What Do Demonym Suffixes Mean?

[@NameExplain]

Suggest a topic for next Monday's video!

[@hartenny]

umm uhh affixes

[@maikotter9945]

ein Beitrag an Montag, 13. Januar 2025 (full moon; 1 day before the centre point, of the astronomical winter) month´s names, in different languages the Dutch ---> Netherlands -----> deutsch al Nimsa ----> Austria -------------> niemcy ----> deutsch, bzw. stumm towards y´all: A happy new year 2025.

[@Illumisepoolist]

Gym leader names or maybe slags for GTA like Wasted, Busted, Brown Bread and Nicked?

[@FaithLikeAMustardSeed]

Why is there "golden" but not "bluen" or "greenen"?

[@wktorzjawinski2052]

Ref.: General Knowledge, "Why It's #American & Not #Americanese - *How Countries Demonyms Work* ?" (2023)

[@colinedmunds2238]

Total guess, stab in the dark: "French" is probably a corruption of "Frankish"

[@appropriateinput]

"Franz-ish"?

[@van-hieuvo8208]

Frencish ("Frankish") -> French; Welish ("Walish") -> Welsh; Scottish -> Scotch.

[@DavidMaurand]

In German (Frankish, kinda) French is Französisch - collapse the middle syllable and you get something that sounds like Frantsh (Franch)

[@HweolRidda]

The Old English ending was "isc" which usually became "ish" but occasionally went to "ch". So yes French is the same as "frankish" but not descended from it; parallel development

[@Jayvee4635]

Frankish went to Frenċisċ (whicj pronunciation changes over time) before becoming French

[@darreljones8645]

Some places use the suffix "-ite" instead, like "Brooklynite" and "Dallasite". It's more commonly used for cities, like the "-er" suffix, and has a whole host of other possible meanings, like "descendant" (Israelite), "follower" (Sunnite, Trotskyite). or even "mineral compound made from" (quartzite).

[@angeldude101]

I also thought of "-ite", specifically because of "Vancouverite", which would fall into the city category that you mentioned.

[@danrobrish3664]

The "-ite" suffix is used for residents of three U.S. states: New Hampshirite, Wisconsinite and Wyomingite.

[@Dobjob]

Also yemenite

[@columbus8myhw]

This has the consequence that English has the two separate words Israelite (meaning someone from the ancient Kingdom of Israel or earlier groups; the ancestors of the Jews pre-diaspora) and Israeli (meaning someone who is a citizen of the modern State of Israel, which was founded in 1948 and sees itself as the successor of that ancient kingdom). EDIT: Note that, in Rabbinic literature, the Hebrew word for Jew _(Yehudí)_ is only rarely used; it is much more common to see the word _Yisraél,_ which is a bit like calling a Jewish person "an Israel." (The Hebrew word for Israeli is _Yisraelí.)_ So in a sense Jews never stopped calling themselves Israelites, at least in Hebrew (and a few other languages).

[@Satokaさとか]

The oldest examples I could think of would be Canaanite and Israelite

[@n1hondude]

I am half Japaner and half Brazilish and I love watching your videos, I always learn something but sooooometimes you can be a bit Britishish Carry on mate, you're one of the better Youtubists out there!!

[@jazzykayonbroadway]

nice lol

[@sovi_2]

this is the best comment I've ever seen

[@blakec8549]

The Brityish British to ever Britishish Brititiously. MY HEAD HURTS!!!

[@shoutforchoy]

There's also the rare "ic", like in Icelandic. It derives from the latin "icus" (and Greek "ikos"), which means "in the manner of; pertaining to," which eventually became "ique" in French, and eventually ic in English. It still carries this meaning in words such as periodic and allergic. It's more common in denoting ethnicity and (funnily enough) language family, such as for Semitic, Turkic, or Germanic.

[@__dane__]

Arabic

[@shoutforchoy]

⁠​⁠@@__dane__lmao idk how i forgot that one

[@jamaluddinkhalifa8371]

@@__dane__ "Arabic" is not a demonym, its only the name of the language. the demonym is "Arab".

[@mymo_in_Bb]

​@@jamaluddinkhalifa8371 Which is literally what they are talking about at the end of the comment. maybe read the whole thing next time

[@AtarahDerek]

There's also -ite, meaning "belonging to, originating in." It's usually used to indicate descendants of a particular person or group, such as Israelites, referring to descendants of Jacob (whereas the modern Israeli refers to any citizen of Israel regardless of ethnicity). It can also be used to refer to those belonging to a particular ideology, like the Jacobites.

[@eosborne6495]

People from Columbus, Ohio are officially called Columbusites, but I’ve always called them Columbusians, which I pronounce like Coal-um-BOOSH-an. The Columbusians don’t like that very much.

[@cookiejarseattle]

I live in Seattle and the demonym is Seattleite

[@AtarahDerek]

@cookiejarseattle Well, that's because puns will always and forever take top priority over actual grammar.

[@tinahs8269]

I wondered about that one as well. It seems to only be used for ancient peoples (Moabites, ammorites, etc), so you'd think it has ancient origins. I also wondered if the modern term Israelis was chosen on purpose to differentiate them from the ancients.

[@AtarahDerek]

@tinahs8269 Yes, because modern Israelis include people who are not actually Israelites, such as Arabs. Additionally, not all 12 tribes have returned.

[@mothra3477]

Please don't auto translate your videos. Literally, the spanish auto translated title is "Explicación de los sufijos demoníacos" (explanation of the demonic suffixes). I wish I could just post a screenshot.

[@KohaAlbert]

It usually works for some of us (quality vary by the language pair and some other nuances). ___ I don't know what has come of the translation options on KZbin nowadays, but used to be it was possible to allow suggestions and crowd sourcing.

[@algotkristoffersson15]

HE can't not translate them, it's automatic and random

[@sycration]

especially bad translation, since it should be gentilicio

[@pumas1192]

JAJAJAJAJA entré al video porque me dió curiosidad cuales eran los "sufijos demoníacos" XD

[@FanAlbor]

Bueno, la verdad los gentilicios sí que usan sufijos demoníacos xd

[@Random2]

Did you notice that German is strange in that it is shorter than Germany? This seems to be real rare, given all your examples. And fun thing is, it also works in german! Deutscher is smaller than Deutschland.

