Talk:Demonym/Archive 1

Archive 1

-er Endings

Why is Michigan under the "er" category, if it is an example of a word adding a "d" where none was before? None of the other examples incorporate the addition of a consonant. Should it be placed under 'irregular'? 212.154.87.69 (talk) 23:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Scottish

Scotch is the drink, Scottish is the people? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.139.33.182 (talk) 00:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I am Scottish; I am a Scot. Scotch is these days reserved for whisky (not whiskey) or eggs, but has nothing to do with hopscotch or butterscotch. Fcw (talk) 03:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

There's Scotch whisky (aye!) & Scotch taffy, but no such thing as a Scotch man (unless you count Donald Johnston). Trekphiler (talk) 21:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

What is the proper use of Scotsman then. I am a Scot and rarely hear the term "I am a Scotsman" (except in reference to the local paper). I had always thought it was interchangeable. Scot has no gender and can refer to both men and women. Plural would be "Several Scots were added to the Olympic team" Plural of Scotsman would be Scotsmen, feminine of Scotsman would be Scotswoman. Does this all sound about right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paullee357 (talk • contribs) 19:25, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

according to the economist john kenneth galbraith, himself a member, the scots community in western ontario refers to themselves as 'the scotch'.Toyokuni3 (talk) 15:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Oxford Dictionary of English:
Scotch
adjective old-fashioned term for Scottish.
noun
1 short for Scotch whisky.
2 [AS PLURAL NOUN] (the Scotch) dated the people of Scotland.
3 [MASS NOUN] dated the form of English spoken in Scotland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.205.199.127 (talk) 12:20, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Dutch

As I understand it:

• Dutch was formerly a synonym for German. The Netherlands were formerly part of "Germany" i.e. the Holy Roman Empire.
• Low Dutch (what we now call Dutch plus Low German) was distinguished from High Dutch (what's now Standard German); this usage appears in Gulliver's Travels, for example.
• Dutch became specialized to mean Low Dutch because of the maritime rivalry between England and Holland; the High Dutch were not great sailors.
• As the United Provinces took shape, the western Low Dutch stopped thinking of themselves as Germans (Duits), and adopted the new name Nederlander.

Comments? —Tamfang 19:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

No, you're mixing up a few things.

Dutch in it's archaic sense (pre mid 15th century) usually refered to the Dutch,Flemings or Northern Germans (rarely the whole of Germany, or Southern Germany as Almain was used for that). The distiction occured because around 1450-1500 England and The Netherlands had a lot of trade/merchant interaction.The Dutch of that time refered to themselves as "Dietsch" , a cognate (but not synonym!!!) of German "Deutsch", the word was used untill the first half of the 20th century when it was overused in nazi propaganda and got a nationalistic flavour to it.Then a word which was used interchangeablility with Dietsch, "Nederlander/Nederlands", took over completely.

Also; The Netherlands, were never ever part of Germany.The Netherlands were founded in 1568, Germany in 1871.The Holy Roman Empire cannot (but is often) be seen as a predecessor of Germany.

The West Germanic languages, excluding the Anglo-Frisian group, did have a common ancestor though.Due to (Mostly German) linguists in the past,this ancestor was refered to as "German", BUT NOT German as we know it today. After the High German consonant shift the group splitt in Low (no shift) and High (shift) (this happened around the 3rd century AD) pretty fast after this subgroups were formed, in this case:

LOW GERMAN(IC)

• Low Frankish : Dutch and Afrikaans and their dialects.
• Low Saxon : Reduced to dialects of High/Standard German nowadays.

HIGH GERMAN(IC)

• Middle High German  : Yiddish and Standard German.
• Central High German  : Yiddish and Standard German.
• Upper High German  : Yiddish and Standard German.

Rex Germanus Tesi samanunga is edele unde scona 20:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

You say "Germany was founded in 1871" — was the name coined in 1871, too? —Tamfang 03:18, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

No, "German" came from Latin Germanus, first attested in writings of Julius Caesar, who used Germani to designate a group of tribes in northeastern Gaul, it's origin is unknown,it was probably the name of an individual tribe. It is perhaps of Gaulish (Celtic) origin, perhaps originally meaning "noisy" (cf. O.Ir. garim "to shout") or "neighbor" (cf. O.Ir. gair "neighbor").After the dissapearance of "Dutch" it might even have been an anti French attitude (as they use an almain variant) why they shifted to a direct latin derived word. Or maby just because it had more prestige... The term came into general use around 1750, replacing almain, and as a more common alternative for state related terms like Hanovarian, Prussian, Bavarian etc.

Rex 08:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

That crack was actually my too-subtle way of asking you to defend the view that Germany did not exist before 1871 and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (to give it its full name), whose coat of arms the new state adopted, "cannot" be seen as its predecessor. That statement is weird enough to cast doubt on everything else you say here. —Tamfang 04:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

It belatedly occurred to me to see what the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1771 says about Germany and/or the HRE.

GERMANY, an extensive empire of Europe, situated between 5° and 19° E. long. and between 45° and 55° N. lat.; bounded by Denmark and the Baltic sea on the north, by Poland and Hungary on the east, by Switzerland and the Alps on the south, and by France, Holland, &c, on the west.

