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Home , Demonym, Ethnonym

Taiwanese, Taiwaner, or Tai-Whiner?: the Confusion of in English

Steven Schäufele Introduction A couple of years ago, i gave a talk in this same forum (Schäufele 1999) on the many synonyms that English has as a result of all its many borrowings from French. Today, i intend to talk about a different but somewhat related topic. Not only does English, partly as a result of its mongrel history, have a large number of synonyms, but it also, partly for the same reason, has a variety of different derivational strategies — different ways of deriving new words from older words. There are a variety of different ways of forming verbs, whether from adjectives (1a) or from nouns (1b); there are a variety of ways of forming nouns from verbs (2); there are many different ways of forming adjectives from nouns (3).

(1) a. modern — modernize b. idol — idolize ripe — ripen orchestra — orchestrate pure — purify beauty — beautify

(2) break — breakage refuse — refusal explore — exploration build — building amaze — amazement

(3) success — successful Kafka — Kafkaesque atom — atomic accident — accidental fool — foolish friend — friendly desire — desirous hair — hairy

Given that English has so many different suffixes to do the same job, the question may well be asked, How does the typical fluent speaker of English choose which suffix to use in any given circumstance? To give just one example — the one that first brought this question to my attention, as a trained musician, How come the adjectival form of ‘Händel’ is ‘Händelian’ but the adjectival form of ‘Haydn’ is ‘Haydenesque’?

(4) a. Händel — Händelian b. Haydn — Haydenesque The Variety of English Ethnonyms I must confess right now that i still haven't gotten a decent answer to this question. But it leads indirectly to the topic i'm addressing today. I've already mentioned that English has a lot of synonyms resulting from its mongrel history; and that, partly for the same reason, English fur-

1 thermore has a variety of ways of deriving new words from words already in the vocabulary. Today i'm going to be talking mostly about derivatives from place-: Given the of a place, a country or or region, how does English refer to the people who come from that place? We will see that, again, English has a number of ways of coining words for this purpose, and that there seem to be patterns to how those different methods are used, though it will proba- bly not surprise you to learn that all the patterns have exceptions. In today's talk, i intend to sur- vey most of the methods English uses for coining derivatives of place-names, and say as much as i can about the perceivable patterns and the reasons why English-speakers choose one method over another, with regard to any particular place-name.

Let's start out with a bit of general terminology. In English, names of places — countries, , regions, hills, rivers, etc. are routinely referred to simply as ‘place-names’. In learnèd, scholarly literature one may occasionally come across the fancy word ‘toponym’, but that's really not quite the same thing. A toponym is literally the name of a place, but is almost always used in reference to geographical features — mountains, rivers, lakes, etc. — not political or cultural units like countries or regions, and here i'm going to be talking mostly about those, so i'm going to be refer- ring throughout today's talk simply to ‘place-names’. The more difficult question is, What do you call the name of a group of people who come from a certain place? Dickson in his 1997 sur- vey favours the word ‘’; in preparing this paper, before i'd been able to get my hands on Dickson's book, i coined the word ‘’. The two words are formally pretty much equivalent; i'm going to stick with ‘ethnonym’ mainly because i'd already settled on it in giving the title of this paper to the dept. office. So basically, if the name of a place is a ‘place-name’, the name of the people who come from that place, or who live in that place, or are somehow or other associated with that place is an ‘ethnonym’. The topic of this paper is, How are ethnonyms in English derived from place-names?

English Ethnonymic Suffixes As i've already indicated, English has several ways of doing this. In particular, English has a variety of suffixes that can be attached to place-names to form ethnonyms; i'm calling these ‘ethnonymic suffixes’. (Towards the end of this paper, i will talk a bit about ethnonyms that are not directly related to the corresponding place-names at all.) In (5) i've listed some of the most important English ethnonymic suffixes, with examples. I'll be talking about each of these in the order given, which is roughly chronological, in the sense that the suffix -ish has been part of English from the earliest days while the others came into English later, from foreign sources.

2 (5) Major English Ethnonymic Suffixes Place-Name Ethnonym Place-Name Ethnonym -(i)sh -er Britain British Londoner French Berliner -(i)an -ite Tibetan Israelite Russian Brooklynite Bostonian -ese -i Milanese Israel Israeli Viennese Iraqi Taiwanese Nepali

The ethnonymic suffix -ish As i've just mentioned, the first of the suffixes in (5) is attested from the earliest period of the history of the , and indeed has cognates in other . In this suffix was spelt ‘-isc’, but it was pronounced almost exactly as it is today. In (6) i give you a few examples of ethnonyms that have come down from this earliest period of English history.

(6) Old English form Modern English form competing alternative form Frencisc French Frank Welisc Welsh Denisc Danish Dane Scottish Scot, Scots, Scotch

As you can see, in many cases there is in Modern English an alternative form that competes with the -ish form. This has remained the case up to the present. The -ish suffix has remained highly productive in all stages of the history of the English language, always being available for the coining of ethnonyms. Nevertheless, there have often been alternative ethnonyms available that have competed with these. I've given a further list in (7), of ethnonyms in -ish formed since the Old English period, and in many cases competing alternative forms as well.

Some comments on these forms, and the alternatives. Note first of all that Modern Standard English has no alternatives for ‘Welsh’ or ‘Irish’; only ‘-ish’ ethnonyms are acceptable in Eng- lish for these . When speaking of France and , English vocabulary recognizes the existence of the alternative forms ‘Frank’ and ‘Fleming’ besides ‘French’ and ‘Flemish’, but these are relatively rare and restricted in usage. In particular, we don't use the word ‘Frank’ to

3 refer to modern-day inhabitants of France; in Modern English the word ‘Frank’ as an ethnonym refers only to the Germanic that invaded Gaul in the 5th century and gave it their name.