[@hadhamalnam]

Germanus, Germania. So while the Spanish are the people of Spain and the Japanese are the people of Japan, Germany is the land of the Germans. Edit: This would also work for the English if we used the demonym "Engle" instead (as in from the Angle tribe), so England would be the land of the Engles.

[@papilgee4evaeva]

All of the former Soviet republics ending in -stan drop that ending in their demonyms (Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, etc.). There's a reasonable explanation for that though. You also have Greek, Thai, Lao, Czech, and some others. What's really interesting, along the lines of shortening, is how some countries use both a suffixed adjective but a shortened noun (Finnish vs. Finn, Danish vs. Dane, etc.). Would be interesting to see how those came about.

[@technetium9653]

It's not that rare, surrounding Germany there's 3, Netherlands= Dutch, Czechia= Czech, Switzerland= Swiss and counting those with doubles there's Poland= Pole and Denmark= Dane

[@BangFarang1]

@@technetium9653 Papuasia=Papu.

[@technetium9653]

Yeah it's not rare at all Greece= Greek, Thailand= Thai, Philippines= Filipino, Somalia= Somali, Burkina Faso= Burkinabe, Côte D'Ivoire= Ivorian, United Arab Emirates = Emirati, Madagascar= Malagasy, Ireland= Irish

[@CT-gl2zj]

I only just learned, from coverage of the fires, that you call people from Los Angeles "Los Angelenos."

[@rayelgatubelo]

Or just Angeleno.

[@allangibson8494]

Because the original full name of the city would take too long to say… (El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Rio Porciuncula)…

[@DJchilcott]

Missed opportunity to call them the Lost Angels

[@bigtex4864]

​The Spanish were the worst at naming things.

[@MrChristianDT]

Yeah, a few places go out of their way to come up with unique ways to self identify, but that one is just because the name is Spanish.

[@angelquefirestar]

You forgot to mention the -ic suffix. -ic also comes from Germanic -ics, and is primarily used for Iceland and Greenland; Icelandic and Greenlandic.

[@FirstnameLastname-jd4uq]

I’ve also heard Netherlandic before

[@blew1t]

And linguistic/geographical groups like Turkic and Baltic!

[@GenghisClaus]

and Thicc

[@jakeaurod]

But that's not the name of the people.

[@Tactical-sunflower-seeds]

@@blew1tand slavic

[@francesgardner7070]

I’ve always wondered why some demonyms can be used as nouns and others cannot. -an and -i can be both adjectives and nouns (an Italian/an Italian person; an Iraqi/an Iraqi person), -er just as nouns (an Icelander, but if you want to use it as an adjective it changes to an Icelandic person) and -ish and -ese just as adjectives (an Irish person, a Japanese person). Additionally, such as in the Icelandic case, the suffix changes based on what kind of word it is. Anyone have answers?

[@user-ze7sj4qy6q]

-an, from -anus (haha) could as far back as latin be used in adjectives or nouns pretty interchangably. "romanus" could be a noun or adjective. it's just never changed, even as the suffix's pronunciation has, and it can still be used that way in english and spanish and in others i presume. i guess it could have changed but the most expected thing would be for it not to. -i isnt that way, it's only mostly for adjectives, but there's a much lower familiarity with arabic, so i'm guessing people thought (subconsciously, mostly) "-i is -an but for people from approximately the middle east, and it is used the same grammatically". there was enough contact, for example via the crusades and the muslim influence on renaissance Europe, long enough ago, for this to have happened among people who didn't have a lot of sensitivity to other languages, except the elite who's sensitivity was to latin (with its -anus & those rules). since then it has had plenty of time to complete smoothing into that role. ish and ese are respectively the germanic and latin (via borrowing into late latin) versions of the proto-germanic suffix -iskos, which was only ever used for adjectives. again, it could possibly have changed, but the most expected thing was for it not to. really no idea about er, that bothers me. i think it's because i can't really think of any er demonyms i use much in english, but i speak german, where eg "berliner" can be a noun or adjective "from berlin". i reckon thats the suffix it comes from, but i don't have a sense of why it'd have changed. i will point out in late borrowings like "frankfurter" "hamburger" that it does become a different kind of noun suffix. but originally it was "frankfurter sausage" and "hamburger steak" adjectives. , it only became a noun suffix with elipsis over time. really not sure

[@columbus8myhw]

I've seen "Japanese" used as a noun; it's identical in the singular and the plural. It's rare, but it shows up especially in writing about Japan and Japanese history.

[@Geerice]

​@@columbus8myhwI don't think I normally see them used singularly. One might say "the Japanese" in the same way they'd say "the Americans", but I don't think I've ever heard "a Japanese" unless it was an adjective with a noun right after

[@michaellee4276]

How did -ese get so attached to asian places? Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Bhutanese, Taiwanese, Cantonese.

[@FoggyD]

Bolognese is singular and Bolognesi is plural.

[@samueldickey8333]

@@FoggyD, Portuguese, San Marinese and Faroese.

[@AmericanActionReport]

Not necessarily. Don't forget Viennese, the demonym for Vienna.

[@michaellee4276]

@AmericanActionReport I didn't mean exclusively. In fact I wonder if it has to do with the Portuguese exploring the East with their ships? Probably someone just thought it sounded right.

[@AmericanActionReport]

@@michaellee4276 That's an intriguing thought. All the suffixes in question have similar, though, imprecise meanings. I did some checking. The Portuguese word for "Portuguese" is "Português;" and the Portuguese word for "Japanese" is "Japonês." I'm betting we'd see a similar dynamic with "Chinese, "Taiwanese," and other areas explored by Portuguese. Thanks for the insight.