It is divided into ten circles, three of which lie on the north, viz. Upper and Lower Saxony, and Westphalia; three on the south, viz. Austria, Bavaria, and Swabia; three about the middle, viz. Franconia, and the Upper and Lower Rhine; the tenth, which consisted of the duchy of Burgundy and the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, have long been detached from the empire.

There are in Germany upwards of three hundred sovereign princes and states, most of them arbitrary in their respective territories.

No entry for Holy Roman Empire. —Tamfang 06:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

-ine

Argentine obviously isn't derived from Argentina by addition of a suffix; the two forms (in English) are parallel imports of an adjective derived from argentum (silver). So I substituted Florentine (<Florentia), though I'd prefer an example where the derivation is more transparent in English. —Tamfang 03:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

-an and -ian

I propose that these should be listed as separate suffixes, and therefore under separate bullet points. They come from completely different Latin roots: -an comes from -an- (as in Romanus or Romana, Roman), while -ian comes from -iens- (as in Atheniensis or Atheniensem, Athenian). It is really just a coincidence that the two have come to ressemble each other in English, both in pronunciation and in spelling. American and Canadian may seem to end in the same suffix, but look at their forms in other languages where they end in the equivalent Latinate suffixes, and the difference becomes clear: French (Américain, Canadien), Spanish (Americano, Canadiense), Italian (Americano, Canadese). Emile 21:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a minor thing, but one that I sometimes find amusing. Does anyone else ever find the urge to call Canada - Canadia, because their citizens are called Canadians? It's just following the standard naming convention, ie America - Yank err Americans (sorry Southerners you guys just have to try harder to get noticed), Australia - Australians, Westralia (See Secessionism in Western Australia) - Westralians (more common version is Sandgroper), etc. Westralian 06:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The one that really gets me is Guamanian. If there is a Guamania, it ought to be a region settled by Guamans, i.e. emigrants from Guam. —Tamfang 04:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Merging

I disagree, I do not think this article should be merged with ethnonym, however a 'see also' link to it would be good. Jake95 19:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hamburg

Does "Hamburgian" strike an odd chord in anyone else? Or am I just obsessed with fast food? 64.90.198.6 23:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps stranger still, the reference to a citizen of Hamburg, is a Hamburger. Similar to "Ich bin ein Berliner". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.48.124.146 (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

"Hamburger" as a meat product comes from "Hamburger Steak", ie "a steak in the hamburg style". TristanDC (talk) 11:50, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

"Hamburger" makes for a lot of nice puns in Hamburg, as the word in German refers both to hamburgers and to the locals. For example, there is (or was when I lived there in the late 1980s, anyway) a Hamburger Bank, where I envisioned individuals depositing large stacks of hamburgers and withdrawing one or two when they get hungry. "Ich bin ein Berliner" is largely apocryphal, however. For one thing, the jelly doughnuts bearing that name are not known as Berliners in Berlin, where they are referred to simply as Pfannekuchen (literally "pancakes," which is what a request for Pfannekuchen will get you elsewhere in the country - when in doubt ask for a Berliner Pfannekuchen). The folklore derives from an overly rigid application of the general rule of dropping articles before religions, occupations, nationalities, etc. If JFK's intent had been to deceive the crowd into thinking he had actually been born and raised in Berlin, then saying "ick bin Berliner" rather than "ick bin ein Berliner" would have been more appropriate. Given that his intent was to show solidarity, in the spirit of "of course I'm not really from here, but we're all Berliners today," using ein was, if anything, better. [Note that I wrote "ick," not "ich." Of course it's "ich" in standard German, but it's pronounced "ick" in Berlin dialect, and often written that way in slang. It's also the way JFK pronounced it, though probably not as a deliberate effort to assimiliate the local dialect, but rather, the predictable result of an American struggling to pronounce a consonant that doesn't exist in his native language.] Xrlq (talk) 14:59, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Double forms

I was considering adding another example to double forms, but am not sure if my usage is altogether standard. I consider myself a Jew, but not Jewish. There are some 6 million Jews in the US, of whom, onlz 3 million are Jewish. I see "Jew", as such, referring to the ethnicity, whereas "Jewish" refers to the religion. However, difficulties then arise, because the former is (almost) exclusively a noun, and the latter is exclusively an adjective. Ah, well. I suppose I have "Israelite" and "Israeli" there. That counts for something. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Samwaltz (talk • contribs) 12:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC).

Well, you're reasoning is off, as you're basing your opinion on how you define yourself, which is improperly. A Jew is the same as a Jewish person. A Jew is Jewish. The word you are looking for is Hebrew, which is the ethnicity. There is no such thing as the Jewish ethnicity, because the people are called Hebrews, just as they were called before they became Jewish.

American

I have two problems with this paragraph.