(7) Place-Name -ish derivative competing alternative form Eire, Ire(land) Irish Flanders Flemish Fleming (rare) Kentish (person from Kent) Spanish Spaniard Britain British Briton (Brit — only colloquial) Finnish Finn Polish Pole (Polack — derogatory) Swedish Swede Turkish Turk (Greekish) Greek

The issue of an ethnonym derived from the name ‘Kent’, referring to the county in southeastern , is quite peculiar. I refer to Dickson (1997:104), who notes that the county is divided in half by the Medway river, and properly speaking the ethnonym ‘Kentish’ refers only to people liv- ing in the western half of the county, to the west of the Medway. If you live east of the Medway, you are a ‘person from Kent’. There'll always be an England ….

Most of the other -ish ethnonyms in (6–7) are normally used to refer specifically to languages, not to people. A native of is called a Dane; hanns language is called Danish. I don't want to take time here to go into the complex details of when the various forms Scot, Scots, Scotch, and Scottish are appropriate or not. Spain is an interesting case; it's one of the only two places in the world — at least that i know of — whose standard English ethnonym is derived by the suffix -ard. The other, as shown in (8), is , the region where France, , and meet.

(8) Spain > Spaniard Savoy > Savoyard

Most of the other alternative forms in (7) are essentially abbreviations of the relevant place- names: Finn, Pole, Swede, Turk. In all these cases, the derivative formed with the -ish suffix refers to the local language, rarely if ever to the people. This sort of truncation is quite rare and quite irregular, and it is not at all unusual for people who are not perfectly fluent in English to forget that these words exist and to use the -ish derivatives as proper ethnonyms. At the end of the list in (7), i mention the word ‘Greekish’, which was used by Spenser and Shakespeare but is now obsolete; in English, the truncated form ‘Greek’ is used for both the language and the people.

4 The ethnonymic suffix -er. I've just mentioned that from the earliest records English has had an ethnonymic suffix -ish. Well, German has from similar antiquity had an ethnonymic suffix -er, as shown in (9), and English is, after all, historically merely a dialect of German. What is the status of this suffix in English?

(9) (German) Place-Name (German) Ethnonym Berlin Berliner Wien Wiener Brandenburg Brandenburger Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberger München Münchner Frankfurter

The Modern English word ‘milliner’, meaning a maker of hats, is ultimately a redefinition of an ethnonym derived via this suffix from the name of the Italian city Milan, as shown in (10). But this ethnonym, as an ethnonym, has been replaced by ‘Milanese’, which we shall get to later. In general (cf. Marchand §4.30.11), British English has been very reluctant to use the -er suffix in deriving ethnonyms, at least from the names of specific places. I have found only the three in (11) attested.

(10) Milan → Milaner → milliner (帽商)

(11) Londoner; Dubliner; Edinburgher

This last reflects the pattern of the German ‘Hamburger’, the last element in the name ‘Edin- burgh’ being the English equivalent of the German ‘Burg’ as shown in (12). In British English, this element is nowadays normally pronounced [b\‰Š¤], which would lead one to expect ethno- nyms formed on the model of a name like ‘Harrow’ as in (13). My sources, however, mention no British place-names like ‘Knaresborough’, and Dickson (p. 64) quite clearly states that the ethnonym from ‘’ is ‘Edinburgher’, not ‘Edinburovian’ or ‘Edinbrovian’ or anything like that. Those who seek consistency in this issue will seek in vain ….

(12) German Burg English -bur(g)h 城 " (-)borough

(13) Harrow Harrovian Knaresborough ?Knaresborovian Edinburgh ??Edinburovian

5 I am inclined to agree with Marchand, who suggests that many possible -er ethnonyms in (Brit- ish) English are excluded by competition with alternative forms. Thus, as shown in (14), the reason we don't speak of ‘Aberdeeners’ is because those people are called ‘Aberdonians’ (cf. below), and, although the German ethnonym derived from the name ‘England’ is formed with the -er suffix, we don't speak of ‘Englanders’ but of ‘Englishmen’ and ‘-women’, rather as we do of ‘Frenchmen’ and ‘Frenchwomen’.

(14) Place Name (Hypothetical) Ethnonym in -er (Actual) Ethnonym Aberdeener Aberdonian England Englander (cf. German Änglander) Englishman, -woman, etc.

British English has shown itself more willing to accept ethnonyms in -er derived from non- British place-names, as in (15). And derivatives from more general geographic terms such as those in (16) are routinely formed via the suffix -er. For this reason, almost all countries and regions whose names in English end in the word ‘island(s)’ have the word ‘islander’ as part of their ethnonyms; cf. (17).1

(15) Place Name Ethnonym Icelander New Zealander

(16) General Geographical Term Related Ethonym south(ern) southerner west(ern) westerner border(s) borderer highland(s) highlander mainland mainlander island islander

(17) Balearic Islander Channel Islands Channel Islander Marsall Islands Marshall Islander (also Marshallese) Islands Orkney Islander (also Orcadian) Pacific Islands Pacific Islander Pitcairn Island Pitcairn Islander Shetland Islands Shetland Islander Solomon Islander

1In spite of the fact that, in keeping with the principle outlined below, i would prefer to refer to natives of the Solomon Islands as ‘Solomonese’!

6 The -er suffix is much more productive in English, being used not only with the names of cities but with the names of some larger units, i.e. states or regions, as shown in (18). In particular, almost all American place-names ending in ‘-burg(h)’ form their ethnonyms on the pattern of ‘Hamburger’. The one exception i know of is Gettysburg, PA, whose natives, accor- ding to Dickson (p. 77), are referred to as ‘Gettysburgians’. The second ethnonym under (18c) is one i have come across more often than i would like; i personally prefer to refer to these French- speaking people by the French ethnonym ‘Québécois’, as they refer to themselves.

(18) Place Name Ethnonym a. New New Yorker Clevelander Detroiter New Haven New Havener Pittsburger b. Vermonter New Englander New Brunswicker Yukoner c. Gettysburg Gettysburgian Quebecker (Québécois)

The suffix -er is, in fact, one of the three most popular ethnonymic suffixes in American English (the other two being -ian and -ite). While i cannot offer a complete explanation of this fact, i am sure that influence from a relatively large German-speaking , dating from before the Revolution and continuing well into the 20th century, has contributed to it.