[@noobdiamond6011]

The portuguese denonyn for Brazil is "brasileiro ("brasileirA" for female)" (brazilian), and it literally means "someone who works with brazil", so in English it be like calling someone from Brazil a "brazilier". This comes from the fact that at the begining of portuguese colonization of Brazil they would manly use the land for the extraction of the "Pau-Brasil' (literally "Brazil-Wood... I don't know how it's actually called in English), which would've required people to cut the tree and everyting else related to the exploration of this resource (it would be used as a dye, they would turn the wood of the tree into red dye, highly apreciated in Europe at the time). Considering that at those early stages of european presence in south america/Brazil the main source of labour was the indigenous population, enslaved or employed for the working with the "Pau-Brasil", the "brasileiro" would became the word for those who were born in Brazil, regardless if they worked or not with the extraction of the tree. The thing that got me thinking in this video was actually when he said that the sufix "er" (someone who does something), because we have this ("eiro/eira) in portuguese, and is realy similar to the English sufix, although portuguese is a romance language, not germanic... but we only use this in a denonym for Brazil, all other uses are actually for jobs/professions/ocupations lol (like, farmer "fazendeiro", miner "mineiro", etc)... maybe it comes from the visigothic rule in Iberia?

[@craigstephenson7676]

It is called Brazilwood in English

[@noelleggett5368]

News headline: “14 Brazilian minors lost their lives in a tragic mining disaster.” (Insert American President’s name of your choice here) “Darn! How many is a Brazilian?” 😅

[@jacobwillems8217]

I often use "ish" as a stand alone word that's synonymous to "kinda"

[@halfsourlizard9319]

'I love you ... ish'

[@robertcrabtree8835]

I did that pretty often myself, until I worked with someone of Bangladeshi extraction who went by Ish. I discontinued that practice (at work) to avoid confusion with the actual coworker.

[@jamaluddinkhalifa8371]

you, by far, are not alone

[@JohnBender1313]

Like adding the L to Congolese for the eae suffix, people from Michigan call themselves Michiganders adding a D to the -er suffix. Which is even weirder than Congolese as its easy to say Michiganer compared to Congoese having the vowels O and E next to each other. Of course saying congoese is easy if you just say congo ease. But reading it im sure would confuse many people trying to read it.

[@NotSomeJustinWithoutAMoustache]

I think the issue with Michiganer is probably that people might read it "Michi-gay-ner"? Because usually a_e containing words like game or gape use the ey pronunciation. Ofc if you know the root word Michigan you'd read it right, but its the same deal with Congoese, if you know the root word you'd read it Congo ease, but to avoid those less familiar with the place (and therefore wouldn't know the root words of those demonyms) from misreading, they added the d and l. This is all just a big guess on my part though.

[@AmericanActionReport]

If a man from Michigan is a Michigander, is a woman from Michigan a Michigoose?

[@stormfalcon1232]

@@AmericanActionReport Yes, and the children are Michigoslings.

[@necromeme]

“-er” does not actually come from the same root as someone who does something, in the case of residence it comes from Proto-Germanic *-warjaz and for occupation comes from Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz. *-warjaz means ‘inhabitant or defender’ of a place, turning into *-wari and later -er.

[@GadolElohai]

-i actually comes from two sources: there's the Arabic one which you mentioned-whence Iraqi & others-but there's also -i from Persian (from older Persian -ig) and Indic -i (from Sanskrit -ika), whence "Pakistani", "Bengali", "Hindi". There may be a third source, Hebrew -i (which cmoes from the same as Arabic -i), but that would only be in quite a reduced number of words if at all.

[@Accavish]

Adding on to that, while the -i in Hindi and Punjabi is not related to the -i in Iraqi and Yemeni, it is (very distantly) related to the -ic in Icelandic and Greenlandic.

[@ShawnRavenfire]

I always wondered why "Earthling" stuck for people from Earth. Like people from this planet are baby earths or something. Why don't we call ourselves "Earthians" or "Earthites" or "Earthish?" (Although, in a few movies and TV shows, I have heard "Earthen" and "Earther" used.)

[@boriszakharin3189]

Tau Ri or Earthican. As for earthling, supposedly it started out in the pejorative sense like hireling or underling, with the idea that it's something aliens would call us as a mild insult.

[@reeman2.0]

I suppose we kind of are the seeds of Earth, if we plan to terraform other planets to be similar to Earth. Interesting.

[@jamaluddinkhalifa8371]

"Earthling" is pejorative, as previously noted. the proper term is "Terran".

[@dairekelly8620]

It always annoyed me that some demonyms can be used as nouns like "i seen an American eat some pizza yesterday" or something while others can't. Like you wouldn't say "i seen a Chinese eating pizza yesterday" like why? What makes one correct and the other incorrect?

[@pxolqopt3597]

They're both correct just not written in the English grammar books. People will understand you and won't bat an eye

[@dairekelly8620]

@pxolqopt3597 I understand that. Maybe "correct" and "incorrect" aren't the best terms for it lol. What I mean is why does one sound fine but the other doesn't really

[@ShonnMorris]

There's also "ite" which is mainly used for cities like Seattle=Seattlite and Vancouver=Vancourite. A few US states use it too like Wyoming=Wyomingite and Wisconsin-Wisconsinite. Then there are unique ones. A person from Los Angeles is an "Angeleno" derived from Spanish. A person from San Jose is either a "San Josean" or a "Josefino".

[@Geerice]

Indiana -> Hoosier, which iirc was made official quite recently

[@ShonnMorris]

@@Geerice I'm familiar with the term. I didn't know they made it official. Not gonna lie, that's a cool name.

[@Jonas_Marshall]

0:00 what happened to hello? how are you? welcome? 💀

[@stevenjohnston3496]

Upon incorporation of our town a couple of decades ago, some worried that the moniker for our residences could be quite comical. You see I live in Taylorsville, UT. and the easiest demonym would be to simply add an "N". City hall was not amused and insisted on referring to us as Taylorsvillagers, but Taylorsvillens is just so much fun!

[@philiperdelsky]

Spanish has a similar variety of demonymic suffixes: Mexican, Puertorriqueño, Costarricense, Guatamateco.

[@lucasproductions2260]

If I remember correctly, the demonym "Guatemalteco" originates from the Nahuatl/Nawat - tec prefix that indicates belonging to a certain place.