• "Although many English speakers are not aware of it...." What? I'm taking the initiative and removing this.
• "Euphemism." This is seriously not the best word; it implies that the US doesn't bear remark in polite conversation. Anyone have a better one? Twin Bird 21:26, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the term should be "US American" that girl from the MIss Teen USA contest sounded silly, but it could be the best word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.57.57.12 (talk) 16:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Does American normally refer to people from the American continents or is it derived from the very early "America" that was the west of what is now Canada and only the north west of the USA? TristanDC (talk) 11:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

"-oid" suffix

Just wondering about that, and other than the usual Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid which are of course racial and not those of a "demos", but in invented-names you have all kinds of things like android, Betazoid (from ST:TNG) etc. Are are these non-human indicators and so exclusive of the concepts implicit in demos/deme.Skookum1 21:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• I think it just means "like the Caucasians", "like the Mongols", or "like the Negros". See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=-oid LGMᚂ 20:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

-man suffix

Who is it that decides that Chinaman is obsolete. What is the proper noun. It has been said that it is "Chinese", but grammatically it makes no sense for a person to say "I am a Chinese". This is like an English person saying "I'm an English". The idea of a denonym is that one does not have to say "person" after it. Otherwise there would be no reason for a noun form of a denonym. The fact that people have said "Chinaman" in the past as a derrogation, it does not take away it's validity, as it is comparable to the idea of Frenchmen or Englishman.

It was more often not derisive than derisive in the past; it's acquired derogation over time; even the Chinese referred to themselves using it, in good written English, and in 1956 Fowler's Dictionary of English Usage (see section by that title on Talk:Chinaman or its archive page) it was cited as the standard form for a Chinese person, usage "one chinaman, three chinamen, twenty chinamen, but with higher numbers "Chinese", normally the adjectival "non-personal" form wolud be e.g. 10,000 Chinese" (that's a paraphrase, but not distorted, close to a quote as I can remember just now). The date of the first dictionaries which cite it as a derisive hasn't been established yet, but James Joyce, writing in the 1930s or '40s (cf the resources page linked off the talk/archive already mentioned), complains in a letter that he's having to go through all his manuscripts or galleys or whatever and take out "Chinaman/men" and put in "Chinese", so obviously there's an overlap period. "John Chinaman" was a derisive form, but at the same level of invective as "John Bull". I agree with you about Frenchmen/Englishmen,but the Chinese-linguistics-politico argument has been that you don't say "America-man" (no, but we did actually try "Chinan" at one time but it never caught on - 15th-16th C.) or "Chinese-man".....but there's an phonological adaptation/shift argument to be made that chineseman=>chineeman=>chinaman, with the last phase of that by vowel softening, something I guess like Turkish vowel harmony. No professional linguist that I know of will or has touched the etymological history of this word with a ten-foot pole, so it's uncitable unfortunately; there are no doubt sociolinguistics analyses of its derogation and its use as a derisive, but the rationale is that because people have become offended by it, it's inherently a derisive (and some claim was invented as such, which is nonsense), but they don't explore the actual formation of the word, except for claims (without substantial anlysis) that because it's not a "properly constructed" form like Englishman or Frenchman - as if English had any kind of regularity at all, cf. Norwegian/Norway and Spaniard, it's a mock pidgin and therefore an insult. Well, I'll tell you what - we don't say "Chineseman" because it doesn't come out of the mouth easily, even for native speakers; just feels like it's got that extra /z/ in it that in rapid speech is gonna get left out. The flip side is that while most of the users of this word don't have a say in the official verdict as to whether it's offensive or not (because most don't use it offensively, and then only with light humour in most cases - and I do live in a place where you'd hear it a lot, relative to most other places in NAm....), the users of Gweilo get to rationalize that despite its obviously offensive and dehumanizing etymology, it's no longer offensive so can remain in use. But such linguistic standards abound in differences between all cultures, and all sides; it's just that this is one of those casess that its offensiveness is all emotion and where no logic is involved, where the word has learned to be hated even though most of its users do not and did not use it with hate....but such are human foibles...... Skookum1 00:41, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

-on suffix

British people are called Britons, and I believe this suffix is found for other people as well.

Well, the Bretons (who are descended from Britons), but are there others? I wouldn't call it a suffix; Briton appears to me descended from Britannus – and if that has a suffix the t is probably part of it, as in Aquitanus, Lusitanus. —Tamfang 03:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Filipino

At least twice now I've deleted an entry "ino: Philippines → Filipino". As with Argentine which I discussed above, the suffix may be valid but the example is not. Philippine and Filipino are the English and Spanish forms of the same word, an adjective coined in honor of Philip/Felipe, king of Spain. One is not derived from the other. —Tamfang 06:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure, it's derived from Felipe, but it's still the suffix of a demonym, hence a demonymic suffix.Emile 18:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Then it ought to be easy to find a demonym which is derived by adding ino to a placename, which Filipino clearly isn't (it would be Filipinino). —Tamfang 18:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you would prefer something along the lines of:

The Philippine Islands -> Philippino, which is most commonly written Filipino.

or

Las Islas Filipinas -> Filipino

-ino is a demonym used in Spanish and Portuguese. It is briefly mentioned in es:Gentilicio but pt:Gentílico contains:

-ino - londrino, angevino, argentino etc.

Londres (London, United Kingdom) -> londrino (Londoner), Anjou (Anjou, Maine-et-Loire, France) -> angevino (Angevin), Argentina (Argentina) -> Argentino (Argentine). It is ultimately related to Spanish -eño and Portuguese -enho and Spanish was official in the Philippines for roughly five centuries until 1973.