The ethnonymic suffix -(i)an During the Middle Ages, the suffixes -an, -ian began being used, primarily on the example of French, to derive ethnonyms. The existence of Latin words such as those in (19) probably encou- raged this, although these names were not originally ethnonyms themselves.2 The suffix -(i)an eventually became the most popular ethnonymic suffix in the English language.

2In Classical Latin, Africanus was a personal name, not the name of a ; a native of was called Afer. But during the Middle Ages, forms such as Etruscanus and Tuscanus began being more commonly used than the older Etruscus and Tuscus.

7 (19) (Place Names) Mediæval Latin Ethnonyms (Africa) Africanus, Africani () Asianus, Asiani (Aquitaine) Aquitanus, Aquitani () Germanus, Germani (Hispania = Spain) Hispanus, Hispani (Lusitania = ) Lusitanus, Lusitani

Marchand (1969:247) notes that place-names in -a tend to give rise to ethnonyms in -an; witness the examples in (20). There are, however, a couple of notorious (near-)exceptions to this rule, shown in (21): People in call themselves Bahamians, and refuse to accept any alter- native label. The form ‘Canadian’ (as opposed to ‘Canadan’) is the result of influence from the French ‘canadien’. Over time, however, derivatives in -ian began to outnumber those in -an, mainly because there were statistically more place-names ending in -ia than in -a. Witness all the examples in (22a). The pattern was extended even to ‘’. ‘Burgundian’, derived from Latin ‘Burgundia’, was borrowed into English before the evolution of the English form of the place-name ‘’. A large number of ethnonyms and quasi-ethnonyms in -ian were bor- rowed into English during the 16th century, making the suffix that much more popular; witness the examples in (23).

(20) Place Name Ethnonym Place Name Ethnonym America American Alaskan Corsican Guatamala Guatamalan Jamaican Korean Okinawa Okinawan Topeka Topekan

(21) a. Bahamas Bahamian (not ‘Bahaman’) b. Canadian (not ‘Canadan’)

(22) Place Name Ethnonym a. Phrygia Phrygian Persia Persian Indian Syrian Lydia Lydian Arabia Arabian Italia Italian b. Paris Parisian c. Burgundia Burgundian > Burgundy

8 (23) Place Name Ethnonym Place Name Ethnonym Austrian Bohemian Caledonia (=) Caledonian Carinthian Carpathia Carpathian Cilician Dalmatian Esthonian Etruria Etrurian Iberia Iberian Ionia Ionian Russia Russian

During the late Middle Ages, English adopted Latinized versions of many place-names that justified derivatives in -ian. This is the origin of the rather idiosyncratic ethnonyms in (24), some of which have confused or amused many people.

(24) Place Name Latinized version Ethnonym Aberdeen Aberdonia Aberdonian Cantabrigia Cantabrigian Norvegia Norwegian Glasvegia Glaswegian Oxonia Oxonian Winchester Wincastria Wincastrian

Meanwhile, the -ian suffix was also used to form derivatives from personal names ending in -on, as in (25). This pattern encouraged its extension to a few place-names that had not been particu- larly Latinized; cf. (26). However, beyond these there is only one (non-European) place name that ends in a consonant that in English forms an ethnonym in -an: Tibet (cf. (27)).

(25) Personal Name Derived Adjective Bacon Baconian Addison Addisonian Byron Byronian Milton Miltonian

(26) Place Name Ethnonym Boston Bostonian Devonian Bristolian

(27) Tibet Tibetan

The issue of whether to use -an or -ian is often confusing, especially in America. In some cases you find both forms of the suffix being used interchangeably with the same place name, e.g. the examples in (28). It is usually possible, in such cases, to identify one variant as being preferred

9 — but there seems to be no way of predicting which it will be; i've underlined the preferred forms in (28).

(28) Place Name Ethnonym Alabaman/Alabamian Bermudan/Bermudian Arizonan/Arizonian

With regard to place-names ending in -o, seem to be acutely conscious of the difference between those that are of Romantic (mostly Spanish) origin and those that are not. Romantic place-names in -o get ethnonyms in -an as in (29a); others get ethnonyms in -oan or -onian as in (29b).

(29) Place Name Ethnonym a. Mexican Puerto-Rico Puerto-Rican Sacramento Sacramentan San Franciscan b. Chicagoan Buffalo Buffalonian Torontonian

The ethnonymic suffix -ite The English ethnonymic suffix -ite derives ultimately from Greek, in which the suffix -ιτης was very productive. Many forms that had been derived in Greek in this way were subsequently borrowed into English in the context of Christianity; cf. (30).3 However, new coinages in -ite didn't begin appearing in English until the 19th century; cf. the handful of examples in (31). In this respect, -ite is also like -er: It's much more popular in American than in British English. While literally only a handful of British ethnonyms are formed with the -ite suffix, there are hundreds in . The list in (32) is only scratching the surface, being limited to cities of some at least regional importance.4

3Note that, in English, the ethnonym ‘Israelite’ is used only in a historical context. The modern ethnonym derived from ‘Israel’ is ‘Israeli’, for which cf. below. 4The last of these, the ethnonym for ‘’, may be influenced by its close similarity to ‘sattelite’ — it sounds kinda high-tech, for a city that is an important center for future-oriented industry.

10 (30) Place Name Ethnonym Israel Isrealite Moab Moabite Sodom Sodomite

(31) Clapham Claphamite Durham Durhamite Sidney Sidneyite

(32) Place Name Ethnonym Place Name Ethnonym Akron, Akronite Ames, Amesite Anchorage, Alaska Anchorageite Aspen, Aspenite Austin, TX Austinite Berkeley, CA Berkeleyite , PA Bethlehemite Billings, MT Billingsite Boulder, CO Boulderite Cheyenne, WY Cheyenneite Erie, PA Erieite Laramie, WY Laramieite Macon, GA Maconite Seattle, WA Seattleite

Especially remarkable is the frequency of use of -ite with place-names in and around City, including four of the five boroughs that make up the City;5 cf. (33). There are also a few place-names well outside America — mostly in Asia — for which ethnonyms in -ite have been coined; cf. (34).