[@papilgee4evaeva]

Don't forget 'noruego' and 'ruso/chino.' I just thought about this: the suffixes '-és' and '-ense' are likely doublets. Would have to check to confirm.

[@FoggyD]

Mexicano, Mexiquense and Chilango each refer to successively smaller places all called México

[@agoodname3250]

In my opinion the 'i' suffix might come from Hebrew rather than Arabic as in Hebrew the אי , /ai/ suffix turn *most of the time* a noun into an adjective for example America -> "America'i" (American, אמריקאי)

[@misterrea861]

It's important to remember it's Parisians or Parisiennes, but never Parisites.

[@jarvisa12345]

Where do the names ‘Mancunian’ and ‘Glaswegian’ for people from Manchester and Glasgow respectively come from?

[@jorgelotr3752]

Mancunian: from the "-ian" suffix, it's just that the name of the city evolved in parallel from "Mamm castrum" -> "Mancunium" (denonym "mancuniam" and "Mamm castrum" -> "Mame ceastre" -> "Manchester". Glaswegian: once again, "-ian" suffix from older spelling "Glaswege", which turned into "Glasgow" (compare in contrast with "Norwege"->"Norway", denonym "norwegian"). It seems a bit convoluted, given that the name comes from "glas cau" (green hollow), but it was most likely a translation to Saxon or something.

[@thewetzelsixx9009]

J. Draper here on KZbin and TikTok is a professional Londoner.

[@Defektyd]

I was so curious about this. This keep popping into my mind every now and then.

[@uy7munir]

so what

[@PfyscheStyx]

isn’t -ic a suffix too? like in icelandic?

[@tomislavhoman4338]

fun fact, in south slavic languages the suffix is "jan"

[@unleet-e1r]

It looks like KZbin did that thing where the English track is broken again. It's switching to German less than a minute in and can't be changed back.

[@uigrad]

If you added two demonyms, you might get something like "Chinese-ish". This is exactly what Norwegian does, although it comes out as "Kinesisk". It always makes me laugh.

[@dai-nippon_digger]

I think when it comes to what denonym suffix is used depends on what language/people the country was introduced by. For example, the Portuguese introduced the Japanese to us English speakers. "Japanese" in Portuguese is "Japonês". Just my thoughts.

[@MKirushnan3925]

I am a native Tamil speaker from India. As far as I learnt adding a suffix of -ar is mandatory for addressing either a group of people or Calling someone respectively. Adding -an is used for addressing one man. Eg: Tamilar means Tamil speaking people as a whole group meanwhile Tamilan means a Tamil man. But Tamil is classified in a separate language family apart from Indo - European family. I never thought about this similarity before.

[@andrewascher5888]

Los Angelenos is one of my favorites

[@danielleporter1829]

Was looking for this, hello from a fellow Angeleno.

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

The UK has some unusual endings for city residents, mostly going back to the Roman era. Manchester has Mancunians. Liverpool has Liverpudlians. Halifax has Haligonians. So does Italy: Monaco has Monegasques; Bergamo has Bergamasques. Naples (originally the Greek colony Neapolis) has Neapolitans. One thing I like is that the same noun will add -ly or -like/-ish for a positive/negative spin (womanly/womanish; childlike/childish).

[@JeremyBaconThe1st]

And Constantinople from Constantinoupolis. But Mariupol from Marioupoli isn't Mariople in english

[@jayartz8562]

If you come from Newcastle you're a Novocastrian.

[@livwake]

@@jayartz8562I’ve never heard of them referred to as anything except Geordie

[@livwake]

Monaco isn’t in Italy! I do love the world monegasque though

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

@@livwake But it's close to Italy...

[@Orianna_Bumssen321]

You forgot about "Ite" for demonyms like "Brooklynite"

[@rmkhan786]

Also seems like there is no hard and fast rule as someone who is British can also be a Briton, the French can be Franks and someone Spanish is also called a Spaniard.

[@bud-yo]

5:26 actually Londoner suffix comes from OE -ware which lost the W and merged into -er

[@PockASqueeno]

Okay, I’ve got a question. The -er one is usually used as a noun, specifically for a person from that place. He’s a Londoner. She’s a New Yorker. Is there an adjective form of these demonyms that can be used to describe things? For example, a house in New York is a _____ house. Is it a New Yorkian house? 🤔

[@kirabowie]

As someone who grew up in New York, I've never heard of a "New Yorkian" house. It would be a ranch house, an apartment, a split level, etc. So it would be "I live in a split (level) in Oceanside, New York" or "it's an apartment in the City." The City referring to Manhattan, but if you're from Long Island anything west of Nassau County that isn't "upstate" (anything that is on the main land in the state of New York). So basically a person is a New Yorker, but any other noun that is from New York is referred to as what it is from New York. And hopefully that all makes sense. 😆

[@tygrkhat4087]

@@kirabowie "Upstate" New York is a section just north of NYC; then you get to the Hudson Valley, the Capital District and the Adirondacks. Go west from "Upstate," and you've got the Southern Tier, Central NY, the Finger Lakes Region and the Niagara Frontier. And isn't the Bronx on the "main land in the state of New York?"

[@kirabowie]

@@tygrkhat4087 Are you a New Yorker? Specifically someone from Long Island? If you are then you would know that someone from Long Island refers to anything west of Nassau County as either Upstate or the City, depending on where you're going. I grew up on Long Island and this in my experience is how we refer to the rest of the state. And yes, the Bronx is on the main land. And I know there's various regions that have their own names and I've been to some of them when I was younger. In fact, I've been up and down the east coast from Maine to Florida. I've been as far north in Maine to a little island to view the puffins there, that is claimed by both the US and Canada. I'm also heading down to Key West in March. I've visited serval states with California being as far west as I've gotten, although, I do have a trip to Alaska planned this August and I've overseas too. And I know that sometimes people refer to places as one thing which can be more general than what is the official name for that place or region. 😉

[@tygrkhat4087]

@ No, I'm a New Yorker from the other side of the state; a Buffalonian. We don't like being called "upstate;" we're Western New York. And yeah, I know of the attitude of New Yorkers and Long Islanders toward every thing in the state above Westchester.