In Tagalog, the language now co-official with English, there is an f/p merger like there is in many languages. F/p mergers are so common that several f sounding words in English are written ph. Before f was invented for Latin script from Greek digamma, ph was the only way to transcribe Greek phi. It's a trivial matter that modern Tagalog spells Philippino as Pilipino and modern Ilokano spells Philippino as Filipino. It's noteworthy that the orthography of Philippino in English is so rare that it might be better not to mention.

It's English that has the "mistake" anyway. Las Filipinas were named in Spanish after el rey Felipe II de España, who is known in Portuguese as Rei Filipe II de Espanha (Rei Filipe I de Portugal) and in English as King Philip II of Spain.

I am happy if you want to conflate -eno with -ino as -(e/i)no, -eno/-ino, or -(en)o; the last of which I hope appeals to you. Remebering how English has Anjou -> Angevin, Peru -> Peruvian, and Norway -> Norwegian, we realize that it is difficult to write all the rules perfectly because the orginal roots have been obscured from English and may rely on ancient sandhi rules not present in English; usually from Latin.

Please, try to stop deleting it entirely from that section and find a way to write it that you find acceptable. Otherwise, I imagine people will continue to insert it, believing it to be a genuinely accidental omission. Besides, as a nation that officially speaks English, relegating Filipinos to the next section like a footnote seems somewhat impolite. By the way, calling -ino illogical and saying it should lead to Filipinino directly contravenes Latin sandhi. May all things go well with you. :)--Thecurran (talk) 17:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It is no insult to discuss two distinct grammatical phenomena in separate sections of the article, whether or not they officially speak English. Do you like the order better now? — I just noticed that the Germans and Thais were left out entirely!

I don't know why you bring up the f/p merger, or what you mean by "mistake"; I hope I never said Filipin- is a misspelling!

(The shift in Greek (and other western IE languages) from aspirated stops to fricatives, including /ph/ → /f/, is a separate phenomenon from the use of /p/ to represent /f/ in loanwords to languages that lack /f/ as a distinct phoneme; the latter is analogous to our use of /k/ for Russian or Arabic /x/, transcribed 'kh', or Greek /x/, transcribed 'ch'. This point isn't really relevant here, but I don't want the casual reader to go away with a muddled notion of why phrase is spelled with 'p' or thesis with 't'.)

-(en)o is absurd; we might as well collapse all the suffix entries to -[a-z]* (using Posix regexp notation).

Do -ino and -eño really have a common origin? I can't see the latter as deriving from Latin -īnus, though I don't know of a more likely source.

If -inino violates sandhi, what about the adjective feminin-? A simpler explanation for the nonexistence of Filipinino is that you don't add the same derivational suffix twice.

*sigh* If only some native name for the archipelago had been adopted! —Tamfang (talk) 21:10, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about misattributing a poor understanding of the f/p merger to you. I am glad to be corrected. I thought you subscribed to the hidden remark:

please do not insert "Argentine" or "Filipino" here, as they are not derived by *addition* of any suffix to "Argentina" or "Philippines"; they are discussed in the next section

..because of such a misunderstanding. A closer reading of your discussions proves otherwise. Your statements however that "-(en)o is absurd" and implying it is false that "-inino violates sandhi", seem to contradict http://publications.europa.eu/code/es/es-5000500.htm listing es:Chile → Chileno, not chileño, es:Eslovenia → esloveno, not eslovenino or esloveniano, and es:China → chino, not chinino or chinano. Also if the creation of the word, "Philippines", was purely through Spanish, how did es:Felipe → es:Filipinas? la:Philippus was not its direct source either. It could have been back-extracted all the way from el:Φίλιππος or side-extracted from pt:Filipe (nome), which would be strange, or it could have come from some late/vulgar Latin form I cannot find a page for. Either way, the route from es:Felipe → es:Filipinas led through an intermediary language whence the -in- was added. In fact, every -ino/a in Spanish besides filipino/a and argentino/a, which also came via el:Άργυρος → la:Argentum, not es:Plata, are non-Spanish in origin. Most came from French colonial history: fr:Algérien(ne) → es:Argelino /a, fr:Grenadien(ne) → es:granadino/a, fr:Saint-Vincentais(e) et Grenadins → es:sanvicentino/a, fr:Nigériens → es:nigerino/a, and fr:Tunisien(ne) → es:tunecino/a. The rest came from already having -in- through their latinisations (Venetian/Roman-related): it:Cina → es:chino/a, bs:Bosna i Hercegovina → es:bosnioherzegovino/a, bosnio-herzegovino/a, or bosnio/a, or it:Montenegrino → es:montenegrino/a, la:Palaestina → es:palestino/a, and the less official la:Latina → es:latino/a.. . I think it's safe to say that la:-inus and its application to -a places, la:-anus (see the Nomen gentilicium of la:Civitates Foederatae Americae) , did become es:-eño/a via vulgar Latin in parallel with pt:-enho as applied to most places ending with consonants and es:-ano/a as applied to places ending with -a and that permission was made for other sandhi like in chileno/a, esloveno/a, filipino/a, argentino/a, bosnioherzegovino/a, chino/a, montenegrino/a, and palestino/a. For this demonymic purpose es:-ino seems to be a colonial era creation for la:-inus when late Latin was used as an intermediary from French, Italian, or English, etc. to Spanish. :)--Thecurran (talk) 03:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess you misunderstood my remark "-(en)o is absurd" to mean I deny the existence of the suffix -eno, when it was only to mock what appeared to be a proposal to conflate -eno and -o into one entry. — I was unaware of the form chileno. (We learn something every day.) But how is it "sandhi" to prefer chileno to chileño?

esloveno: Slovenia is named for the Slovenes, not the other way around, so what did you expect?

