After posting my other article So many negative prefixes, I received very positive feedback and many readers apparently found the article interesting and useful. Indeed, these little affixes (prefixes and suffixes) can be puzzling when they are similar in meaning but nevertheless non-interchangeable. That makes people ask why they are what they are: is there a subtle rule beneath all the messy superficial distribution, or things just happen by chance?
Not long ago, a friend asked me whether there are rules governing the usage of those suffixes of nationality, such as –ese, –ian and –ish. I thought about it for a while, then I remembered that years ago I read a post on the Internet, saying that –ese is a derogatory ending used only on those countries that the western world thought to be inferior, so we have adjectives like Chinese, Vietnamese and Burmese. After all, many of the Asian countries do form their adjectives in –ese. But I had doubts, don’t the westerners just love Japanese stuff? And why Korean, Indian, Malaysian and Indonesian then? So I decided to look for the answer myself.
I fetched a list of nationality adjectives from NationMaster.com, then I started to color the world map according to the suffixes used to form their respective nationality adjectives. Finally I got this map:
Suffixes of Nationality
From the list, I find 8 major suffixes, they are:
- -ian (Italian, Norwegian)
- -ean (Chilean, Korean)
- -an (American, Mexican)
- -ese (Chinese, Japanese)
- -er (Icelander, New Zealander)
- -ic (Icelandic, Greenlandic)
- -ish (English, Irish)
- -i (Iraqi, Pakistani)
Looking at the map, we can probably notice some distributive patterns right away. For instance, –ish is mainly used for European nations, –i is for nations in the Middle East, –ic and –er seem to occur only after the word –land, but the others seem to be more random.
Not satisfied with the mere geographical picture, I decided to trace the histories of these suffixes.
| Suffix | Origin |
| -ian | Latin |
| -ean | Latin |
| -an | Latin |
| -ese | Latin → Italian |
| -er | Latin → Germanic |
| -ic | Latin → Germanic |
| -ish | Germanic |
| -i | Arabic |
-ian / -ean / -an
It should not be surprising to find out that –ian, –an and –ean actually have a common origin. In fact, the suffix –ia is frequently used in Latin to name places, thus giving birth to names like Romania, Bulgaria and Australia, and –ea and –a are two other grammatical suffixes used on Latin nouns. The final –n is an adjectival suffix that turns a noun into an adjective. Hence, adjectives that end in –ian, –ean, or –an were either borrowed directly from Latin, or modelled after Latin in English. They are the standard suffixes now in English. The distribution of them follows a rule that is rather neat and tidy. Basically it goes as follows:
- If the place name ends in –ea or a silent –e, then use –ean;
- If the place name ends in a vowel, then use –an;
- Otherwise, use –ian.
As you have probably noticed, there are some exceptions or complications, but let us not be concerned about that here. After all, the general picture is clear and unambiguous.
-ese
Let us now turn to the controversial suffix –ese. You could well say that there does not seem to be a pattern geographically. Countries using –ese are scattered everywhere in Asia, Africa, South America, and we also have Portugal in Europe! But my attention turns to Italian when I give this suffix some more thought.
In Italian, –ese is a much more common suffix of nationality than in English. Words that use –ese in Italian but not in English include danese (Danish), finlandese (Finnish), francese (French), inglese (English) and islandese (Icelandic). In fact, –ese (from Latin –ēnsis) is the next most common suffix after the Latin triplet –ian/-ean/-an.
The Third Voyage of Christopher Columbus
It turns out that words ending in –ese in English actually come from Italian. Recalling that Marco Polo and other Italian traders were the first Europeans to reach the Far East, it is therefore no surprise that many Asian countries use –ese. In addition, the countries using –ese in South America are all very close to where Christopher Columbus, himself an Italian, first landed on the continent. But of course, why some countries in Africa and the Americas use the Italian suffix, while others use French or Spanish suffixes is a result of their long and complicated colonial histories.