[@kirabowie]

@@tygrkhat4087 I'm sorry, I had no idea! But if you look on a map the rest of New York technically is above Long Island, which is probably where that whole "upstate" thing started. Anyways, from one New Yorker to another, have a goody!! 🙂

[@NickCombs]

I was recently having a laugh thinking of how we might call someone from Kansas a Kansasser or Kansassian, but it turns out they dropped the end of the word to avoid such mirth and went with Kansan.

[@jyrki21]

Utah should have done something better than Utahan.

[@jamaluddinkhalifa8371]

@@jyrki21 it sounds awful if the H is pronounced, but it's nice if the H is silent.

[@gillisclarke3764]

I always thought the demonym for Iceland was Icelandic, but I suppose it’s actually Icelander.

[@TheStadtpark]

is it really ok to call New Zealander Kiwis? I genuinely didn't know!

[@sirensynapse5603]

Ja, it's dandy.

[@ifer1280]

Definitely!

[@callumc9426]

I think most of us Kiwis prefer "Kiwi" over "New Zealander"

[@bigtex4864]

​@@callumc9426That's why you get left off maps.

[@TomRNZ]

Yeah, we call ourselves kiwis all the time. I might use "New Zealander" if I'm not sure if the other person knows what a kiwi is (they may be thinking of the fruit or the bird), but I definitely prefer "kiwi".

[@pennyspencer450]

Love your work, Patrick. Are you aware that through the start of the show you said "denonym", and on and off until the end? It's a tricky one!

[@jamieoglethorpe]

For some reason -IC went round and round in my head throughout your video. Of course there is Icelandic and Germanic, or Anglic for that matter. Love your program!

[@uncipaws7643]

While "Swiss" has no suffix in English and "Swiss cheese" can stand both for a specific kind of cheese and any cheese coming from Switzerland, German makes a distinction: "Schweizer Käse" ist a specific kind of cheese, "schweizerischer Käse" is any kind of cheese from Switzerland. In this case "Schweiz" gets both suffixes "-er" and "-isch" (and another "-er" required for the case in German) and is an adjective, so written with a lowercase "s" whereas Schweizer is a derivation of the country's name so it gets a capital "S". "Wiener" is German for a person from Vienna, called "Viennese" in English which curiously takes both of these forms from Italian. Does anybody know why the English use the Italian form Vienna for Wien? It's about as curious as the Germans using the Italian form Nizza for the French city of Nice.

[@nexalacer]

I’m not sure about English using Italian for Vienna, but I suspect the Germans use the Italian for Nice because it was long held by Savoy, an Italian member of the Holy Roman Empire. The French part of Savoy and Nice became part of France thanks to Napoleon.

[@Stratelier]

Loosely, I am reminded of the TV show _Babylon 5_ where the residents of a colonized Mars were termed "Marsies" (-ie suffix), leaving the pre-existing term "Martian" to refer exclusively to the planet itself -- e.g. "Martian weather" but "Marsie society". On the meta level, this avoided the alien baggage of the term "martian".

[@MonochromeWench]

I never made the connection between uses of ish before. Surely french being different is because French probably isn't a demonym based on the name of the region France, but probably actually comes from the name of the people the region was named for (the Franks).

[@jakeaurod]

The Gaul of some people!

[@jacksonguillory8114]

​@@jakeaurodI giggled so loudly at this

[@thorpizzle]

Korean keeps things simple. All demonyms start with the country, place, region, or culture and then add a different suffix depending on what is being described. If it is a language, it is just the country plus a suffix for language, which is "eo". For example, Japan is called "Il-bon", so the Japanese language is "Il-bon-eo". If is is a person from a place, they just combine the place with the word for person, "sa-ram", so a Japanese person is "Il-bon-sa-ram." For anything else, such as a restaurant, they just add the suffix "in."

[@SilentSword22]

would love to see a map of the most commonly used one of these

[@anerdwithaswitch9686]

I do want to mention that the -er suffix isn't just used for the city of New York, and the term "New Yorker" also refers to people from Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Binghamton, or anywhere else in New York State. For other examples of -er not being used for cities, there's the demonyms for the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont, which are Connecticuter, Rhode Islander, and Vermonter respectively.

[@tygrkhat4087]

True that "New Yorker" refers to residents of both the City and State; and to differentiate between the two, the other cities are referred to by their demonyms; eg., Buffalonian. To be honest, I don't know the demonyms for the other cites you mentioned. Rochesterian? Syracusan? Albanian?

[@user-ze7sj4qy6q]

@@tygrkhat4087i think albanian is already taken. albanese? but also michigander theres another -er. probably modeled on gander though the plural of geese, otherwise idk where the d comes from

[@DawnDavidson]

@@user-ze7sj4qy6qRochesterian works, but yeah, not Albanian (taken already.) Could maybe work to say it Al-buh-NEE-an, and spell it Albanyan?

[@NotSomeJustinWithoutAMoustache]

@@tygrkhat4087 US already has "Georgians", now you're gonna have "Albanians" too? At least call them Albanese or something.

[@jamaluddinkhalifa8371]

@@DawnDavidson demonym of Albany should be "Albanite"

[@ShiftySqvirrel]

And then there is Norway - Norwegian, where the root seemingly changes. Though from a historical perspective it's entirely regular, since "way" was "weg" at one point, but the "g" became "y" and I'm guessing the "e" was changed to "a" to reflect pronunciation perhaps. And this change simply didn't happen with the "-ian" suffix added.

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

Like Glasgow has Glaswegians...

[@frankz3140]

The funny thing is that Norwegian comes from older Norvegian, which itself comes from Latin Norvegia. The V was shifted to W under the influence of an older form "Norwayan". If you go even back in time you might also find Norren, Norrene, Norenish, Nornish, or Norish. English is like a dramatic rich teenage girl with lots of clothes complaining about having nothing to wear but with a massive closet bigger than a shopping mall

[@ShiftySqvirrel]

@@frankz3140 I would like to point out, that in Latin V was pronounced /w/, so it might be just a change to reflect the actual pronunciation once the letter V came to represent /v/ instead.