Your evidence for haplology (generally an irregular process) as sandhi (a word that I've always seen applied to a regular process, until now) is thin, in my view. Others may disagree.

I'm not convinced that Latin -īn- and -ān- are conditioned allomorphs as you suggest. Patavium gives patavinus but Octavius gives Octavianus – the latter isn't a placename, but my dictionary does give some -an- adjectives from places other than a-stems: Toletum:Toletanus, Puteoli:Puteolanus, Padus:Padanus, Rhenus:Rhenanus, as well as -itanus for some third declension names (possibly made by analogy on -polis:-politanus). Fact is that several suffixes, also including -ensis and -icus, compete(d) freely, and though there are patterns they are only tendencies.

And you haven't defended a derivation of -eño from -a/inus at all; why is the n palatalized only sometimes?

In fact, every -ino/a in Spanish ... are non-Spanish in origin.

In that case, so much for filipino as a derivative of Filipinas. For the suffix -in- to have disappeared by haplology, it must first have been applied, but by your evidence it is almost never used natively in Spanish, only in loanwords from French and neo-Latin. Or are you now saying that it's really Filipinas → *filipineno → filipino?

But how did saint-vincentais [whose suffix is a descendant of ensis] become santevincentino by borrowing?! If you mean -in- is only applied to non-Spanish places (as in londrino cited earlier; cf Latin londiniensis, Fr londonien), well, most places are non-Spanish, heh ...

Also if the creation of the word, "Philippines", was purely through Spanish ...

Again you're asking me to explain something I never suggested! – Why do you say Latin Philippus "was not its direct source either"? Nothing in the form makes it obviously impossible, but maybe you know some history that I don't know. —Tamfang (talk) 10:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I put chileno on the article page before when I made the edit that you re-editted. I thought that you read that. The -no of es:chileno was added like -ano because it ended in a vowel instead of a consonent.

Slovene is neither a Slovene (slovenski sl(sl) m., slovenska sl(sl) f., slovensko sl(sl) n) nor a Slovak (slovinský sk(sk) m., slovinská sk(sk) f., slovinské sk(sk) n) word. It is from a latinization. We say Slovenian and that comes from Slovenia, not from Slovene. es:esloveno was merely an -n- changed to -no like in es:chino, es:argentino or es:filipino.

Without a nice Latin source at my ready disposal, it is hard for me to check what you have said. That is why I included a clear Spanish source for mine. Either way, how much la:-enus was there? The page had said that es:-eño'was the Spanish standard suffix before I made the article indefinite. I thought that was something you accepted and that we could use that as a foundation for discussion given your high edit frequency here.

I know this is not really a defense but if es:-eño did not come from la:-inus through Spanish's ancestral vulgar Latin, and there was no common use of la:-enus, where do you think it came from? Anyhow, it doesn't seem that hard for the iotation in -inus that starts "palatizing" your tongue before the n could continue after the n when -inus became not -eno, but -eño. A tongue position being naturally held from one phoneme to the next is why we pronounce -ants as -ants but -ands as -andz.

Why would you skip out the "besides Filipino" and then say so much for "so much for filipino as a derivative of Filipinas"? I am trying to note that is was applied in a different process, trying to fit es:-eño / es:-ano on to a word that already had an -n- and coming up with a -no, but I already gave examples above.

la:-ensis, the source of fr:-ais is a good point. Vulgar la:-ensis → es:-és, late la:-ensis → es:ense, vulgar la:-anus → es:-ano, late la:-anus → es:ano, vulgar la:-inus → es:eño, late la:-inus → es:-ino. Once again with -ensis, an i became an e. Why can you accept la:-ensis → fr:-ais, so easily when e strangely becomes a and all consonsents disappear or become silent, but you find it hard to accept la:-inus → es:-eño?

I purposely kept fr:Saint-Vincent-et-les Grenadines → fr:Saint-Vincentais/Grenadins & es:San Vicente y las Granadinas → es:sanvicentino (please count the "n"s) out of alphabetical order to higlight its relation to fr:Grenade → fr:Grenadien & es:Granada → es:granadino. I think sanvicentino was chosen above sanvicentense to conflate it with the confusing granadino one would naturally get for people from the Grenadines or merely because of aversion to the nearly double en.

Your jab, "most places are non-Spanish, heh" is unhelpful. Spanish is an AU, EU, OAU, NAFTA, and UN language and our List of languages by number of native speakers ranks Spanish above English at number two. I believe it is number two behind English by number of total speakers but I could very well be wrong. My point was again that es:-ino is from late la:-inus as used in translation from foreign European languages (mostly French and Venetian) as opposed to es:-eño from vulgar la:-inus, which is more native and would be applied to non-European languages (much of the world) or Spanish and perhaps Portuguese. BTW, the londrino, angevino, & argentino I wrote above are Portuguese words, in case you did not notice.

