Demonym
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" (
language or
people). Some places, particularly smaller cities and towns may not have an established word for their residents;
toponymists have a particular challenge in researching these.
See also ethnonym.The
English language uses several models to create demonyms. The most common is to add a
suffix to the end of the location's name. These may be modelled after
Late Latin,
Semitic or
Germanic suffixes, such as:
-an or
-ian (America â†'
American,
Paris â†' Parisian)
-ine (
Florence, Latin
Florentia â†' Florentine)
-ite (
Vancouver â†' Vancouverite,
Moscow â†' Muscovite) (mostly cities)
-er (
London â†' Londoner,
Sheffield â†' Sheffielder) (mostly cities)
-ish (
Spain â†' Spanish,
Denmark â†' 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 â†' Taiwanese,
Vienna â†' Viennese, the
Tyrol â†' 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 â†' Iraqi,
Bengal â†' Bengali) (mostly
Middle Eastern and
South Asian locales)
-i (
Allemanni,
Helvetii) (Latinate plural ending applied to the many peoples they encountered)
-ic (
Hispania â†'
Hispanic,
Turk â†'
Turkic (cf.
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,
Hispanic vs.
Spanish,
Finnic vs.
Finnish)).
-iote (
Cyprus â†' Cypriote,
Phanar â†'
Phanariote), especially for Greek locations.
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 â†'
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.
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) â†'
Switzerland,
Arab â†'
Arabia,
Croat â†'
Croatia,
Dane â†'
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 â†'
Kosovan (English demonym) â†'
Kosovar (
Albanian demonym also used in English),
Bosnian Muslim â†'
Bosniak (based on the
Bosnian demonym
Bošnjak)).
In a few cases, the name of the country is not at all related to the name of the people (
Netherlands â†'
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.
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.").
Demonyms can be
nouns or
adjectives. In many cases the noun and adjective forms are the same (
Canadian/Canadian); in other cases they are different (
Spaniard/Spanish,
Slovene/Slovenian,
Flemings/Flemish). In some of the latter cases the noun is formed by adding -man or -woman (
English/Englishman/Englishwoman, the obsolete
Chinese/Chinaman/Chinawoman).
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
Lilliputians from the island of Lilliput in the satire
Gulliver's Travels.
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,
MÄori, and
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
Čeština, the nation is
Česko or Česká republika, and the people are
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) and also in Italian (
statunitense).
US-American 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 (
North American, which itself conflates the USA, Mexico, Canada, and several other countries).
See main article: Use of the word American.*
List of adjectival forms of place names*
-onym, especially
ethnonym and
Exonym and endonym*
Alphabetical list of world demonyms*
Demonyms of the World