[@frankz3140]

@@ShiftySqvirrel True. I didn't mention it only because it was taken from Medieval Latin, not the classical one spoken during the Roman Era. By that point the pronunciation would've likely already shifted to something closer to the modern Romance languages.

[@ShiftySqvirrel]

@@frankz3140 That's true, but it's original pronunciation was still reflected in Old Norse spelling, at least, so some knowledge of that pronunciation may have been known.

[@tristandunn4628]

English is even more of a mystery when you look at nouns for people from places. Someone from Spain is a Spaniard; someone from Germany is a German; someone from Scotland is a Scot; yet we don't have these names for many nationalities. There isn't one for French, Dutch, Portuguese or even English!

[@DaSpecialZak]

also the ish suffix can work for time as well, so 7ish would be any time after 7 but before half 7 or 8

[@Makaneek5060]

Norse "Grœnlendinga Saga" reflects an old Germanic possessive plural suffix for "Greenlander", it seems this is the cognate for the "-ian" of Romance languages.

[@noelleggett5368]

The Latin-based suffix ‘-ese’ derives from the Latin genitive case (‘belonging to/originating from’). It is directly related to the English genitive case - now mainly known as the ‘possessive’ case - which ends in ‘s’ - usually distinguished from the plural by an apostrophe, (although 85% of native English speakers seem to be totally clueless as to how, when or where to put the possessive apostrophe). It is also etymologically related to the Anglo-Saxon ‘-ish’ suffix.

[@HetareKing]

I have a couple of hypotheses. One is, I think whether a place is named after a people, instead of something like the local geography, might matter. Like, even before England existed, I imagine there would have been a word to describe things pertaining to the Angles. So when England became a thing, people kept using that word, and as being from England became decoupled from being an Angle, it started to be used to refer to the people as well. Something like that. Meanwhile, the original Greenlanders weren't members of some "Green" tribe or relatives of the Vlogbrothers, but dwellers of a land (supposedly) rich in greenery. It not being uncommon for peoples to be named after the geography of where they were originally from might complicate things, though. Another is simply euphonics and memetics. Basically, when a demonym hasn't been established yet, people would just pick from existing patterns something that sounds good to them, and eventually something would catch on and become the official demonym. China ends with an A, so it's easy enough to just stick an N after that, but "Chinan" is kind of unpleasant to say, you end up swallowing the second syllable a bit, so I don't think it would have caught on. "Angolan", on the other hand, doesn't have that problem. Regardless of whether any of these are true, it's going to be a combination of multiple things instead of a single pattern. And of course, what language it was inherited from is going to matter.

[@jeopardy60611]

I get the impression that the various suffixes get adopted according to what flows best in speech. "Londoner" probably flows better than "Londonish," "Londoni," or "Londonese."

[@rainbowthedragoncat6768]

That's just because you're not used to them. Londoni, londonish, and londonese all flow perfectly fine

[@uy7munir]

@@rainbowthedragoncat6768 work that IQ

[@JeremyBaconThe1st]

I've been playing too much with those recently. I finally found what they are called

[@BambiTrout]

I find the demonyms for various English cities and counties interesting in large part because of how irregular they are: - Manchester = Mancunian - Oxford = Oxonian - Liverpool = Liverpudlian/Scouser - Birmingham = Brummie - Leeds = Loiner - Newcastle = Geordie - Middlesbrough = Smoggie - (Rural) Yorkshire = Yorkshireman/Tyke - Sunderland = Mackem - Hartlepool = Monkey Hangers

[@danielleporter1829]

Shout out to my fellow Angelenos, we're going to get through this challenging , heartbreaking time together.

[@columbus8myhw]

You give "German" as an example of the "-an" suffix, but it's not clear to me that this is a suffix at all. After all, "German" is _shorter_ than "Germany".

[@jonahblock]

At one point it was germanic and germanium

[@soilmicrobe]

It’s called Germany because the land is German-y!

[@KohaAlbert]

​@@soilmicrobe German-ia

[@KohaAlbert]

​@@jonahblock and now Germanic has much broader meaning, and most of us get to learn about germanium in chemistry...

[@TwentyNineJP]

The -y at the end of Germany is also a Latin suffix (originally -ia), and it in this case is actually applied after the -an suffix, making Germany the "land of Germans". So the country is named after the people, not the other way around. It's kind of a special case. The origin of the "Germ-" root is unclear, although etymologists have a few hypotheses that range from a Celtic word meaning "noisy" to a German word meaning "spear".

[@yorgunsamuray]

And there's Burkinabe for Burkina Faso and I-Kiribati for Kiribati. Kuwaiti, Qatari, Bahraini, Emirati, Omani, Yemeni, Pakistani...then to Nepali. Not Arab, not Muslim, but still in there.

[@jorgelotr3752]

Most likely Nepali is there for the same reason as "Hindi" and "Hindustani" (currently just member of a religion and a language, respectively, but originally demonyms), which is that the demonym reached us through muslim countries.

[@kaitlyn__L]

The one which always stood out to me was "New Englander" instead of "New English". "New English" would plausibly be interpreted as someone who's newly a citizen of England, rather than a citizen of New England. So they chose a different suffix simply to be easily distinguished. So I think a lot of these are purely vibes-based, just like shipping name portmanteaus.

[@xx.macabrexx9159]

Does this video start in englsich then turn in German after a sentence for anyone else I can’t select englsich audio but I didn’t change it

[@achillesjr5177]

You forgot to mention the -ite suffix. Like Elamite

[@perrydowd9285]

I think the suffixes we use today were probably just the ones in fashion when English began to be standardised.

[@ShimKwetYung]

Wait, I just noticed one of my favourite books, Lingo, in the background!

[@michaelowino228]

Good video.

