"percent of (the or without the) American people"

[nyugaton]

The following data is some Google search I made to find how "the" should be used. I'm wondering why Canadians, Australians and Germans produced markedly quite opposite results to the rest. The hits for Canadians, Australians and Germans suggest to me that you should use "the" as in "...percent of the Canadian people." But the rest of the hits suggest that you can choose between them. Could you tell me why?


"percent of Chinese people" 63,600 hits

"percent of the Chinese people" 82,700 hits

"percent of African people" 19,500 hits

"percent of the African people" 19,100 hits

"percent of Canadian people" 3 hits

"percent of the Canadian people" 7,220 hits

"percent of Australian people" 3 hits

"percent of the Australian people" 10,400 hits

"percent of German people" 10 hits

"percent of the German people" 32,300 hits

"percent of Japanese people" 24,600 hits

"percent of the Japanese people" 31,800 hits

"percent of American people" 193,000 hits

"percent of the American people" 51,300 hits

[David L.]

Following your lead, I also obtained 42,000 hits for "He had went" from Yahoo.
'nough said about using blogs and whatever on the Internet as a source of correct grammatical usage!

[googlegoogle]

"percent of the Chinese people" (o)
"percent of Chinese people(x)


right?

[nyugaton]

Yes I get the point David, but the results for German, Canadian and Australian suggest a significant difference. (10, 3, 3 hits respectively)

[belly_ttt]

So when to put the before any nationality?