-er / -ic
Both –er and –ic are originally Latin suffixes which later entered the Germanic languages and subsequently English. Among the two hundred countries in the world, –er and –ic are used only after the words land and island, both of which are Germanic in origin. The suffix –er is used on nouns to denote persons of a certain place of origin, while –ic is used to form adjectives with the meaning of “having some characteristics of”. Therefore, Icelander is normally used to denote a person from Iceland (i.e. a noun), whereas Icelandic is used when it is used as an adjective.
-ish
This is a native Germanic suffix with the sense of “belonging to”. Since English has been much influenced by French and Latin, the suffix is not as productive as it used to be. However, in other Germanic languages, such as German, its usage is far more common. Nationalities which use –ish in German (-isch) but not in English include Italienisch (Italian), Chinesisch (Chinese), Isländisch (Icelandic) and Irakisch (Iraqi). Its Germanic origin explains why nationalities that use –ish are all in Europe, and belong to Germanic nations around Germany and Scandinavia. This is even clearer if you consider two more facts:
- The word German does not end in –ish, because the united nation of Germany did not exist until relatively recently. The word German comes from a Latin word referring to the people in that region.
- Both French (from Frencisc) and Dutch (from Diutisc) in fact contain the suffix –ish, although in both cases, the suffix has been fused with the base to form a new, irregular adjective.
-i
The suffix –i, with the meaning of “belonging to”, comes from Arabic. This explains why almost all countries that use –i are Islamic and/or use Arabic as one of the major languages. Geographically, the center of this group of nations is in the Middle East, and extends to Central Asia to the north, and to East Africa to the south. A notable exception in this area is Iran, which had a long history of contact with the West before they gradually converted to Islam.
Summary
After seeing the distribution of the suffixes of nationality on a world map, and studying the origins of these suffixes, I think we should be reasonably convinced that the choice of suffix is not entirely a matter of chance or taste. Instead, there are historical and linguistic factors which determine why one suffix is used for a certain nationality but another suffix for a second one.
English is a Germanic language, its native suffix for nationality is –ish, which accounts for the names of nearby nationalities. But before English had gone global and applied its suffix to other nationalities, it was influenced by Latin and French. The default suffix of nationality used in the language was replaced by the Latinate –ian/-ean/-an, so more recently coined nationalities made use of them instead. Later, the contact between Italy and the Far East, together with the European colonization of Africa and South America, brought in some nationalities ending in –ese. Then, Islamic countries near the Middle East retained their Arabic –i when their names entered English. Lastly, a few places that end in –land or Island make use of the suffixes –er/-ic.
On second thought, the whole picture is just that simple.
[tab:-ese]
| Benin | Beninese |
| Bhutan | Bhutanese |
| Burma | Burmese |
| China | Chinese |
| Congo | Congolese |
| East Timor | Timorese |
| Faroe Islands | Faroese |
| Gabon | Gabonese |
| Guyana | Guyanese |
| Japan | Japanese |
| Lebanon | Lebanese |
| Malta | Maltese |