[@edouardrenaud5517]

you sound like the 'Daniel UK' text 2 speech voice, especially at the end of your sentences it's hillarious

[@Illjwamh]

It seems to me that, much as -i is used for places with names of Arabic origin, -ian is used for places with names of Latin/Romance origin. This doesn't necessarily mean that the place itself has Latin roots, but that the name we use for it has been "Latinized" by Europeans. Likewise, names of Germanic origin will use the -ish suffix more often than not. And places neither of Latin or Germanic origin (Japan, Vietnam, etc.) will use -ese. Like most things, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's the most likely pattern I've been able to see. There's also -ic (Icelandic, Greenlandic, Gaelic, etc.), which likely is a cognate of -ish with more Nordic (eh? eh?) connotations.

[@o_s-24]

The demonym for Yerevan, Armenia is Yerevantsi (in English). The same suffix goes for most other cities in Armenia.

[@MouseionAlexandria]

that’s intriguing, shi as a suffix is also prevalent in Sanskrit and her modern offshoots which’s used to denote “of something” E.g. Suryavanshi - of the Solar dynasty (Surya - Sun, Vansa Dynasty, Shi- the suffix)

[@gregblair5139]

I think that there may a loose geographic link to choice of suffix. For instance, "ese' is common in the far east ex: Chinese, Japanese, Bumese, Shanghainese, Vietnamese. This I suffix is common in the middle east places in the far east with middle eastern influence ex: Iraqi, Pakistani, Israeli, Bengali. The an or ian are almost universal (at least on the national level) in the Americas. Ish seems most popular in Europe, ex: Irish, Polish, Finnish, Swedish, Danish, English, Scottish.

[@Xanomodu]

-ish is from germanic *-iskaz

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

The people as a whole just kinda decide how to grammer a word. We latvieši always have a debate about what geneder a new loanwords should be. I say Jūtūbs, which is default male, Ive heard others who say Jūtūbe, which is default female. While its concencus that its Gugle.

[@fanamatakecick97]

“-ese” tends to be used for Asian countries (Chinese, Japanese, Nepalese [Nepali is also used], Vietnamese, Siamese), although “-an/-ian” is used whenever it’s phonetically easier (Laotian, Mongolian, Cambodian). Of course, “Portuguese” is another outlier, but “Portugish” or “Portugan” just don’t sound nor look right “-an/ian” also typically gets applied to countries than end with “-y” or “-ia” (Italian, German, Libyan, Iranian [Irani is also used], Syrian, Arabian) “-i” is exclusively used for Arabic nations, as far as i know (Israeli, Iraqi, Pakistani, Afghani, Nepali, Irani). Interestingly enough, for Uzbekistan, it’s just “Uzbek”

[@williamdrum9899]

As a kid I thought that: -ish = Europe -i = Middle Eastern -ese = East Asia

[@inyobill]

I might say "happyish", but never "runish", so not ANY verb. I am San Diegan, not a "San Diegoer". I sus oect underlying phonetic rules affecting choices of which suffixes to use, some sound better some places, others in other places.

[@DarkElfDiva]

This video really puckers my pertaining to.

[@Jason_Bryant]

One pattern I've noticed with demonyms is some can be used for nouns referring to the people of a place and some can not. Demonyms that end in 'an' and 'ian' can be used to refer to people. "He is an American, she is a Columbian," is fine. However, the ones that end in sibilant sounds like 'ese', 'sh', and 'ch' can not. We generally don't say, "He is a French, she is a Japanese." You can say that someone is British, but you don't say that someone is *a* British. Any thoughts on why that is?

[@kristopherbaptiste9773]

I've noticed that too. I think for -ish, as stated in the video, it's because we tend to use -ish words more commonly as adjectives, like blueish, biggish, etc. and so sounds unnatural as a noun. Hence, we say "He is a British person", or "He is British" but never "He is a British", similarly to how we would say, "It is a blue car", or "it is blue", never "It is a blue". Words that end in -ch like French and Dutch are actually corruptions of original -ish words, like Old English Frencisc and Old Dutch Thiudisc respectively. As for -ese, I'm guessing that it sounded enough like a synonym for -ish for early English speakers that we treat them as having the same rules.

[@HandsomeMonkey-King]

Odd. I was researching this question just yesterday! 🤯

[@telekakos]

Whar about ic in Icelandic?

[@garfieldh.8820]

I'd guess that it's also from the Germanic "-ics"

[@shoutforchoy]

Actually, it's Latin! Stemming from the word "ikus," meaning in the manner of or pertaining to.

[@humicroav215]

Denonyms can be much more encompassing than countries. Europeans, Asians, Africans.

[@brassen]

In Portuguese, we're 'brasileiro/a", meaning 'he or she who does Brazil-stuff'. Easiest citizenship process ever. Get yourself a football team to support, a political party to yap about online or any musical rhythm you think offends you, and there you go!

[@JeremyBaconThe1st]

What is it for Greek?

[@graceyang-ss6dh]

The “-ine” in “Argentine” and “Levantine” always confuse me bc they’re always pronounced /in/ or /ain/ (I’m too lazy to type out small cap i). Funnily enough though “Florentine” is clearly /ain/ though.

[@mirko1382]

The most likely who get which suffixes is most likely which sounds better phonetically

[@MrGregory777]

In dutch a person from the Netherlands is called a Nederlander.

[@Potkanka]

I'm Czech :D I guess English (or the languages the word went through until it came to English) just took the root "čech" and called it a day. Or any possible suffixes somehow disappeared along the way.

[@helicopsyche]

Probably has to do with recency, when Czechoslovakia existed it would have been Czechoslovakian or Czechoslovak, then when it became the Czech Republic that probably lended to the lack of alteration of the demonym. Before that it would have been Bohemian or whatever depending on the region, and Czech would just have been an ethnicity, which doesn't always get a suffix in English (e.g. Breton, Ainu, Dogon are all unaltered).

[@xezmakorewarriah]

czechish

[@CiaraNíShúilleabháin1990]

​@@xezmakorewarriah Czecher would probably be a better one Czechish.

[@xezmakorewarriah]

@@CiaraNíShúilleabháin1990 nahh sounds too german

[@reeman2.0]

@@CiaraNíShúilleabháin1990 Chancellor of the ex-Czecher. Sounds like a movie title, I'd watch it.

[@andyalder7910]

the -i suffix combined with -stan suffix can lead to some peculiarities, Kazakhstani being a person who lives in the land belonging to the Kazakh people for example.