(33) Borough or other part of Ethnonym Suburb of New York City Ethnonym Bronxite Camden, NJ Camdenite Brooklyn Brooklynite Hackensack, NJ Hackensackite Manhatten Manhattenite Hoboken, NJ Hobokenite Queensite Pelham, NY Pelhamite The Bowery Boweryite Yonkers, NY Yonkersite

(34) Place Name Ethnonym Bombay Bombayite Delhite Tokyoite

5The one exception is the borough of , whose residents are presumably ‘Staten Islanders’.

11 The ethnonymic suffix -ese The Latin suffix -ensem became -ese [eze] in Italian, and it is in this form that it was borrowed into English. Contrary to what has sometimes been claimed,6 the English ethnonymic suffix -ese probably does not derive via OF -eis, since by the time English began acquiring words in -ese, OF -eis had already evolved into the Early Modern form -ois. Among the earliest English ethno- nyms in -ese are those in (35), all of which were borrowed from Italian; i've given the dates of their first attestations in English, according to the OED.

(35) Milanese 1484 Genoese 1553 Portuguese 1586 Japanese 1604 Cingalese 1613 Maltese 1615 Javanese 1704 Viennese 1839

Among these borrowings was ‘Chinese’, first attested in English in 1644, which replaced the previously-attested form ‘Chinish’, derived by the much more native English suffix -ish mentioned earlier. On the other hand, some ethnonyms in -ese that were borrowed from Italian were them- selves superseded by other forms derived using other suffixes that have already been mentioned; cf. (36b).7

(36) a. Chinish 1577 Chinese 1644 b. Genevese 1650 Genevan 1843 Tyrolese 1809 Tyrolean 1859 Tyroler 1887

By the end of the 18th century, English was happily extending the -ese suffix to the formation of new ethnonyms; cf. (37) for examples. Among these, i would note further, as i did in the case of ‘Chinese’, that the form ‘Sudanese’, first attested in 1875, within a generation had superseded the alternative forms ‘Sudanian’ and ‘Sudani’.

(37) Place Name Ethnonym Place Name Ethnonym Annam Annamese Bernese Burma Burmese Ceylon Ceylonese Faroese Nepal Nepalese Peking Pekinese Senegalese

(38) Sudanian 1842–1908 Sudani/Sudany 1896–1906 Sudanese 1875–

6Including, i must confess, by me before i'd investigated the matter adequately. Cf. Marchand §4.33.

7I've underlined in (36) the forms that are most standard nowadays, at least to my knowledge.

12 It is worth noting that, when referring to natives & residents of Italian cities & regions such as Milan, , , etc. by ethnonyms in -ese we are merely, within the limits of English pronunciation, calling them by the names they use for themselves. To some extent the same is true of many of the -ese ethnonyms used in referring to people from such as the Ne- palese or the Ceylonese, since the -ese suffix represents in part an approximation of the indige- nous ethnonymic suffix. This fact and the fact that it already existed in English as a result of the borrowings from Italian merely reinforce each other.

The ethnonymic suffix -i The last of the ‘major’ ethnonymic suffixes mentioned in (5) isn't perhaps all that ‘major’. The suffix -i is used in English only with place-names in the and South Asia. It is, however, used a lot for such places, witness (39), which is why i tend to regard it as a ‘major’ ethnonymic suffix. However, Bauer (1983:253–55) notes that even in reference to places in this part of the world the -i suffix is not used universally. In (40), i've reproduced Bauer's examples of -i ethnonyms that don't exist in English, due in Bauer's view to the prior existence in English of the alternative forms formed with more productive suffixes.

(39) Place Name Ethnonym Place Name Ethnonym Israel Israeli Iraq Iraqi Pakistani Bangladeshi Qatari Gujarati Azerbaijani Lahori Jaipuri Nagpuri Baghdadi Kuwaiti Yemeni Omani Tehrani Beiruti

(40) (unattested) -i ethnonym actually attested alternative *Egypti Egyptian *Irani Iranian *Lebanoni Lebanese

It's worth noting that, as with the -ese suffix, to a great extent the -i suffix in English is motivated by pure borrowing; in calling the citizens of Israel ‘Israelis’ and the residents of Nagpur ‘Nagpuris’, we are merely doing our best, within the limits of English pronunciation and grammar, to call them what they call themselves; the -i suffix is the productive ethnonymic suffix in most of the languages of this region of the world. In this connection, i would note further with regard to the fact that, as indicated in (40), we don't have the word ‘Egypti’, neither do the Egyptians. They don't call themselves ‘Egypti’ any more than we do, for the simple reason that they don't call their country ‘’. ‘Egypt’ is a Greek name; the Arabic name for this country is ‘Misr’, and

13 therefore the (Arabic-speaking) inhabitants call themselves ‘Misri’. We don't, of course, because the vast majority of English-speakers haven't the slightest idea where or what ‘Misr’ is.

There is, however, evidence that at least a significant number of English-speakers recognize the -i suffix as an appropriate suffix to use at least in connection with this particular region of the world. The forms ‘Iraqi’ and ‘Kashmiri’ don't appear to have been borrowed into English; rath- er, they were coined afresh in this language, independently of their existence in any other language. Writers of English-language fiction creating fictious Middle-Eastern or South-Asian cities and countries for their stories routinely use the -i suffix in referring to their inhabitants. I myself am inclined to refer to the citizens of as ‘Singapuri’, on the basis of the Sanskritic origin of the city's name, instead of the more commonly-used ethnonym ‘Singaporean’.

