Making Sense of Demonyms - Nationality Nouns

 

Last week in Everyday Grammar, we looked at how English forms adjectives for country names. We found that, as is often true, history can explain some of the irregularities in the English language. The endings we add to the country name, called suffixes², were borrowed many years ago from Greek, Latin, French and even Arabic.

This week, we will look at how English forms nouns that refer to the people of a country. The name for this kind of noun is "demonym." You can probably guess it is from the same Greek word form dem-, meaning "the people," as in the English word "democracy."

Often the adjective and the demonym are the same, as in "American" for something from the United States and "Americans" for people from the U.S. But in some cases, the adjective and the demonym are different: the adjective for Iceland is "Icelandic," but the demonym, what we call a person from Iceland, is "Icelander."

Suffixes from many other languages

Let us begin with the suffix¹ -ish, which is from Old English -isc, a Germanic form. Early English speakers added -ish to make Swedish, Spanish, Scottish and Irish. This was shortened to -ch for some close neighbors: Dutch, Scotch³ and French. The English speakers called themselves British or Britons.

Demonyms are usually found in their plural⁴ form, referring to a group of people. To make some demonyms singular, you can add the suffix -man or -woman, as in Frenchman, Scotswoman, Irishwoman and Dutchman.

Contact with the German language also added the suffix -er, as in Netherlanders and Luxembourgers. And people from Kosovo are called Kosovars with a little help from the language of Albania.

We hear the influence of Arabic with the -i suffix in the demonyms for many countries in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. They include Pakistanis, Uzbekistanis, Tajikistanis, Yemenis, and Somalis.

The most common way to form a noun from a country name is to add -ans, as in Germans, Americans and Moroccans. This is a form English got from Latin and French.

We got the -ese suffix from French, by way of the Portuguese⁵, who introduced the British to the Chinese and Japanese. They share the suffix with the Marshallese, Beninese and Bhutanese.

To find the official name of a country or its people, you can go to The World Fact Book. The website also has useful maps and information on each country.

And that's Everyday Grammar!

Words in This Story

irregular – adj. not following the usual rules about what should be done

1 suffix   

n.后缀；vt.添后缀

参考例句：

• We add the suffix "ly" to make the adjective "quick" into the adverb " quickly ".我们在形容词“ quick”后加“ly” 构成副词“quickly”。
• It described the meaning of suffix array and also how to built it.它描述的含义，后缀数组以及如何建立它。

2 suffixes   

n.后缀，词尾( suffix的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many domain name suffixes have failed to gain general popularity. 很多域名后缀没有获得一般的通用性。 来自互联网
• For example, consider the use of prefixes and suffixes. 例如，那前缀和后缀的使用来说。 来自互联网

3 scotch   

n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的

参考例句：

• Facts will eventually scotch these rumours.这种谣言在事实面前将不攻自破。
• Italy was full of fine views and virtually empty of Scotch whiskey.意大利多的是美景，真正缺的是苏格兰威士忌。

4 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

5 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。