[@Benni777]

As a Detroiter, who never actually lived in the city of Detroit, I still consider myself a Detroiter. However, Detroiters can get really sensitive over who calls who a true “Native Detroiter.” I’m not particularly concerned with those strict requirements of needing to be around a certain city in order to be considered a native of that city, (I feel like if you live in the Downriver area, then I consider you a Detroiter) For those of you who don’t know “Downriver” is the area anywhere that’s down the Detroit river. But I do understand why Detroiters are more aware of who actually KNOWS the city of Detroit and who doesn’t. Detroiters are very proud of their city, and have been calling it their home for years, so I can understand the territorial-ness of their city. Anyway, just thought that’d be interesting for some ppl. ☺️

[@halfsourlizard9319]

That's as ridiculous as claiming to be an Earthling despite never having lived on Earth🤦‍♀️

[@jorgelotr3752]

@@halfsourlizard9319 Well, it makes a slight bit of sense, given that they belong to the Detroit Downriver area, but it would have made more sense to use a different word for preople from the city (let's say they keep the "Detroiter") and a different one for the ones outside the city (Detroitians?). I believe other places where the name is shared by differnt divisions, unless it's a region and its capital, relatively often attach different suffixes to distinguish (at least in languages other than English).

[@jeremystanger1711]

Interesting video but I would say that technically the ones that end in -ish are usually adjectival forms rather than demonyms. Examples: * Spanish is the adjective -> The demonym is Spaniard * British -> Briton * English -> Englishman/woman * Scottish -> Scot * Polish -> Pole * Denmark -> Dane The list goes on... They all seem to be irregular in their endings. There's a bunch more, such as French which really feels like an adjective rather than a noun (i.e. you'd always say 'a French person' as opposed to 'a French'), so there is obviously a total lack of consistency in these words!!

[@tjhills75]

An interesting one using "ian" suffix is Newcastle as the whole word changes to presumably the Latin translation of the name then gets Ian added to become Novocastrian. Would be interesting to know how many other cities or countries substantial change like that!

[@tygrkhat4087]

Natives of Halifax, NS are Haligonians, and Liverpudlian for those from Liverpool.

[@willbunch01]

I believe the name Germany came after the word German. Germany is “where the Germans live”. “Ish” seems to be more for people who the English have had very long histories with, like the Irish, Scottish, and Frankish. The “An” and “Ic”seem to be for people the English didn’t interact with until after English was latinized, like Russian, Italian, Slavic, Arabic. The “Ese” suffix is kinda weird to me because it’s mostly used for very far off and exotic people, like Japanese, vietnamese, congolese. But then Portuguese is in Europe and not exotic at all, so I wonder if Portugal being a major naval and colonial power when the other “ese” areas were being discovered has anything to do with it. I can’t think of any other European “Ese” places. Anyway these are just my observations, I’m happy to be proven wrong.

[@GazilionPT]

Any idea why we may say "Spanish people", "the Spanish", but also "(the) Spaniards"? Likewise, "Polish people", "the Polish", "(the) Poles". A few more examples occur: Danish/Danes, Swedish/Swedes. But not many more. ----- Then, you have cases with just one basic form, but you may pluralise it: "Italian people", "(the) Italians"; "Greek people", "(the) Greeks"; "German people", "(the) Germans"; etc. (Except for "Greeks", all examples of pluralised forms that occur to me are for demonyms ending in "-an".) ----- Finally, some demonyms have just one form, which you cannot pluralise: "English people", "the English"; "French people", "the French"; "Portuguese people", "the Portuguese"; "Welsh people", "the Welsh"; "Iraqi people", "the Iraqi"; etc. (Apparently, these demonyms end in "-sh" - with the 4 exceptions listed earlier -, "-ch", "-ese", or "-i")

[@modmaker7617]

Technically, Spanish and Polish are adjectivals and Spaniards and Poles are demonyms. Adjectivals are adjectives describing relation to a place. Demonyms are nouns that can be pluralised. In English, the distinction between adjectivals and demonyms is blurred but in my language Polish every country receives an adjectival, male demonym and female demonym. Hiszpania - Spain hiszpański - Spanish Hiszpan - male Spaniard Hiszpanka - female Spaniard Polska - Poland polski - Polish Polak - male Pole Polka - female Pole

[@pxolqopt3597]

Because languages naturally develop over thousands of years so some different ways to say the same thing are destined to happen

[@trufflefur]

In spanish: inglÉS 😁‬ londinENSE 😁‬ francÉS 😁‬ parisINO 😁‬ alemÁN 😁‬ berlinÉS 😁‬ ItaliANO 😁 romANO 😁 polACO 😁 austríACO 😁 españOL 🤔 (I think it's the only one with this suffix...) madrilEÑO 😁 limEÑO 😁 niuyorkINO 😁 neozelandÉS 😁

[@eosborne6495]

-ish as a demonym suffix sounds so noncommittal. “Is he from England?” “Ehhh… he’s English.” Well what is he then!?

[@MaiElizabeth]

Let me try switching: Chinese - Chinish Japanese - Japanish English - Englese British - Britese French - Francia Welsh - Wal.... arghhhhh

[@CAMacKenzie]

I live in Los Angeles. I'm an Angeleno. I'm also a Californian and an American. And a Human. And a Mammal. I live on Earth, so I'm an Earthling, or an Earther. For those of other planets, Mercurian, Venusian or Venerian, Martian, Jovian, Saturnian or Kronian, Uranian, Neptunian or Poseidean, Plutonian, Quaoarian, Sednian, Orcean, Haumean, Eridian. Other than Earth, the adjectives (which become nouns) all end in n. Erotian--I was hoping that would be Erotic, but nooo.

[@CAMacKenzie]

Then there are some oddball names. A person of Rio de Janeiro is a Carioca.

[@MrChristianDT]

It is kind of weird that, in English, you can make up a country- Schlub, or whatever- & write someone who comes from Schlub as Schlubish, Schlubic, Schlubian, Schluban, Schlubi, Schlubai, Schluber, Schlubese, Schlubaic, etc & it all means the same thing.