Minor Ethnonymic Suffixes So far this paper has consisted mostly of a survey of ethnonymic suffixes in English. Before passing on to the more substantive discussion, i want to mention a few examples of ethnonymic suffixes — or affixes — that are used very rarely, for only a very small number of place-names. I've mentioned (cf. (8)) the two ethnonyms formed with the suffix -ard. Another very rarely- used suffix is -ene/-ine, used apparently only for a handful of cities in northern Africa, as shown in (41). The word ‘Algerine’, commonly used about 200 years ago, is obsolete now; a citizen of the Republic of is called an ‘Algerian’; a resident of the capital city is called nowadays, even in English, by the French name ‘Algérois’. The word ‘Tangerine’ is still used, however, to refer to a native or resident of , ; the fruit commonly known as a ‘tangerine’ was originally called a ‘tangerine orange’. (橘子)

(41) Place Name Ethnonym Algiers Algerine (archaic) (now Algérois) Tangiers Tangerine Cairene

I have mentioned earlier, in connection with the suffixes -ese and -i, the importance in some cases of calling people by the label they use for themselves, insofar as this is consistent with English . The ultimate examples of this concern, i suppose, might be those in (42) involving a couple of Pacific Island nations whose indigenous languages are Austronesian and therefore form ethnonyms by means of prefixes.

(42) Place Name Ethnonym ni-Vanuatu i-Kiribati

14 Finally, there are some places whose ethnonyms are somewhat idiosyncratic, such as those in (43) that are formed by means that are not exactly like those of any other ethnonym i know of.8

(43) Place Name Ethnonym Shanghailander Sydneysider Michigander

Which Suffix to Use When? So far, i've been engaged in a survey of major ethnonymic suffixes in English. But, as stated at the beginning of this paper, a big part of what's motivating me is a desire to understand why, giv- en that English has such a variety of suffixes for the same purpose, a particular suffix is chosen in a particular situation and not another.

There has been very little work done on this question. Very few linguists have seriously investi- gated this area, so i'm kind of pioneering uncharted territory here. What i'm about to say contains a good deal of speculation. I've considered what sorts of place-names each ethnonymic suffix tends to get attached to. I've tried to define ‘types’ of place-names in terms of phonology — of superficial phonological form and pronunciation — and in terms of ethnic background and histo- ry. In many cases, these categories have proved useful, but there may be others that are relevant that i haven't thought of. And please remember what i said earlier about consistency being sought in vain. It will be found that the conditions for different suffixes overlap somewhat with those of others, so that for any given place-name more than one suffix may be appropriate. Besides which, the conditions i'm about to lay out are not strict, so that it occasionally happens that a par- ticular place name takes a suffix whose criteria it does not actually meet. At least at this time, it seems to me that such defects of predictability must be referred to the vagaries of common taste.

For what it's worth, i offer in (44) what conclusions i have been able to come up with.

(44) a. -(i)an favoured for names ending in vowels or nasals (/m/, /n/), especially if these are of Western European (or Native American) origin. b. -er favoured (in American English) for names ending in oral stops (/p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/), especially if they're (perceived to be) of Germanic, or at least NW Euro- pean, origin. c. -ite favoured in American English to avoid either the perceived ordinariness of -ian or its accent-shifting effect.

8I include ‘Shanghailander’ because it’s given in Dickson 1997. However, everybody I have been able to consult on my own on this subject has rejected it. Among my informants, the form ‘Shanghainese’ seems to be preferred.

15 d. -i favoured only for place-names in the Middle East and South Asia, especially if they end in consonants. e. -ese favoured for foreign place-names that end in nasals (/m/, /n/) or liquids (/l/, /r/).

The suffix -(i)an seems to be favoured for names ending in vowels or nasals (especially /n/). It may be significant, however, that those place-names ending in /n/ that take the -ian suffix end specifically in -on; i don't know of any place-names ending in e.g. -an that take -ian. From the point of view of ethnic background, the place-names that take -(i)an are overwhelmingly of Western European or Native American origin.9

It was noted earlier that, apart from its usage with generic geographical terms, -er functions as an ethnonymic suffix more commonly in American than in British English. Among American placenames, it seems to be particularly favoured for those ending in oral stops, especially if they're at least perceived to be of Germanic or at least Northwestern European origin.10 There are very few placenames ending in nasals or liquids that take -er as an ethnonymic suffix.

At first glance, there seems to be very little rhyme or reason to the choice of -ite as an ethnonymic suffix, at least in American English (it's not much used in British English); the placenames men- tioned in (32) seem to be all over the map phonologically if not geographically. In particular, many of them seem to meet the conditions already mentioned for the suffix -ian. How come we have the -ite forms in (45) and not the -ian forms?

(45) attested ethnonyms in -ite unattested ethnonyms in -ian Akronite *Akronian Austinite *Austinian Aspenite *Aspenian Berkeleyite *Berkeleyan Cheyenneite *Cheyennian Erieite *Erian Laramieite *Laramian Maconite *Maconian

I suspect there are at least two reasons, both of them negative. One may be simply a desire to avoid the suffix -(i)an because it's perceived as too conventional, too ‘ordinary’ — the same kind of desire that motivates some parents to give their children unusual names. Another is a

9I don't know if there is a similar tendency in , New Zealand, etc. to attach the -(i)an suffix to indigenous placenames of the appropriate phonological form. 10I admit, however, that i am inclined to refer to myself and my neighbours as ‘Taipeiers’ rather than, say, ‘Taipeites’. Again, perfect consistency is not to be looked for in this area.

16 little more complicated and involves a detail of the grammar of the -ian suffix. It's a peculiar characteristic of this suffix that, when it's added to a word, that word must be accented on the syllable immediately preceding the suffix — no matter where the accent falls on the stem. So in many cases adding the suffix -ian results in the accent shifting towards the right, away from the beginning of the word;11 cf. (46).

(46) Paris Parisian Burgundy Burgundian Canada Canadian Addison Addisonian Buffalo Buffalonian

There is increasingly in present-day English, especially in America, a tendency to try to avoid suffixes like these, a growing attitude that derivatives should be pronounced as much as possible like their stems.12 And i strongly suspect this has a lot to do with the choice of -ite over -ian in the words in (45), since -ite unlike -ian has no noticeable affect on the accent of the word it's attached to.13

The suffix -i, as already noted, is restricted to placenames from a particular part of the world, and even among those seems to be restricted to those ending in consonants. I don't think any more needs to be said about it.