I implied that es:Filipanas was obviously not directly from la:Philippus or es:Felipe because it is neither Philippinas nor Felipinas. I imply that the change was es:Felipe → late la: Fi'lipinas → es:Filipino

I hope I answered all of your questions and clarified my viewpoint. Looking forward to learning, :)--Thecurran (talk) 12:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I omitted "besides filipino and argentino" because the only examples you gave are precisely those under dispute! (Indeed I failed to notice that londrino etc are Pt.)

So far as I'm aware, nothing I say is intended as an ethnic jab. Really. What is offensive in observing that a majority of the world speaks languages other than the top ten?

Where -eñ- came from is a good question; like the classification of Basque and Etruscan, better to embrace no hypothesis than a shaky one. Perhaps it's from a substrate language (like Gaulish -itt-, es:-it-, it:-ett-). To support a derivation from Latin -īn-, you'd need to explain why the long vowel was lowered in that morpheme unlike others, and why the single intervocalic 'n' was palatalized unlike in other forms; or, better, cite some other words ending with -īnum or -īna that became -eño or -eña — albeit not necessarily in Castilian (you hinted, if I understand right, that it might be borrowed from pt:-enh-). A Latin suffix -ēn- did exist, as in aliēnum ('of another') from alius (perhaps this is only a dissimilation?), but the palatal problem remains.

-ais(e) vs -ois(e): could be a case of dialect borrowing, like English fox vs vixen, the latter being adopted from a western dialect in which all fricatives were voiced.

It seems obvious to me that insulae Philippinae was coined in classical form, at a time when formality called for Latin, and adapted to the vernacular in the usual way by simplifying the geminate and modernizing the 'ph' – the same transformations that (I assume) would be applied to a scientific term coined in New Latin. But this is splitting irrelevant hairs. —Tamfang (talk) 21:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not mean to be rude but I do not have much time now. I accept that no jab was intended. I admit that I was too defensive. I have some examples for -ensis to show how conjugation changed but they are in the es-EU gentilics link. First, French, Costa Rican, and Nicaraguan come to mind. Try to understand that when new base forms came to Spanish from non-European languages, instead via the same old Eorpean intermediaries, room had to be made for adapting the conguation to adjectives in a new regular way. My biggest point is that Filipino is part of that new regular way and that's why it may be lumped with other Spanishisms in English. Please note that I already started a Filipino (continued) section below. This one is simply getting too big. :)--Thecurran (talk) 23:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Miss Teen USA

2007 Miss Teen USA contestant Caitlin Upton, who gained international notoriety for her indecipherable response to a question posed to her during the national pageant, referred to the people of the United States as "U.S. Americans."

Er, I've never heard of her (and many Europeans with me, probably). The US doesn't have THAT much media coverage and influence in and on other states ;) Jack the Stripper 23:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, someone must have made her a star on YouTube. :P —Tamfang 03:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I (a European) have heard of the Miss Teen USA contestant, but I'd heard "US Americans" used to refer to people from the USA years before her "gaffe". The term is not of her invention.78.86.128.70 (talk) 21:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

choice of words

User:Cazador changed "American continents" to "Americas", which while unambiguous makes the point less clearly, and "notoriety" to "infamy", which is unnecessarily pejorative (it implies evil). I reverted. —Tamfang 17:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

In every country where English is the predominant language (Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States, Wales), thus to almost all native speakers of English, there's no such thing as the American continent. Unlike in Spanish, American most often means of the United States of America (American Express, american dream, American Idol, American Pie, Miss America, american idiot, American Airlines, etc. and American Online, AIM), less often of the Americas (Latin America, Indigenous American languages, etc). Thus it's either the Americas (North, South & Central) or in North, South and Central America. I'm going to edit back. We can discuss changes in wording to make it unambiguous, but please do not revert me. caz | speak 17:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

-iard (Spain → Spaniard, Savoy → Savoyard)

i think it's self explanatory upon close examination

the suffix does not match the two examples given.

btw- awesome site —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.219.177.199 (talk) 11:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The suffix is actually -ard, from French, which also has "briard" (someone from Brie), "campagnard" (someone from the campagne, i.e., the country), "montagnard" (someone from the mountains), etc. "Spaniard" goes back to Old French "Espaniard", where Spain was "Espa[i]gne", has "ny" toward the end (IPA: [ɛspɑnjə]).

