French edition. The name appears much earlier in
> that text - the accounting of man power and artillery of the ships sailing
> out (p. 33). Going back to the English edition (p. 26 in Internet Archives
> version; p. 29 in one Google Books version), the same account appears as
> follows:
>
> "Capt. Williams, a small Barcolongo ) Capt. Yankes, a Barco-longo 4 Guns
> about 6o or so Men, English, Dutch, and French; himself a Dutchman."
>
> Captain Williams is only mentioned once, subsequently, but there are also
> several mentions of Captain Tristian, who is not listed in this account of
> the privateer fleet. Subsequent text also reveals that "Captain Yanky" is
> not commissioned as a privateer, so is, technically, a pirate.
>
> So, here's the issue. If Yankey/Yanky is indeed the nickname of Captain
> John Williams and he is indeed Dutch, his original Dutch name may well be
> Janke (presumably, a familiar/diminutive of Ian/John). Dampier also conveys
> further that Captain Yankey was not only liked and supported by his crew
> but by crew on other ships in the fleet as well, to the point of opposition
> to the commissioned Captain Wright.
>
> The OED etymology note reads:
>
> "The existence of Yank(e)y, Yankee, as a surname or nickname (often with
> Dutch associations) is vouched for by the following references:"
>
> There are two problems with this, as I see it. First, all the references
> refer to the same person, a privateer or a pirate captain, so this is not
> really multiple confirmations of such a surname. Second, it's not actually
> a surname but, rather, an endearing shortening of the first name. There's
> also the additional evidence of multiple spellings of the name - Yankey,
> Yanky, Yanks and Yanke (not to mention, Janke) - that makes the search
> somewhat complicated. But, it would go a long way in confirming the Dutch
> origin of the Yankee epithet and possibly even linking it to the
> aforementioned captain.
>
> Following up on this reasearch is out of my league. I have neither the
> skill nor the resources. But, if this Captain John Yanky Williams can be
> traced, it may just be the lead to unravel the whole mystery.
>
> VS-)
>
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