The suffix -ese seems to prefer, at least in English, being attached to placenames ending in either nasals or liquids.14 In this it would seem to overlap with the suffix -(i)an. However, it is important to note that English seems to prefer to reserve the -ese suffix to recognizably foreign placenames. Thus, we get the discrepancies in (47). In general, -ese is added to English and American place- names only marginally.

11In technical jargon, -ian is a ‘Class I’ or ‘root’ suffix, while -ite is a ‘Class II’ or ‘word’ suffix which doesn't affect the accent of the word it attaches to. 12The fact that the forms in (26), involving the accent-shift, are tolerated is probably due to in great part to their ven- erability, in that they are all coined in 16th-century England, long before any dialect of English had seriously adopted -ite as a productive ethonymic suffix. 13This suspicion is reinforced by the attempt to maintain the details of spelling between the stem and the derivative by, e.g., preserving the ‘mute e’ in words such as ‘Cheyenneite’ or ‘Laramieite’ where it serves absolutely no visi- ble purpose other than to make sure the derivatives look like, as well as sound like, their stems as much as possible. 14It may be asked, given that ‘’ ends in neither a nasal or a liquid but in a vowel, how it fits these criteria. The answer, at least in part, is that ‘Chinese’ is derived ultimately from 秦 /ch'in/.

17 (47) Foreign Placename Ethnonym in -ese American Placename Ethnonym in -ian Gabonese Hamilton Hamiltonian Luzon Luzonese Burlington Burlingtonian

A Digression on Derogation I've said that, in drawing up the tentative criteria in (44) for deciding which ethnonymic suffix ‘belongs’ with which placename, i've concentrated on details of phonology and history, and that ‘there may be others that are relevant that i haven't thought of’. Well, there is one area that some might say is quite important but which i have overlooked, namely racist attitudes. It has been suggested — i have no idea who started this rumour — that the -ese suffix is inherently derogatory, that the reason it tends, as noted in (44e), to be restricted to foreign placenames is that we Americans use it to express our contempt, our disdain for such foreign places and their people. It's claimed that names like ‘Chinese’, ‘Japanese’, ‘Vietnamese’, and ‘Taiwanese’ are inherently derogatory, condescending, and degrading, and that the people of Taiwan should militate to replace their standard, recognized ethnonym with something more honourable — say, ‘Taiwaner’.

Let me say, first of all, that WHEN the English-speaking community among Taiwan's citizens reaches a consensus as to what they want the rest of the world to call them, they have a perfect right to be called whatever they like.

Let me, secondly, grant that some derivatives in -ese in English have some (slightly) derogatory connotations; i've given a few examples in (48). These tend, however, to refer not to ethnic groups but to language or linguistic usage; these are labels for types of slang, basically.

(48) journalese officialese jargonese Americanese New Yorkese

Let me grant, thirdly, that in German -ese ethnonyms have acquired derogatory overtones, and so in that language ‘Japanese’ and ‘Albanese’ have been replaced by ‘Japaner’ and ‘Albaner’ as ethnonyms and by ‘Japanisch’ and ‘Albanisch’ for the languages, as shown in (49). The Germans probably never called the natives of the Hapsburg capital ‘Viennese’; they were probably always ‘Wiener’. The fact that French, English, etc. continue to use the Italian-derived ethnonym reflects the relative cosmopolitanism of this city, as compared to e.g. Berlin.

(49) Place Name -ese Derivative Accepted (German) Accepted (German) (still standard in Italian) Ethnonym Label for Language Japanese Japaner Japanisch Albanese Albaner Albanisch

Fourthly, i will allow that the OED suggests that the suffix -ite, which is also used to form labels for political parties and their members (cf. (50)), may have derogatory value. That's the OED, a

18 British source, and as already noted the Brits don't normally use -ite as an ethnonymic suffix, so it may very well be that on the relatively rare occasions when they do it may have some deroga- tory implications. But that is as much as i will concede. I would deny that, to an American like myself, there is any derogatory value to any of the ethnonyms in (32). In the course of this study, i have found no evidence that, in American English at least, any of the six major ethnonymic suf- fixes listed in (5) carries any inherent derogatory value.

(50) Labourite Russellite Campbellite

It has been claimed that some Americans actually agree that there is derogatory force to the -ese suffix. I don't know who those Americans are that are being referred to here; the people making this claim never polled me on the subject. I daresay it's true that you can find Americans who will admit to despising ‘Japanese’ or ‘Vietnamese’. Many of them are probably men of my father's generation who fought the Japanese in WWII or of my own generation who fought the Vietnamese in the reprehensible conflict in that country. Many of these people, as a result of their wartime experiences, developed a lamentable degree of animosity against Orientals in general, and some have never gotten over this, and for them the words ‘Japanese’, ‘Vietnamese’, and by extension ‘Chinese’ and ‘Taiwanese’, are labels for the people they fear and hate. But so are ‘Korean’, ‘Cambodian’, ‘Laotian’, ‘Indonesian’, ‘Mongolian’, or even ‘Filippino’ — even though these ethnonyms don't involve the -ese suffix.

For any one of the standard suffixes used in English to form ethnonyms, you can easily find a few words formed with that suffix that some people have negative attitudes towards. Even the oldest, the most venerable of English ethnonymic suffixes isn't immune from this. You can rea- dily find Americans who despise the ‘Irish’ or the ‘Polish’; does that mean that ‘British’ is also a derogatory label? How about the most commonly-used suffix: I've already mentioned that there are Americans who despise ‘Koreans’ and ‘Cambodians’, not to mention ‘’ and ‘’; does that mean we should, out of ‘political correctness’, stop referring to ‘Austrians’ or ‘Norwegians’ or, for that matter, ‘Americans’? And even the -er suffix that is being suggested as a ‘less derogatory’ substitute for -ese in ‘Taiwanese’: Let me tell you that, after 8 years of an Arkansawyer President, a president who among other things has an amazing talent for inspiring irrational hatred among his political foes, there are quite a few Americans who are prepared to foam at the mouth at the sound of the word ‘Arkansawyer’.