Er—I did further research and found that the suffix, which is from French is "-ard" and that the "i" appearing in some cases reflects French /j/ ("y" sound) or a palatalized consonant at the end of the base word, exactly as in the case of "Espaniard" from "Espagne". See the entry for "ard" in the Trésor de la Langue Française informatisée [1]. So I'm going to reverse my earlier reversion of someone else's changes to make it "-ard". —Largo Plazo (talk) 21:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Kiribati

People in Kiribati are known as I-Kiribati, but may also be Gilbertese, after their language. Well I am not sure about the latter, but I know they are called I-Kiribati. --Henry W. Schmitt (talk) 08:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Amerind

Omitted formation model?: contraction. C.f., Amerind. Andyvphil (talk) 13:16, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think contraction is a demonymic formation model. It's a general word formation type. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

In particular, Amerind is a contraction from the perfectly regular American Indian. —Tamfang (talk) 08:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

You rule

Is there a "rule" for forming demonyms? I'm thinking of Loango; would they be Loangoan, Loangese, or something else? Trekphiler (talk) 22:06, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

No, there is no rule (in most languages). —Tamfang (talk) 07:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I would be very tempted to apply Loangolese as it is now in the Congolese land of the Republic of Congo. Congoan sounds the most natural to me but with all the different rules in English, it is safest to apply the rules already applied to similar sounding places. By the way, Togolese comes from Togo and given the depth of French language involvement in the Congo (French in the ROC and Belgian in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire), I believe Loangolese is probably already in some English text as well as Loangolais(e) in French. Try a Google Books Count. :)--Thecurran (talk) 12:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Filipino (continued)

Sorry folks, it just got too big and I noticed that I wrote "editted" instead of "edited", "is was" instead of "it was" and apostrophes that looked deleted in my editor came through as well. I also forgot to thank user:Tamfang for adding German and Thai. It was a big oversight and an important correction. I stopped using the term 'sandhi', because I have to admit that maybe I was using it incorrectly and I want to close that ad hominem argument. :)--Thecurran (talk) 12:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Seattlelite ?

What a bizarre spelling: "Seattlelite," like Seattle Lite!, a new Lite Beer! I have never seen it spelled with two "L"s, but Google just returned 5,380 hits. This compares to much more frequently occurring "Seattleite" = 117,000 Google hits. The major newspaper (The Seattle Times) also prefers the one-"L" "Seattleite" (search their site at: SeattleTimes.com). I have removed the rarely occurring two-"L" spelling and replaced it. Charvex (talk) 04:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Switzer

The correct English demonym for someone from Switerland is "Swiss," not "Switzer." The derivation of the name of the country in the English language is irrelevant to this article. I have changed it. Charvex (talk) 06:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Macedonia reference removed

Macedonia reference does not belong here because:

A) Saying something is "more serious" in this context is a subjective, and possibly politically based statement that does not belong in Wikipedia.

B) It's important to stay on topic. This isn't an article about disputed nationalities, it's an article about what people call themselves.

C) Claiming that Greece has blocked entry into NATO on the grounds of what people choose to call themselves seems, well let's be polite, and say it needs an independent, unbiased citation.

24.130.19.207 (talk) 22:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Per the anon's request, I'm putting a justification for the inclusion of the paragraph on "Macedonian." Were this just an issue of the name of a nation, I would agree that the demonym is too intrinsically linked to the nation for it to be an issue of the demonym. However, as our article on Macedonian language states, that it is called "Slavic" in Greece and that "the use of the name Macedonian for the language is considered offensive by Greeks, who assert that the northern Greek ancient Macedonian language is the only 'Macedonian language.'" It is apparent that Greeks prefer other terms than "Macedonian" for ethnic or cultural properties and not just the nation. That is to say, wiping out (or renaming) the nation would not eliminate the controversy.

I would say a conflict between nations is pretty serious, especially by comparison (remember the word "more" functions as a comparative) to other controversies.

If it's an issue of sourcing, {{fact}} can be attached to disputed statements and other editors can be given time to find sources. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I've added a little to your user page on this. Basically, I wish this page could stay out of political wrangling -- it's an interesting linguistic issue all on its own.

You make an additional interesting point (not covered by the article), which is that sometimes the demonym a group selects for itself is the rallying point for their identity, when they don't have discrete territory, culture, etc. That is, a demonym can become "political property" with a value people are willing to defend.

24.130.19.207 (talk) 22:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

We don't have to wrangle to discuss a political issue. We're not wrangling in Asian politics by talking about the two Koreas. Granted, in the interest of being fair and npov, we need to have proper wording, but I believe we need not delete the paragraph before attempting to reword. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

That seems fair enough. How about removing the words "more serious"? Anecdotally, I live in an area where many groups (ethnic, sexual, political) express militant feelings about their naming. Do they think their cause is less serious than that of the Macedonians? Small smile. I can hear them yelling, already.

24.130.19.207 (talk) 23:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

So it would start out "Another demonym dispute in the international arena..."? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

-wegian

From Glasgow, I've been able to help outsiders remember our demonym of Glaswegian by reminding them that people from Norway are called Norwegians.

However, after reading this wiki entry, I'm a bit confused. It describes Glaswegian as deriving from a local dialect. Then how is Norwegian derived?

Norwegian is mentioned, but only to clarify the difference with Norse.

Can someone find the derivative of Norwegian and verify that the -wegian suffix is not shared.

