I'll give you another reason to consider Canada as part of the British empire. It's actually called Canada.

The local Indians have two words for settlements - one word for their own settlements, and another word for the settlements of other peoples who have come to their lands. Canada is the latter - it actually means "foreigner's settlement on our land" or "invader's settlement". Interestingly, I just tried to Google it and the only two websites I looked at - Wikipedia and some official Canada site - both conveniently leave out the part about it being a foreign settlement. Both simply translate the word as settlement, without the nuance.

▲

capitainenemo 6 days ago | parent [-]

I feel a citation is needed for that, since it seems in direct conflict with the given history of the word which was that Cartier heard the local indian youths at the village of Stadacona call their village "kanata" (village) and believed that it was the word for the entire area. There was no "invader's village" to even refer to at the time.

▲

dotancohen 6 days ago | parent [-]

Looking into it online now, yes I agree that wherever I heard that from contradicts the established histories. It's too late for me to delete my comment, so if we could just start downvoting it so it disappears that would be great.

▲

capitainenemo 4 days ago | parent [-]

Thinking about this, perhaps you were thrown off by rhetorical flourish in a speech, perhaps by an Iroquois, perhaps reacting to the use of "Canada" as a unifying term for everyone living in the northern americas now - "our village."

"Our word for village is kanata, "canada" is a totally different word for the 'village of the invaders'"

Something like that.

▲

dotancohen 4 days ago | parent [-]

It was an explanation by a Native American Indian who I think was a non-Iroquois as this was in Florida. We were discussing Indian (he used that term) names, specifically the fact they nobody living remembers the meaning of the name Miami (for the river).

	▲	capitainenemo 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Gotcha, well, that hypothetical can always be pushed back one further in the chain of origin, since it's just sheer speculation :)