| Marshall Islands | Marshallese |
| Nepal | Nepalese |
| Portugal | Portuguese |
| San Marino | Sammarinese |
| Senegal | Senegalese |
| Sudan | Sudanese |
| Suriname | Surinamese |
| Taiwan | Taiwanese |
| Togo | Togolese |
| Vietnam | Vietnamese |
[tab:-ian]
| Albania | Albanian |
| Algeria | Algerian |
| Armenia | Armenian |
| Australia | Australian |
| Austria | Austrian |
| Bahamas, The | Bahamian |
| Barbados | Barbadian |
| Belarus | Belarusian |
| Belgium | Belgian |
| Bermuda | Bermudian |
| Bolivia | Bolivian |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | Bosnian and Herzegovinian |
| Brazil | Brazilian |
| Brunei | Bruneian |
| Bulgaria | Bulgarian |
| Burundi | Burundian |
| Cambodia | Cambodian |
| Cameroon | Cameroonian |
| Canada | Canadian |
| Cayman Islands | Caymanian |
| Chad | Chadian |
| Colombia | Colombian |
| Croatia | Croatian |
| Côte d’Ivoire | Ivoirian |
| Djibouti | Djiboutian |
| Ecuador | Ecuadorian |
| Egypt | Egyptian |
| Estonia | Estonian |
| Ethiopia | Ethiopian |
| Fiji | Fijian |
| French Polynesia | French Polynesian |
| Gambia, The | Gambian |
| Georgia | Georgian |
| Ghana | Ghanaian |
| Grenada | Grenadian |
| Guam | Guamanian |
| Haiti | Haitian |
| Hungary | Hungarian |
| India | Indian |
| Indonesia | Indonesian |
| Iran | Iranian |
| Italy | Italian |
| Jordan | Jordanian |
| Laos | Laotian |
| Latvia | Latvian |
| Liberia | Liberian |
| Lithuania | Lithuanian |
| Macedonia, Republic of | Macedonian |
| Malawi | Malawian |
| Malaysia | Malaysian |
| Maldives | Maldivian |
| Mali | Malian |
| Mauritania | Mauritanian |
| Mauritius | Mauritian |
| Micronesia, Federated States of | Micronesian |
| Mongolia | Mongolian |
| Montserrat | Montserratian |
| Namibia | Namibian |
| New Caledonia | New Caledonian |
| Nigeria | Nigerian |
| Norway | Norwegian |
| Panama | Panamanian |
| Peru | Peruvian |
| Romania | Romanian |
| Russia | Russian |
| Saint Helena | Saint Helenian |
| Saint Kitts and Nevis | Kittitian and Nevisian |
| Saint Lucia | Saint Lucian |
| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | Saint Vincentian |
| Saudi Arabia | Saudi Arabian |
| Serbia and Montenegro | Serbian |
| Slovenia | Slovenian |
| Syria | Syrian |
| Tanzania | Tanzanian |
| Trinidad and Tobago | Trinidadian and Tobagonian |
| Tunisia | Tunisian |
| Ukraine | Ukrainian |
| Wallis and Futuna | Wallisian |
| Zambia | Zambian |
[tab:-ean]
| Antilles | Antillean |
| Belize | Belizean |
| Cape Verde | Cape Verdean |
| Chile | Chilean |
| Equatorial Guinea | Equatorial Guinean |
| Eritrea | Eritrean |
| Guinea | Guinean |
| Guinea-Bissau | Guinean |
| Korea | Korean |
| Niue | Niuean |
| Papua New Guinea | Papua New Guinean |
| São Tomé and Príncipe | Sao Tomean |
| Sierra Leone | Sierra Leonean |
| Singapore | Singaporean |
| Zimbabwe | Zimbabwean |
[tab:-an]
| American Samoa | American Samoan |
| Andorra | Andorran |
| Angola | Angolan |
| Anguilla | Anguillan |
| Antigua and Barbuda | Antiguan |
| Aruba | Aruban |
| Central African Republic | Central African |
| Comoros | Comoran |
| Costa Rica | Costa Rican |
| Cuba | Cuban |
| Dominica | Dominican |
| El Salvador | Salvadoran |
| Germany | German |
| Guatemala | Guatemalan |
| Honduras | Honduran |
| Jamaica | Jamaican |
| Kenya | Kenyan |
| Libya | Libyan |
| Mayotte | Mahoran |
| Mexico | Mexican |
| Moldova | Moldovan |
| Morocco | Moroccan |
| Mozambique | Mozambican |
| Nauru | Nauruan |
| Nicaragua | Nicaraguan |
| Palau | Palauan |
| Paraguay | Paraguayan |
| Puerto Rico | Puerto Rican |
| Rwanda | Rwandan |
| Samoa | Samoan |
