Talk:Demonym

Should something be added under -ese (similar to -ish)? Bibble 21:39, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

We should probably do more discussion on here! Anyways, I kinda liked lumping the USA in under "countries overwhelmed by European colonists", but I guess there's too much to say about it for it to fit! Adam Mathias 20:44, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

At the rate people are adding their own country, state, or city this will soon be one of the largest articles in the Wikipedia. Len (talk) 16:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know what the proper demonym is for Curaçao or the Netherlands Antilles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.214.196.90 (talk) 00:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

RE: Bosniak

'Bosniak' is used to refer to Muslims from Bosnia, while 'Bosnian' is the general term for people from that country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.237.117.229 (talk) 04:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

RE: Suffixes - are you sure the -ian model is used for Australia?

Surely "Australian" uses the -n model - you add 'n' to Australia. If it uses the -ian model described, the Demonym for Australia would be Australiaian?

RE: Bellingham

Residents of Bellingham are listed under the -er model as 'Hamsters'.. wut??? First off, the suffix used is -ster, not -er. Second, that sounds like slang to me. THIRD, any town which ends in 'ham' would conform to this same convention. I think it should be taken off the list. Kkeeganm (talk) 22:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Taswegian? Seriously?

never heard of it. the Tasmania page lists it as "Tasmanian", which is also listed about 4 million times more on Google. I will change itHypershock (talk) 12:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm also a bit confused about people from Exeter being called Exonians? I'm from Exeter, UK, and never heard that in my 41 years of living there, but perhaps the article is referring to the place called Exeter in the USA? In which case this should perhaps be specified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.30.233.45 (talk) 02:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

RE: Ambiguities

How about the countries of Niger and Nigeria, no one discussed that on the page and I feel it warrents some time. Anyone know how the demonyms of these countries tend to be used? cullen (talk) 16:52, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

No ambiguity here, because of their linguistic differences. Nigeria, the English-speaking, has Nigerians, while Francophone Niger has Nigeriens. Since the "g" is soft in French, the two demonyms sound different as well. BurntSox (talk) 18:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Problems with the Cultural Problems section

The section begins with this:

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. 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. The Dominican Republic has only a demonym-based description for a name.

This really doesn't make a lot of sense. First, the points offered contradict the claim. Iroquois, Aztec, and Maori most certainly do have accepted demonyms, and these are Iroquois, Aztec, and Maori. The second, about national demonyms, also seems flimsy: how is this condition any different from that of most cultures of the world even those that were not "overwhelmed by European colonists"? Look at France, Russia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Iran and many other examples: here there is a "demonym that is the same as the name of their (current or historical) nation". The points about Czechs and the Dominican Republic make even less sense. The Dominican Republic has no real demonym but only a demonym-based description? Wait, if there is no real demonym, how can there be a demonym-based description? And for Czech, the problem seems to be that the author is unaware that in a highly inflected language like Czech the endings will vary for part of speech. But to take three words--Čeština Česko Češi--and then argue that there's something peculiar about this and that this peculiarity is due to European colonialism makes no sense. Lots of peoples have similar triads: Norway, Norse, Norwegian; Finland, Finn, Finnish; Turkey, Turk, Turkish. Interlingua 13:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Seychelles

Seychellois, a proper French demonym formation, belongs in the "Derived from other languages" section. BurntSox (talk) 18:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC)