Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Personal attacks and Demonym: Difference between pages
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A '''demonym''' or '''gentilic''' is a word that denotes the members of a [[people]] or the inhabitants of a place. Often the name of a people's language is the same as this word, e.g., the "French" ([[French language|language]] or [[French people|people]]). Some places, particularly smaller cities and towns may not have an established word for their residents; [[toponymist]]s have a particular challenge in researching these. ''See also [[ethnonym]].''
==Suffix
The [[English language]] uses several models to create demonyms. The most common is to add a [[Affix|suffix]] to the end of the ___location's name. These may be modelled after [[Late Latin]], [[Semitic]] or [[Germanic languages|Germanic]] suffixes, such as:
*''-an'' (America → [[Americas|American]], [[Rome]] → Roman)
*''-ian'' ([[Paris]] → Parisian, [[Hamburg]] → Hamburgian, [[Manchester]] → [[Mancunian]])
*''-ine'' ([[Florence]], Latin ''Florentia'' → Florentine)
*''-ite'' ([[Vancouver]] → Vancouverite, [[Moscow]] → Muscovite), ([[Brisbane]] → Brisbanite) (mostly cities)
*''-er'' ([[London]] → Londoner, [[Sheffield]] → Sheffielder) (mostly cities)
*''-eno'' ([[Los Angeles]] → Angeleno or Los Angeleno)
*''-ish'' ([[Spain]] → Spanish, [[Denmark]] → Danish) (mostly countries)
**"-ish" is usually only proper as an adjective. Thus many common "-ish" forms have irregular demonyms. (Spain/Spanish/Spaniard; Denmark/Danish/Dane; [[Judea]]/Jewish/[[Jew]] or Judean; [[Poland]]/Polish/Pole)
*''-ese'' ([[Taiwan]] → Taiwanese, [[Vienna]] → Viennese, the [[Tyrol]] → Tyrolese)
**"-ese" is also usually only proper as an adjective, or to refer to the entirety. Thus, "the Chinese person" is the singular, "the Chinese people" is the small-number plural, and "the Chinese" refers to the government of China, or to the group of all people of Chinese ancestry.
**Used mostly for East Asian and [[Francophone]] locations, from the similar-sounding French suffix ''-ais(e)'', which is originally from the Latin adjectival ending -ensis, designating origin from a place: thus Hispaniensis (Spanish), Danensis (Danish), etc.
*''-i'' ([[Iraq]] → Iraqi, [[Bengal]] → Bengali) (mostly [[Middle East]]ern and [[South Asia]]n locales)
*''-i'' (''[[Allemanni]]'', ''[[Helvetia|Helvetii]]'') (Latinate plural ending applied to the many peoples they encountered)
*''[[-ic]]'' (''[[Hispania]]'' → [[Hispanic]], ''[[Turk]]'' → ''[[Turkic]]'' (cf. ''[[Turkish people|Turkish]]'')) (a Latinate suffix widely used outside ethnonyms (e.g., chemical compounds) which with regard to people is mostly used adjectivally (Semite vs. Semitic, Arab/Arabian vs. Arabic) to refer to a wider ethnic or linguistic group ([[Turkic]] vs. [[Turkish language|Turkish]], [[Hispanic]] vs. [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Finnic]] vs. [[Finnish language|Finnish]])).
*''-iote'' ([[Cyprus]] → Cypriote, [[Phanar]] → [[Phanariotes|Phanariote]]), especially for Greek locations.
==Irregular forms==
In some cases, both the ___location's name and the demonym are produced by suffixation, for example ''England'' and ''English'' and ''English(wo)man'' (derived from the Angle tribe). In some cases the derivation is concealed enough that it is no longer morphemic: ''[[France]]'' → ''French''.
A native of ''[[Halifax, Nova Scotia]]'' is called a ''Haligonian'' for reasons unclear to many residents, prompting confusion, noted uncommonly in various articles mistaking them as ''Halifaxians''.
A native of ''[[Colchester|Colchester, UK]]'' is called a ''Colcestrian'', without the ''h'' present in the name of the town.
Often the singular name for one of the people is the base form, and the country name, if it exists, is derived therefrom (''[[Switzer]]'' (an archaic word for ''Swiss'') → ''[[Switzerland]]'', ''[[Arab]]'' → ''[[Arabia]]'', ''[[Croat]]'' → ''[[Croatia]]'', ''[[Dane]]'' → ''[[Denmark]]'', ''[[Teuton]]'').
In a few cases, demonyms are recent borrowings from other languages or adapted in a process of linguistic mutation where English demonyms are similar to those of other languages (''Kosovo'' → ''Kosovan'' (English demonym) → ''Kosovar'' ([[Albanian language|Albanian]] demonym also used in English), ''Bosnian Muslim'' → ''Bosniak'' (based on the [[Bosnian language|Bosnian]] demonym ''Bošnjak'')).
In a few cases, the name of the country is not at all related to the name of the people (''[[Netherlands]]'' → ''Dutch''), usually because the two words originate from different languages. Or in this example, English uses a term derived from [[Middle Dutch]] (''[[Dietsch]]'') which is considered archaic in the contemporary Dutch language (see [[Netherlands (terminology)]]).
In the case of [[Canadian provinces and territories]] and [[U.S. states]], it is non-standard to use demonyms as attributive adjectives (for example "Manitoba maple", not "Manitoban maple"); they can be used only predicatively ("[[Ben Franklin]] was Pennsylvanian") or substantively ("Texans tend to vote Republican.")
In the case of [[Sydney]] in [[New South Wales]], it is standard to use the demonym ''[[Sydneysider]]'' for disambiguation.
Demonyms can be [[noun]]s or [[adjective]]s. In many cases the noun and adjective forms are the same (''Canadian/Canadian''); in other cases they are different (''[[Spaniard]]/[[Spanish people|Spanish]]'', ''[[Slovenes|Slovene]]/[[Slovenians|Slovenian]]'', ''[[Flemings]]/[[Flemish people|Flemish]]'').
In some of the latter cases the noun is formed by adding -man or -woman (''[[English people|English]]/[[Englishman]]/Englishwoman'', the obsolete ''[[Chinese people|Chinese]]/[[Chinaman]]/Chinawoman'').
==In fiction==
Literature and science have created a wealth of demonyms that are not directly associated with a cultural group, such as [[Martian]] for hypothetical people of [[Mars]] (credited to scientist [[Percival Lowell]]), [[Earthling]] (from the [[diminutive]] ''-ling'', ultimately from [[Old English]] ''-ing'' meaning 'descendant') as a possible name for the people of Earth, and [[Lilliput and Blefuscu|Lilliputians]] from the island of Lilliput in the satire [[Gulliver's Travels]].
==Cultural problems==
Some peoples, especially cultures that were overwhelmed by European colonists, have no commonly accepted demonym, or have a demonym that is the same as the name of their (current or historical) nation. Examples include [[Iroquois]], [[Aztec]], [[Māori]], and [[Czech Republic|Czech]]. Such peoples' ''native'' languages often have differentiated forms that simply did not survive the transfer to English. In Czech, for example, the language is ''[[Czech language|Čeština]]'', the nation is [[Czech Republic|''Česko'' or ''Česká republika'']], and the people are ''[[Czech people|Češi]]''.
Although many English-speakers are not aware of it, the demonym for citizens of the [[United States of America]] suffers a similar problem when translated into many foreign languages, because "American" ambiguously refers to both the USA and to the two American continents. ''United Statian'' is awkward in English, but it exists in Spanish (''estadounidense''), French (''étatsunien(ne)''), Portuguese (''estado-unidense'' or ''estadunidense'') and also in Italian (''statunitense''). ''US American'' (for the noun) and ''US-American'' (when used as a compound modifier preceding a noun) is another option, and is a common demonym in German (''US-Amerikaner''). Latin Americans (who are the most affected by this use of ''American'') also have ''yanqui'' (''[[Yankee]]'') and the [[euphemism]] ''norteamericano''/''norte-americano'' (''North American'', which itself conflates the USA, Mexico, Canada, and several other countries). [[Frank Lloyd Wright]] proposed ''Usonian'', similar to the [[Esperanto]] adjective ''usona'' (from ''Usono,'' the name for the country). In the spirit of [[Sydney|Sydneysider]], ''Stateside'' is also a possibility. ''See main article:'' [[Use of the word American]]''.''
==See also==
* [[List of adjectival forms of place names]]
* [[-onym]], especially [[ethnonym]] and [[Exonym and endonym]]
* [http://www.geography-site.co.uk/pages/countries/demonyms.html Alphabetical list of world demonyms]
* [http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Demonyms%20of%20the%20World Demonyms of the World]
[[Category:Semantics]]
[[Category:Types of words]]
[[Category:-onym]]
[[ast:Xentiliciu]]
[[ca:Gentilici]]
[[de:Volksbezeichnung]]
[[es:Gentilicio]]
[[fr:Gentilé]]
[[it:Nome degli abitanti]]
[[nl:Inwonersnaam]]
[[ja:住人の呼称]]
[[pt:Gentílico]]
[[ru:Этнохороним]]
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