| South Africa | South African |
| Sri Lanka | Sri Lankan |
| Tokelau | Tokelauan |
| Tonga | Tongan |
| Tuvalu | Tuvaluan |
| Uganda | Ugandan |
| United States of America | American |
| Uruguay | Uruguayan |
| Venezuela | Venezuelan |
| Wallis and Futuna | Futunan |
[tab:-ish]
| Denmark | Danish |
| Finland | Finnish |
| Ireland | Irish |
| Poland | Polish |
| Scotland | Scotish |
| Spain | Spanish |
| Sweden | Swedish |
| Turkey | Turkish |
| United Kingdom | British |
[tab:-i]
| Afghanistan | Afghanistani |
| Azerbaijan | Azerbaijani |
| Bahrain | Bahraini |
| Bangladesh | Bangladeshi |
| Iraq | Iraqi |
| Israel | Israeli |
| Kazakhstan | Kazakhstani |
| Kuwait | Kuwaiti |
| Kyrgyzstan | Kyrgyzstani |
| Oman | Omani |
| Pakistan | Pakistani |
| Qatar | Qatari |
| Saudi Arabia | Saudi |
| Somalia | Somali |
| Tajikistan | Tajikistani |
| Turkmenistan | Turkmenistani |
| United Arab Emirates | Emirati |
| Uzbekistan | Uzbekistani |
| Yemen | Yemeni |
[tab:-ic]
| Greenland | Greenlandic |
| Iceland | Icelandic |
[tab:-er]
| British Virgin Islands | British Virgin Islander |
| Christmas Island | Christmas Islander |
| Cocos (Keeling) Islands | Cocos Islander |
| Cook Islands | Cook Islander |
| Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) | Falkland Islander |
| Guernsey | Channel Islander |
| Jersey | Channel Islander |
| New Zealand | New Zealander |
| Norfolk Island | Norfolk Islander |
| Pitcairn Islands | Pitcairn Islander |
| Solomon Islands | Solomon Islander |
| Virgin Islands | Virgin Islander |
[tab:others]
| Afghanistan | Afghan |
| Argentina | Argentine |
| Botswana | Motswana |
| Burkina Faso | Burkinabe |
| Cyprus | Cypriot |
| Czech Republic | Czech |
| France | French |
| Gibraltar | Gibraltar |
| Greece | Greek |
| Kiribati | I-Kiribati |
| Laos | Lao |
| Lesotho | Basotho |
| Liechtenstein | Liechtenstein |
| Luxembourg | Luxembourg |
| Madagascar | Malagasy |
| Man, Isle of | Manx |
| Monaco | Monegasque |
| Netherlands | Dutch |
| Niger | Nigerien |
| Philippines | Filipino/a |
| Seychelles | Seychellois |
| Slovakia | Slovak |
| Swaziland | Swazi |
| Switzerland | Swiss |
| Thailand | Thai |
| Vanuatu | Ni-Vanuatu |
| Western Sahara | Sahrawi |
[tab:END]
Thomas! You are such an expert! Thanks for such a detailed answer~ =)
Such a comprehensive information! Thanks a lot!
Here’s another question for you: When adding “-ese” to a nation ending in a vowel, what dictates whether to add another letter and which one?
Nothing added:
Faroese (really this could be below, because of the E, but since the final vowel sound is retained I gave it another category)
Final vowel removed:
Sanmarinese
Guyanese
Burmese
Chinese
Maltese
Viennese
Final consonant removed:
Pekinese
Added L:
Congolese
Togolese
Added N:
Balinese
Javanese
Some letters removed, added U:
Portuguese
Some letters removed:
Lebanese
thanks..It’s very very interessant!!! 🙂
why do so many countries name end in the suffix ia as in tunisia, australia etc
This question came to me at 3am this morning and after an hour or so thinking about it I decided to just “google” it and fell asleep. i didn’t think i would find such a comprehensive answer. Cheers!
Thank you very much for this deep and interesting research.
ola jeje 😛 creo que ya le entendi a las nacionalidades
كتيير حلو يسلموا ايديكوا 😉
We discussed recently about demonym and found your web article. We think you have the most logical explanation to date. Any academic linguists supporting your theory as well? By the way, people from Philippines are usually referred to as Filipinos.