I don't want to speculate, but there are many Norse influences in Northern Scotland and wondered if there is a connection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paullee357 (talk • contribs) 19:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, wegian obviously can't come from way and gow by the same process. Or rather, any regular process applicable to both of these could also produce Dubwegian and Lonwegian and Amsterwegian ;) —Tamfang (talk) 06:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the "local dialect" comment, beacuse it's inaccurate. Glaswegian is Standard English for a native of Glasgow. 78.86.128.70 (talk) 19:05, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

-politan

i think this is worthy of inclusion, but i'm not sure where. place names ending in 'polis' (from greek) take the demonymic form '-politan'. i, personally am an annapolitan and a marylander.Toyokuni3 (talk) 15:40, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

--77.69.165.39 (talk) 09:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)kjkjgkl--77.69.165.39 (talk) 09:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Glaswegian

The list proposed a -wegian suffix, citing Norwegian, Galwegian, and Glaswegian as examples. The suffix isn't really -wegian though: in Norway/Norwegian and Galway/Galwegian, the final -way becomes -wegian. The suffix is really just -(g)ian (since the -we- is just an alteration of the original way).

In contrast, Glaswegian is completely irregular and would only belong in the same group as Norway and Galway if the city were called Glasway. This is why I have removed Glaswegian from the examples given for the -gian suffix. It belongs in the list of exceptional forms. WillNL (talk) 11:36, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the brythonic "glas cu" ("green hollow") had the brythonic -eg (-ish/-ic in modern English although I'm not sure I've decomposed the brythonic suffix correctly) to become something like *"glas cueg" (need somebody who knows brythonic inflexion to check this). To an Old English ear this would sound like *"glas cuweg" (or for Modern English reader *"glas cooway") spoken with a strong regional accent. That would make this the same as norway but with an additional step.

Alternatively "glas cu" could be mistranslated by the incoming germanic tribes as *"glas way" giving "glaswegian" while locals still name their homes as being in the "glas cu" - evidence of this would be harder to come by but might be more realistic. TristanDC (talk) 06:30, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Finn

This page lists Finn as coming from Swedish Finne, but it is from Old English (probably from some other obsolete germanic tongue) and Finland is formed in the same way as England - from the name of the tribe "Finn" ("Finna land").

http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/texts/ohthfram.htm 94.192.59.77 (talk) 05:45, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Dictionaries and history: is demonym a 'real word'?

I have removed the following paragraph (about the appearance of this word in a particular dictionary aggregation website), because the recent origins of the word demonym are clearly described in the first paragraph, and because the site (onelook.com) would appear to be incomplete: this usage of 'gentilic' appears in both the unabridged Merriam-Webster's dictionary (definition: "of or relating to a noun or adjective that denotes ethnic or national affiliation") and in the OED (attestation date 1870). Further, a full-text search of 'gentilic' in google books also brings up hundreds of uses in scholarly works, many of which seem to refer to the names of groups.

The dictionary aggregation site OneLook.com only finds the word in Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and The Word Spy, and not in any print dictionaries. The alternative gentilic is even less frequently used, and only two references can be found through OneLook.com, both citing Wikipedia as the source, one of the citations being this article.Gentilic appears in A Dictionary of the Bible from 1900; the examples given (the Moabite, the Jebusite) suggest that the meaning here, as with geo-demonym, is a term which refers to a particular individual rather than the name of a group.

I've also removed the following description of 'geo-demonymic', because 1) I think it constitutes 'original research', and 2) it is incorrect.

The term is foreshadowed in geo-demonym, meaning a geographical denomination pseudonym such as A Hartfordshire Incumbent, and in the term

The cited work (A Handbook of Fictitious Names, by Olphar Hamst, full text available in Google Books and at the Internet Archive) is a collection of anonymous names used by correspondents, and categorizes these names as geonyms, demonyms, and geo-demonyms, among other terms. Contemporary references to this book suggest that Hamst made up these and other words. His geonym is actually closest to the subject of the article, being used to describe names like 'An Englishman'; demonym is used to some quality or feature of the named person ('An Amateur'); and the referenced geo-demonym is reserved for names referring to both the location and quality the correspondent ('A Hartfordshire Incumbent').

I did come across the term 'demonymic', which appears in the OED, and have mentioned it, along with its narrower definition, as an interesting precursor. Cheakamus (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Colcestrian

That's from the Latin, I think, so should be moved up to the prior section. What other language was it supposed to come from? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

New World forms - have become/became

Is anyone else having trouble with the phrase ("Eight Virginians have become Presidents of the United States.")?

No, I'm not an English professor, but to me if it were phrased Eight Virginians became Presidents of the United States, it would read better. On the other hand, it could remain as it is, but be modified to Eight Virginians have become President of the United States, without the plural presidents.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Farglesword (talk) 23:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

All very nice and orderly, but...

It should be mentioned that while this list may demonstrate the correct Latin, etc., this simply isn't what the people in question identify as. For example, someone from Newcastle (UK) may be technically called a Novocastrian, but start calling people that around Newcastle and you will receive a blank look (at best). People from Newcastle are of course Geordies and quite proud of this identity. This article needs some serious real-world grounding to really be useful, I think. GM Pink Elephant (talk) 10:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Isle of Man

Isn't someone from the Isle of Man called a Manx? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.195.36.133 (talk) 16:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

"Nymodems"

In the list of demonyms, I notice that a number are in fact not demonyms (per definition: name for a resident of a locality which is derived from the name of the particular locality) but in fact the exact opposite: the name of the locality is derived from the name for residents. Examples are Arab → Arabia, Dane → Denmark, Finn → Finland and so on. I'll remove all I notice from the list. Nikola (talk) 18:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)