(51) Because some Americans despise … … should we stop referring to … ? a. Irish Polish British b. Koreans Cambodians Austrians Norwegians Mexicans Puerto Ricans Americans

19 (52) Place Name Ethnonym Arkansawyer

At this point i can't help passing on something that one of my best students pointed out to me when she first brought me news of this rumour about the inherent derogatory value of ‘Taiwanese’. What about the labels in (53)? Is anybody seriously suggesting that these are derogatory labels? Because they must be, if the -ese suffix is itself inherently derogatory. Yet these, especially ‘Milanese’ and ‘Viennese’, are names which for us are redolent of high culture, associated with cities deeply admired and, to some extent, envied and emulated throughout the West for their rich cultural heritage.

(53) Bernese Bolognese Milanese Navarrese Veronese Viennese

It seems to me — and again, i've merely been thinking about this and studying the matter from time to time, off and on, during the past year and a half or so; i haven't done any rigorous scientific study to back up what i'm about to say — but i've noticed, in general, that, once an ethnonym has been established, any alternative, formed by means of any other suffix, is likely to sound derogatory, at least for a while. The attitude is basically as represented in (54); in each case, the implication is, ‘What are you trying to suggest? Have you got something against these people?’

(54) ‘We've always called them “New Yorkers”; why are you suddenly calling them “New Yorkites”?’ " “Alaskans”; " “Alaskers”?’ " “Mexicans”; " “Mexicaners”?’

This tendency, i suspect, isn't restricted to English. In French, the standard label for my nationa- lity is ‘Américain’, but there is a non-standard, sort of slangy alternative, ‘Amerlogue’. This word is slightly derogatory; they use it to tease us. It conveys a sense of ‘Those poor Yanks; it's sad, but you can't blame them; it's not their fault thay don't have any culture’. And at the same time there's a bit of an affectionate tone about it: ‘Aw, those poor kids!’

(55) Standard French Ethnonym Substandard, Derogatory French Ethnonym Américain Amerlogue

It's also worth noting, in this context, that the label ‘Chinaman’ is derogatory while ‘Englishman’ and ‘Frenchman’ are not. This is to a great extent because, whereas ‘Englishman’ and ‘French- man’, sexist as they are, are simply the established, standard labels for these people, ‘Chinaman’ is not and never has been. By the time Americans began referring to those yellow-skinned, almond-eyed, braid-wearing invaders setting up laundries and noodle shops in pejora- tively as ‘Chinamen’, the label ‘Chinese’ had been around in English for over 200 years.

20 (56) Not Derogatory Derogatory Englishman, Frenchman Chinaman

All that being said, i will return to what i said a little while ago. If those Taiwanese who are English-speakers develop a consensus that the label ‘Taiwanese’ is pejorative, there is nothing i can do to convince them otherwise. It's true that the name ‘Taiwan’ doesn't quite fit the criteria for any of the other major ethnonymic suffixes discussed here, not even -ian and certainly not -er, but as i have already conceded these criteria are flexible. I'm only a linguist, and a native speaker of American English. Scientific facts do not and cannot have the control over language that social perceptions do. The Taiwanese people have the right of self-determination, and that includes the right to decide for themselves what they want the rest of the world to call them.

However, BEWARE OF THE TENDENCY TO SEEK FOR PEJORATIVE CONNOTATIONS IN LABELS. For if you seek diligently, you will find them — whether they're there or not! The African-American community has historically felt a need to rename itself every generation or so, because every label they assume ends up acquiring pejorative connotations in the minds of some people. Beware! If the people who are highly respected by their American friends under the label ‘Taiwanese’ choose instead to call themselves ‘Taiwaners’, they run a serious danger of being regarded by English- speakers as ‘Tai-whiners’! You Say ‘Po-Tay-Toe’, and I Say ‘Puh-Tah-Tuh’ … An interesting sidelight on this whole issue of place-names and ethnonyms and the relationships between them has to do with the existence in the world of different places that share the same name, or nearly the same name, and the ethnonyms associated therewith.

In some cases, the exact same ethnonym is used in reference to both places. For instance, the word ‘Albanian’ refers to both natives of the Republic of Albania and citizens of Albany, the capital of the State of New York.15 Likewise, both the full form ‘Cantabrigian’ and the abbre- viation ‘Cantab’ can be used for residents of either Cambridge, the ‘real one’ or the ‘substandard imitation in ’ (sic Pullum 1991:72). Anybody who comes from ‘Troy’ is a ‘Trojan’, whether that Troy is any of the cities found by Schliemann on the original site in Turkey or any modern city with the same name. Other examples of this kind of thing can be found in (57).

15It is reported that a recent immigrant to the New York State capital was amazed to see, on the front of a local bank, a sign declaring ‘20,000 Bank Here’ — assuming the reference was to an unusually large immigrant community from Southeastern , rather than merely to the local populace in general.

21 (57) Place Place Ethnonym a. Republic of Albania Albany, NY Albanian b. Cambridge, England Cambridge, MA Cantabrigian (‘Cantab’ for short) c. Troy (whether in ancient Anatolia, modern New York, or elsewhere) Trojan d. Portland, ME Portland, OR Portlander e. Portsmouth, NH Portsmouth, VA Portsmouthite f. Syracuse, Italy Syracuse, NY Syracusan g. , DC Washington, State of Washingtonian

Some places have names that are very similar to each other, and likewise ethnonyms that are very similar to each other, to the point of being virtually indistinguishable at least in pronunciation. I've given a few examples in (58), including Worcester, Massachusetts and Wooster, Ohio, whose names are pronounced alike in spite of the fact that the Massachusetts city preserves the British spelling while the Ohio city's name is spelled more ‘phonetically’. A native of , GA can be called either an ‘Atlantian’ or an ‘Atlantan’, though the latter is preferred (cf. (28)); a denizen of the mythical continent of is usually referred to as either an ‘Atlantean’ or an ‘Atlantan’; i haven't been able to get any clear sense of whether either of these is preferred over the other.