Hi! That article appears to be quite interesting.
I wonder if there is a chance to apply any rule to the creation of the word Antlantean.
Latin Atlantē-us , < Atlant- , Atlantan n. and -ean suffix.
🙂
It’s interesting article about what I want to know for a long time. Thanks.
How do you explain it when we in Danish use the suffix -sk e.g. engelsk (English), fransk (French), tysk (German), kinesisk (Chinese) and dansk (Danish).
That was a very interesting read! I might show that image in class for my ESL students when we learn countries and nationalities.
Excellent article. I’ve been wondering about this for so long and have searched for it on the Web without success. I didn’t even know how to describe it! “Nationality suffix” That was the key. Very interesting!
Nationalities and Languages.
Also it is worth adding Languages are nouns, and nationalities are adjectives.
My question is are all language the same as the nationalities, ie He is French, He speaks French. Russian Russian etc
apart from American and English.
are all the others the same?
regards
Natalie 😳
The article is very interesting. I never know about this before. I want to know more about this topic, nationality suffixes. So, would you mind if I would like to ask you for the original research? Thank you for kindness and I look forward to hear from you. 😛
Thank you so much I did realy need that 😉
Scottish with double ‘t’ 😀
Isn’t it quite obvious that every country name ending on ‘n’ or ‘m’ has the suffix -ese? I cannot account for the other country names with the same suffix, but at least this seems to establish one pattern concerning the -ese suffix. I see no exception to this apparent rule.
I am not positive the place you’re getting your info, but good topic.
I must spend some time studying much more or figuring out more.
Thank you for great information I used to be on the lookout for this information for my mission.
There is some nuance to -ese as well. As far as I can tell, in Italian, you use -ese if someone is FROM a place (eg Milano -> Milanese, Bologna -> Bolognese) also note its said more like “-ehhsehh” rather than “-ease”). But if it is someone’s RACE or NATIONAL IDENTITY then it is ended with a respective ‘a/e’ or ‘o/i’ (eg: Italian -> Italiano, Indians -> Indiani).
This is only what I’ve drawn conclusions on, so I might be incorrect on the logic there.
thank you for all that pleesed to send me more country 😮 😳
Words Ending with “ian”
There are Total 293 words Ending with Ian (Suffix). IAN is not a word but only a combination of letters. ian is made up of letters I, A and N.
Example : 1). Antihumanitarian 2). Antitotalitarian 3). Biomathematician 4). Nonauthoritarian
I am an American. I am a Frenchman. I am a Briton. I am a Spaniard. How would I say this sentence if I was Vietnamese?
Good day, Linglish.net…
I hope you can update the information soon…
Nationality of people from the Philippines is FILIPINO.
Thank you.
Woke up this morning wondering about nationality endings – one wonders why !! Found your article – fascinating. Thank you. Answers many questions, but creates more! That’s what learning is all about. 😀
-ese countries were named in the west by Portuguese traders and settlers.
Marco Polo called China “Cathay” and the inhabitants “Cathays”. Bzzzt. Good try though.
As for “-er”, linguistics doesn’t limit itself to “it must be a country”. New Yorkers would be quick to point out that their term doesn’t have a -land in there anywhere. Same goes for hoosiers, though their term is weird and shrouded in mystery. Michiganers, Dubliners, Melbourners, Londoners, and more will join in with them.
An interesting exception to the “-i means Arabic” occurs in Illinois with the natives being called Illini after the native american tribe that the state is named for. However, “-i” and “-ee” are very common first nations suffixes for tribes.
As a writer I have to say thank you so much for this gem of an article!!! Also,conducting research for grammatical confirmation is usually boring. Yet I rather enjoyed reading this one. Kudos on making typically boring subject matter interesting!!!
as a Hmong person, I feel left out as per usual
I lived in Luxembourg and there was often an argument as to how to describe them. Most anglophone residents called them Luxembourgers and they were Luxembourgish.
However newcomers also used terms like Luxembourgian and Luxembourgese, but soon changed!