Submitted 4 months ago by 58008@lemmy.world to [deleted]
[-ish] Ireland, Scotland = Irish, Scottish
[-an] Morocco, Germany = Moroccan, German
[-ese] Portugal, China = Portuguese, Chinese
What rule is at play here? 🤔
Cheers!
The English Language, where the grammar is made up and the rules don’t matter.
I can add:
[-er] New Zealander
New Zealand -> Kiwi.
Only in the same way Australia -> Aussie, or England -> pom. Colloquial terms
Or just a different word completely. Dutch.
Pfft. The Dutch…
Odd way to spell Kiwi but you do you pal
New Zealander is the least odd sounding of the lot.
New Zealandish
New Zealandan
New Zealandese?
Newfoundlander
Yeah I think if it ends in land it’ll probably be a lander.
Demonyms don’t follow any particular rules, as far as I know.
Human languages: the words are made up and the rules don’t matter.
Especially true for English.
Canada = Canadese (nuts fit in your mouth?)
Canadick
Canuck is what we call ourselfs, eh?
: P
Canadish
Canadanian
Shortened from Canada geese
They should be Canadans
There is no common rule. It varies by the way the language evolved over time.
Also the word you are looking for is “Demonym”
I can tell you that this is called demonym, but I don’t know the amswer to your question… The Wikipedia page has a long list of suffixes, but no rules: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonym
The answer is that many languages import their demonyms from different foreign languages. The reason for the inconsistencies is the different, unrelated sources for words.
Ask the people from there
Oh there’s plenty of rules, and if you follow them you’ll be wrong because each rule has 20 exceptions you have to memorize because English isn’t a language, it’s several languages in a trench coat.
they blame the welsh.
I’m in Michigan, that makes me a Michigander. The rules are made up and the suffixes don’t matter.
I’m from South Dakota, I’m South Dakotant. It is what it is.
Do you change the emphasis? da-ko-TANT?
Michiguy or Michigal
If you’re from Halifax, NS, you’re a Haligonian.
I’m a Connecticutian by birth. Though I’ve also heard someone call themselves Connecticuter once or twice, but never cared for that one.
Either one seems to break a lot of normal grammar/spelling rules.
People from Iceland are only called Icelandic because “Icish” would sound a bit silly.
Iceland = Icelandic
Thailand != Thailandic
Thailand comes from adding the Germanic -land suffix to the demonym Thai, a common pattern for non-Indo-European places. There’s also Swaziland and Somaliland (though there is also a Somalia).
So we should call them Ices from now on?
I think I could get behind New Zealandic
I believe they’re properly called New Zoolanders.
As an outsider I’ll say that “Kiwi” is an awesome name for you folks.
(hope I don’t assume too much based on the instance name)
We’re all Earthicans, no need to divide it up further than that
Aroo!
Terrans? Earthers?
I believe “Earthling” is traditional.
Earthricans
Denmark -> Dane
I guess that actually the other way around, Denmark : Dane’s field/farm(there is a better English word for mark but can’t remember)
Netherlands → Dutch
No wonder Euros say they don’t exist.
Dutch is such a weird one. We don’t call ourselves “Dutch” in Dutch, we call ourselves “Nederlands”. This would be something like “Netherlandish” in English. We do call Germans “Duits” though, and they call themselves “Deutsch”. Somehow in English German and Dutch got a bit messed up. The reason is probably that during the middle ages we did refer to our language as “Dietsch”, so that probably stayed around.
Lol I wasn’t aware of that being a thing, here in Germany we usually only say that Bielefeld (a German city) doesn’t exist.
But isn’t Dane a noun? I thought the adjective was danish.
Yes you’re right , the Danes are Danish
It's based on what sounds best.
Find what sounds most natural, if that can’t be found, go with what sounds the least catastrophically unnatural.
Americaneseish.
Meanwhile there is no specific demonym for people from the united states, you can say american buy that would also include every other north and south american country
There is no rule. It just is whatever it is.
Just attach “man” to the end of all of them for maximum offence.
There is a Words For Granted podcast episode about that. Don’t remember much tho. Have fun!
I was literally thinking about this yesterday… what’s someone from Belgium called? I couldn’t figure out an ending to add. Belgian?
People from Indiana are called hoosiers - this, like many things in English, doesn’t have a hard and fast rule… the sounds at the end of the word certainly impact it, but there are exceptions. Just ask a Peruvian.
Afghani, Pakistani,
So Philippines is Philippinese?
nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Netherlands = Dutch
xmunk@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Also, in Deutschland, the descendents of the Alemmani are called Germans for some awful reason.
drbluefall@toast.ooo 4 months ago
So I take it that’s why it’s Allemagne?
thelsim@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
When I was a kid our family went on vacation to the US. Everyone kept asking if I was Dutch, which I thought was German (Deutsch).
So I kept correcting them, saying I was Netherlandisch :)
eatthecake@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Deutsch is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is German