(58) Place Ethnonym Place Ethnonym a. Nigerien Nigerian b. , TX Dallasite The Dalles, OR Dallesite c. Worcester, MA Worcesterite Wooster, OH Woosterite d. Atlanta, GA Atlantian/Atlantan Atlantis Atlantean/Atlantan

In other cases, (slightly) different ethnonyms are used for the different places, and these differen- ces often reflect interesting differences either in history or in language. In (59), the British eth- nonyms ‘Brum’, ‘Dunelmian’, ‘Mancunian’, ‘Lindunian’, and ‘North Anglian’ reflect archaic derivations from older forms of the placenames, while the corresponding American ethnonyms are rather more transparent.

(59) a. , England Brum Birmingham, AL Birminghamian b. Durham, England Dunelmian Durham, NC Durhamite c. , England Mancunian Manchester, CT Manchesterite d. Lincoln, UK Lindunian, Lincolnian Lincoln, Lincolnite e. Norfolk, UK North Anglian Norfolk, NB Norfolkan Norfolk, VA Norfolkian

22 In (60), the European ethnonyms reflect the general Germanic preference for the suffix -er even when English-speakers, in these cases Americans, prefer a different option. The discrepancies in (61) reflect the preference for limiting the suffix -ese to foreign placenames while using -ian or -ite instead for American ones, even if they happen to be identical. The discrepancy in (62) is a little more complex. The residents of the Russian capital do not call themselves ‘Muscovites’; their preferred ethonym in Russian is Moskovski. But in English, the word ‘Muscovite’ has a venerable heritage, being attested as far back as the mid-16th century and having been used by Shakespeare himself in Love's Labours Lost.16 The form used for the city in , on the other hand, reflects the above-mentioned preference for keeping the derivative as close to the stem, in both pronunciation and spelling, as possible. The forms in (63) simply reflect different prefer- ences in different American cities that happen in each case to share the same name, thereby proving that it is impossible to predict with certainty, purely on the basis of phonology and ethnic history, which suffix a given placename ‘should’ take. (60) a. Frankfurt, Germany Frankfurter Frankfort, KY Frankfortian b. , Amsterda(m)mer Amsterdam, NY Amsterdamian (61) a. Canton, China Canton, Ohio Cantonian b. , Republic of Lebanese Lebanon, PA Lebanonian c. Marshallese Marshall, TX Marshallite (62) , Russia Muscovite Moscow, Idaho Moscowite (63) a. Columbus, MS Columbian Columbus, OH/GA/IN/NB Columbusite b. , MA Plymouthian Plymouth, PA Plymouthite c. Richmond, IN/CA Richmondite Richmond, VA Richmonder d. Rochester, NY Rochesterian Rochester, IN Rochesterite

Citizens of Charleston are called ‘Charlestonians’, whether they are citizens of or West . However, West Virginians who live in Charles Town (as opposed to Charles- ton) are called ‘Charles Towners’, while residents of the Boston suburb of Charlestown (which is named after the river that passes through it) are called simply ‘Townies’.

(64) Place Name Ethnonym Charleston, SC Charlestonian Charleston, WV Charlestonian Charles Town, WV Charles Towner Charlestown, MA Townie

16The (rather unusual for the time) use of what is historically a Greek ethnonymic suffix may have been encouraged by the fact that Muscovites are traditionally affiliated with the Greek form of Christianity.

23 Natives of Cheshire and in England are both called ‘Cestrians’, although the people in Cheshire are sometimes colloquially referred to as ‘Cats’, after the local breed made famous by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland. However, residents of Chester, PA are called ‘Chesterites’.

(65) Place Name Ethnonym Cheshire, England Cestrian (‘Cat’) Chester, England Cestrian Chester, PA Chesterite

… and Some People Just Say ‘Spud’! Then there are those ethnonyms that show little or no linguistic, morphological resemblance to the relevant place-names at all. To Americans at least, the best-known example is the state of , whose citizens call themselves ‘’ and won't accept any other label — certainly not ‘Indianans’. Many of the members of the U.S. have Native American names, and two of these names have proved particularly unwilling to accept any of the standard English ethnonymic suffixes. Many attempts have been made to derive acceptable labels for the citizens of Connec- ticut and Massachusetts from the names of these states, but the only labels that seem to be really usable in ordinary, everyday English are derived not from the official names of these states but from their common , ‘The Nutmeg State’ and ‘The Bay State’, respectively.

(66) Place Name Ethnonym Indiana Nutmeger Massachusetts Bay Stater

H. L. Mencken in 1936 reported concerning the inhabitants of Schenectady, NY, that they ‘will answer sheepishly to the name of Schenectadian, but … greatly prefer Dorpian from the ancient Dutch designation of the town.’ ‘Dorp’ is Dutch for ‘village’, and apparently this is the label the people of Schenectady prefer to preserve.

(67) Place Name Ethnonym Schenectady, NY Dorpian , Gas Cedar Rapids (Iowa) > ‘See Der Rabbits’ > Bunny

I confess that i have been unable to find out why the people of Accra, the capital of Ghana, choose to refer to themselves as ‘Gas’.

Finally, purely for its humorous value i include the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and its rather jocular popular ethnonym (used alongside the more conventional, though rather polysyllabic

24 ‘Cedar Rapidian’) ‘Bunny’. In a sense, this one is actually derived from the name of the place — by a rather long, humorous stretch.

References

Bauer, Laurie. 1983. English Word-Formation. Cambridge University Press.

Dickson, Paul. 1997. Labels for Locals: What to Call People from Abilene to . Merriam-Webster.

Marchand, Hans. 1969. The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-Formation: a Synchronic-Diachronic Approach. Beck; 2nd rev., enlarged ed.

Pullum, Geoffrey K. 1991. The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax: and Other Irrevent Essays on the Study of Language. University of Chicago Press.

Schäufele, Steven. 1999. ‘Double-Barreled Vocabulary: -Saxon and French Near- Synonyms in Modern English’ English Department Lecture, 14 April 1999, Soochow University.

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